Pre Election Sunday Rallies

On the last Sunday before the elections, I attended two very different rallies, but both had the some goal: getting people to vote for Christie, and get rid of Corzine! There've been many differences between the moderate and the more conservative Republicans, and I know there are a lot of Republicans who don't like Christie, but for now he is the best (and only) choice in this election. I understand some friends took a vow not to vote for him, and kept saying they'll write in some other name, or vote for a 3rd party candidate, but that is equivalent to voting for Corzine, and I never understood how any of them could think that four more years of Corzine would be somehow better than electing Christie.

My first event today was the Morristown Tea Party, in front of Washington's Headquarters. The Morristown group is famous as being one of the first ones in NJ, and attracting the biggest crowds at each of their rallies. I met Jeff Weingarten, the Morristown leader, and we both agreed that the tea party groups should come together, go to the events together, and clear their differences. Now I know there are quite a few other tea party leaders who don't like Jeff, and I think this is really dumb. I can understand where the conflict between conservative Republicans and moderate Republicans comes from, but the conflict between conservatives who like Jeff and conservatives who don't like Jeff is beyond me. The thing is, tea partiers don't really care about that, they're just looking for a forum to express their beliefs, and this bickering just puts some leaders in a bad light.



The event was nicely organized, a crowd of maybe a couple hundred people, and there was a band to entertain the people during the breaks. The first speaker was Steve Lonegan, who came out strongly for Christie in recent days. I think this is a big victory for Christie's campaign, to get Lonegan on his side, as this could finally determine the conservative "rebels" to not waste their vote on a meaningless candidate. And we saw the first results. I met there Mike Proto, very conservative blogger, who despite all his claims over the past few months, said he'll vote for Christie (although he formulated it very differently). I also met Alice (the one with the Restaurant) who's also determined to vote for Christie. At the end of his speech, Steve Lonegan thanked his primary voters, and urged all of them "not to write in his name, but vote for Christie to make sure Corzine doesn't get four more years".




The highlight of the Morristown Tea Party was the appearance by Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina, the one who famously told Obama "You Lie!" when the president tried to mislead the nationwide audience. To make that clear, Joe Wilson called Obama on his claim that the healthcare bill doesn't cover illegal immigrants. People at home could've believed that, but Joe knew it very well, because Republicans in the house had tried 3 times to introduce an amendment to deny coverage to illegals, and 3 times had the Democrats voted it down. So it was not a mistake, or a provision that could be interpreted, Obama's people have intentionally refused to keep illegals of taxpayer-funded insurance. And Democrats reacted quickly, the day after Joe Wilson called that like they discreetly voted the amendment into the law.



Joe Wilson was a very friendly guy, he was funny and witty, but he was dead serious in his speech when he said that we have to vote for Christie, not only because we couldn't stand four more years of Corzine, but a victory here and in Virginia would send a clear message to Nancy Pelosi that Americans are waking up, and the Democrats' rule in Congress is coming to an end. Wilson started by making a few ties to New Jersey (best line was that he likes our shore... although it's not really Hilton Head), praised Reagan on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then hammered the healthcare bill that the House will be voting on. As he said, it's a 2,000 pages bill, and 2,000 pages can't be a bill on healthcare, but a bill on taking over America and taking control of our lives. It's about replacing the doctor-pacient relationship with a doctor-53 government agencies-pacient relationship. It was very nice of Congressman Wilson to come to NJ and help our cause in the upcoming election.




It was a very good event in Morristown and it's the first time that I see Chris Christie supporters and tea partiers really mingling together and rallying for the same cause. From Morristown I drove back to Middletown where the Bachstad Tavern hosted a stop on Chris Christie's bus tour. And of course I found my local fellow tea partiers there, who stopped their weekly protest short and came in full force to support our candidate. The Tavern was packed, there were hundreds of people, all the local officials: assemblymen, senators, mayors, committeemen, GOP officials, Middletown republicans, and many more. Our freeholder candidate, John Curley, gave a passionate speech, as did Senator Kyrillos, Chairman Oxley, NJ GOP Chairman Jay Webber, Lt Governor candidate Kim Guadagno and, of course, Chris Christie. Chris mentioned everything that's wrong about Corzine, told us how the DNC is paying robocalls in favor of Daggett, and reached out to Lonegan supporters, thanking him for helping with his campaign. The crowd was very energetic, and I left with a very good vibe that NJ Republicans might finally win a statewide election for the first time in 12 years.



Only less than two days are left and now it's more important than ever to get everybody out to vote, and to vote for the only candidate that can assure the democrats' defeat: CHRIS CHRISTIE!