What if..

...we had a Governor who favored constitutional amendments to turn over the Abbot and Mt. Laurel decisions. Constitutional amendments are passed by referendum. Imagine letting the people decide!

What if we had a Governor who was reducing the size of state government by 20%. You think that's radical? The size of state government has doubled in size in the last decade. That's radical!

What if Republicans had a candidate for Governor who was proposing real change and who had a record to back up his promises.

We do. Steve Lonegan proposed all of those things at his campaign kickoff yesterday. His record backs up that he means it and will do it if elected.

Conventional wisdom is that Steve Lonegan is too conservative and too radical to win a statewide election in New Jersey. Maybe he is. However, he is addressing what isn't working about New Jersey.

We don't know who the other Republican candidates for Governor will be or what they will propose. However, if they propose the same old "we'll do better with this broken system" that Republican standard bearers have in the past they probably won't win either. It won't make much of a difference if they do.

New Jersey Republicans should take Steve Lonegan and his message seriously, whether we nominate him or not.