More than 1,500 Tea Party enthusiasts gathered outside the New Egypt Speedway gate Saturday to rally for U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan, but mostly to see Sarah Palin, the darling of the right and former Republican vice presidential candidate.
Palin addressed the flag-waving crowd for about 15 minutes, urging supporters to vote for Lonegan in a special election Wednesday against Democrat Cory Booker, Newark's mayor. The race will fill a vacancy created by Sen. Frank Lautenberg's death in June.
Palin said that the government shutdown is "about breaking your spirit and making you feel helpless and hopeless" and that a Lonegan victory would restore hope and move the nation forward.
Her speech came one day after Lonegan fired his top strategist over remarks made about Booker's "odd" behavior in a Twitter exchange with a Portland, Ore., stripper. Aide Rick Shaftan had said Booker's messages were "like what a gay guy would say to a stripper." Lonegan said the comments were "distasteful."
The only reference to tweets on Saturday came from Palin, who said, "We need a leader, not a tweeter."
Before the rally, Booker spokesman Thomas Abdelnour said the public could "count on plenty of unhinged invective and angry hyperbole, but while the words they use today will be extreme, it's the policies they support that would do the real damage."
Lonegan, a former mayor of Bogota, said the special election is "a referendum on everything Barack Obama is doing to this country." He has said he wants the shutdown to continue because his victory would make the Democrats yield in the nearly two-week-old dispute.
The two-hour rally was staged in a rural part of Ocean County. Many supporters waved yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags.
The stage backdrop was the Tea Party Express touring bus, with a picture of the U.S. Constitution. Amy Kremer, the party chair, said a Lonegan win would be a "huge message" showing support for the shutdown.
Before Palin boarded, she posed for pictures and signed autographs. Her next stop, she said, was Washington.
"I love her," said Jim Shea, 53, a nuclear engineer from Shamong, Burlington County. "She speaks very plainly. . . . I'm here because I'm worried about my kids, about this country, and that socialism will destroy it."
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