Mayor Steve Lonegan

-- "Wilson and DeCroce Must Step Down in wake of 2005 debacle."
LONEGAN: NJGOP NEEDS TO REBUILD WITH NEW, CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP.

Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan said today that the massive ten-point Corzine landslide victory over Doug Forrester coupled with a minimum one seat Assembly loss was a message that the state Republican Party needs to rebuild with new, conservative leadership and said the first step were resignations from State GOP Chair Tom Wilson and Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce.-- "Wilson and DeCroce Must Step Down in wake of 2005 debacle.�
LONEGAN: NJGOP NEEDS TO REBUILD WITH NEW, CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP.

Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan said today that the massive ten-point Corzine landslide victory over Doug Forrester coupled with a minimum one seat Assembly loss was a message that the state Republican Party needs to rebuild with new, conservative leadership and said the first step were resignations from State GOP Chair Tom Wilson and Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce.

"The Republican Party faced a humiliating defeat in last night’s elections because the party leadership went out of its way to tell conservatives to ‘shut up and sit in the back of the bus’,� Lonegan said. “Tom Wilson and Alex DeCroce wrote the strategy for this election debacle and now it’s clear that it’s time to turn the reins over to a new generation of leaders. Those who said conservatives had no place to go were proven wrong and that is why Forrester lost and lost badly. Those who led our party with that philosophy must step down before there is nothing left of the GOP.�

“Before last night, Republicans lost seats in six successive Assembly elections -- from 58 to 33 seats -- because Republicans did not deliver on the promises they made when they took control after Florio raised taxes in 1990,� the conservative Mayor said. “Last night was the seventh successive loss as GOP strength has dropped to just 32 – the lowest since the Watergate era and the 1977 election when another liberal Republican gubernatorial candidate lost to Brendan Byrne.�

Lonegan’s Bogota Republican Team retained council control for the ELEVENTH straight election in spite of Corzine’s 350 vote, or 16 point lead, over Forrester in Bogota. “Our conservative philosophy of fighting for taxpayers and standing up for our neighborhoods kept GOP council control for eleven straight elections in a town that Bret Schundler, Doug Forrester and George Bush have lost every time they were on the ballot there.

Forrester received only 40 percent of the vote in Bogota, the same percentage Bret Schundler received in 2001. Forrester won just 42 percent in Bergen County – one point below his statewide average of 43 percent.

“Seven straight losing Assembly elections versus eleven straight elections of Republican control in Bogota is the difference between the failed liberal approach we saw in this and the last Forrester campaign and the conservative approach our Republican team in Bogota has provided. The so-called ‘moderates’ in our party had their chance and failed. Now it’s time to do things the ‘right’ way and start winning once more.�

“When Republicans in our state become the conservative party we will be the majority once again,� Lonegan said. “Doug Forrester won the Republican Primary as a conservative businessman and morphed after the primary into a ‘moderate’ who seemed to care only about a Politically Correct liberal pro-abortion and pro-gun control agenda which is exactly why he lost. Unlike Messer’s Wilson and DeCroce, I don’t believe that New Jersey is a hopelessly liberal state and I don’t believe the people in our state support the radical Left-Wing agenda Jon Corzine promoted in his campaign,� said the three-term Mayor. “They couldn’t challenge him before the election and they won’t challenge him after the election. They simply don’t have what it takes to lead in the Corzine era. It’s time for a change.�

“This election was not a mandate for Jon Corzine’s Sixties Hippie Agenda,� added Lonegan. “It was a rejection of Doug Forrester’s campaign which refused to challenge it and the mentality that sees conservatives as greater threats than Democrats. Tom Wilson and Alex DeCroce were among the architects of that strategy. Yesterday’s election returns should be a clear message to them that it is time to move on and let a new generation of leadership take over the Republican Party.�

“Those who said that conservatives had no place else to go and ran a campaign with exactly that message were repudiated last night,� added the Mayor. “Polling data shows that a quarter of self-described conservatives actually voted for Corzine and that many others stayed home. If those voters, and others who didn’t vote at all, had pulled the lever for Doug Forrester, he would be the Governor-elect today.�

Lonegan said that he will be organizing a citizens taxpayer lobby to stop key elements of the Corzine liberal agenda including the Governor-elect’s proposal to have taxpayers build 100,000 Low Income public housing units with some in every town in New Jersey, new government regulations on small business and homeowners, taxpayer funded Embryonic Stem Cell research and the Tax Increase Convention that will propose hikes in sales, income, gasoline, corporate, real estate and other taxes to fund expanded programs and government benefits.

The Mayor, founder of www.stopthedebt.com that challenged illegal borrowing by the state, said he will also be fighting any increase in state debt whether or not this debt is placed on the ballot. “New Jersey is bankrupt and we cannot afford any more debt, period.�

“Before the primary, I warned that if Republicans nominated Doug Forrester that he would lose badly and cost Republicans Assembly seats and downballot offices. Unfortunately my prediction proved to be true. But now Republicans have an excellent opportunity to rebuild by once again standing up for homeowners and taxpayers and against the radical income redistribution schemes and leftist cultural agenda that Governor-Elect Corzine campaigned on,� he added. “The architects of the last campaign cannot be in charge of running the next one. It’s time for a conservative change in the Republican Party. It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of leadership. It’s time to start winning again.�

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