Sarah Palin's GOP pal, Steve Lonegan, who gay-baited opponent Cory Booker, loses NJ senate race

Lonegan, Palin at New Egypt Speedway rally.
Photo via New Jersey Watchdog

Lonegan, ran for the Senate from New Jersey in a special election to replace Sen. Frank Lauten­burg, who died last June. Lonegan, who is legally blind, quit his post as New Jersey director of the Koch Bros.-funded astroturf group Americans for Prosperity to run.
     While mayor of Bogota, N.J. (pop. 8261), Lonegan got national attention when he tried to get English made the town's official language. He also baited Cory Booker, directly and indirectly, during the campaign:

”I don’t like going out in the middle of the night, or any time of the day, for a manicure and pedicure. It was described as his peculiar fetish . . .I have a more peculiar fetish. I like a good Scotch and a cigar. That’s my fetish but we’ll just compare the two.”

     Booker, 44, is the son of IBM's first two black executives and the former mayor of New Jersey's largest city, Newark. He will have to stand for reelection next November to keep his seat after yesterday's special election.

Lonegan, with wife, during concession speech

     Last Saturday, at a Tea Party rally, Sarah Palin campaigned for Lonegan in front of about two thousand people at Jersey's New Egypt Speedway, saying, “We need a leader not a tweeter! That was poem-worthy!"
     Shortly thereafter, a photo emerged of the words "Leader not Tweeter," written on one of Palin's hands.
     Palin, cynically twisting the opening words of a Buffalo Springfield song, said: "Something big is happening here. And it’s exactly clear — it’s called momentum."
     Lonegan lost by 11 points.