WHY BOOKER WINNING BIG IS THE ONLY HOPE FOR REPUBLICANS

In politics momentum can be everything.  Looking at New Jersey’s current special election for US senator it has become very clear that the Tea Party endorsed Republican, Steve Lonegan,  has been gaining momentum on Democratic favorite, Newark Mayor Cory Booker.  Whether that momentum results in an upset or if it was too little, too late in a race designed to be too short will all sorted out by 8 PM tonight.

At a moment when our federal government is at its height of dysfunctional absurdity, a Lonegan win or even a Lonegan close call in this consistently blue Garden State would send electoral shockwaves across the nation.  It would embolden conservative advocates in every corner of America and induce mass pants-wetting by moderate, establishment republicans still shell shocked from Romney’s presidential debacle.  It would open up the primary challenger floodgates for  the 2014 mid-term elections creating expensive intra-party fighting on the right while absolving the left of any responsibility of running for anything specific other than running against purported extremists.   

In the immediate aftermath, a Lonegan win, or let’s call it a Booker poor showing, could make the already uphill battle for New Jersey republicans to regain control of one or both of the legislative houses that much more impossible.   Despite the grossly uneven match up between current Governor Christie verses perennial unfavorable Barbara Buono, conventional wisdom has Democrats holding their majority in the Legislature.  Wisdom aside, there is real concern among the Majority though that a Christie win of 20 or more points would inevitably sweep in unexpected republican victories down ticket presenting a scenario that republicans, suffering under an unfairly slanted legislative map, have been dreaming of for over a decade now.

But momentum being what it is, if it favors Lonegan and results in the very least Booker not winning by double digit numbers, you can expect to find it will almost immediately change course and gather very rapidly in the form of newly energized and repurposed democratic ground operations leading up to the real election day in November.  A Lonegan victory would still mean a Christie victory as the two are fairly mutually exclusive, again by design.  However, having been sufficiently embarrassed by a Lonegan win or Booker poor showing, New Jersey’s democrat machines statewide would undoubtedly kick into high gear to protect their advantage.  The effect of which would drive Christie’s victory spread downward to the mid-teens and squashing any tiny inkling of republican upsets at the legislative level this year or any subsequent election cycle through 2021. 

As painful as it is for many of us on the right to suggest, Booker needs to win big tonight or Republicans could be looking at a generation of minority irrelevance.