7 or 11 ?

So the days are really flying by ! Definitely time to start getting things moving for the upcoming campaign. Overdue really, life certainly has a way of filling up your time. (:^) 

For those who may not know, New Jersey underwent a redistricting for the 2012 elections. Because of the state's anemic population growth, its number of districts was decreased from 13 to 12, forcing a complete reshuffle of the districts and their borders.

As a result of this redistricting Mt. Olive, my hometown, is no longer a part of the 11th district. It is now a part of district 7, currently represented by Repubican Leonard Lance.

There is no requirement, however,  that a candidate live in the district that he run in, so the first decision that needed to be made was whether to run against Leonard Lance in the 7th, or Rodney Frelinghuysen in the 11th.

For me it was an easy decision to make, for while the 7th is my new hometown district, the remainder of the district is an area of the state I am mostly unfamiliar with.

In addition, I feel that there will be a lot more overlap with voters who voted for me in 2010 in the 11th district than there will be in the 7th.

Lastly, I am far more familiar with my opponent in the 11th than I would be if I ran in the 7th.

So the 11th it is.

I'm going to be filing my paperwork with the FEC shortly, and will be more active in updating this site and my FB page going forward.

If anyone is interested in helping out the campaign, shoot me an email at jim@jimgawron.com 

Happy Easter everyone.

-Jim

2012 Starts Today

I want to thank everyone who voted for me ! All 4163 of you ! More than any other third party candidate in the State ! All of this while new to politics, very little money, no staff, no stickers, no signs and no door knocking. I think it's a pretty good start !

Now that it looks like the next 2 years will be a Republican House, a Democratic Senate, with a Democratic president, we're in for two years of gridlock. This is better than the "progress" of the last two years, but it is insufficient to get anything repealed, and I don't think it will be sufficient to accomplish anything positive in the legislature.

At the same time our economic situation is sure to continue to deteriorate. Our national debt, our trade deficit, as well as the debt load of the average American is still FAR too high. Our tax burden is still far too high. Our regulatory burdens are still far too high. Labor costs are still far too high. As a result jobs will continue to leave this country at an alarming rate. Housing prices will continue to fall as the popped housing bubble continues to leak air. Meanwhile inflation is going to finally begin to spiral out of control. ( for more on inflation, which while reported around 2% is really closer to 6%, see my discussion posts about the inflation rate, or check shadowstats.com) 

What we will be left with is a situation in 2012 where the debt is higher, unemployment is higher, inflation is higher, and more than likely nothing will be done in a gridlocked and otherwise clueless DC to address these problems.

This is a best case scenario, as it assumes that foreign countries will continue to finance our debt, that currency wars, trade wars and other protectionist measures do not rear their ugly head, and that military tensions around the globe do not escalate further. It also puts us 2 years closer to insolvency for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and when inflation goes up, so will interest rates, which will make servicing our national debt a crushing burden.

I think it is safe to say that the next 2 years will not be pretty.

All of this will contribute to make the political climate in 2012 even more volatile, and even more susceptible to change. The ability for third parties, and Libertarians specifically, to make legitimate shots at the House and Senate will be closer to reality.

I hope you can help me make that reality come to pass. Anyone willing to help out with my campaign for 2012 please contact me. I would like to have a campaign coordinator for every municipality and university in the district. I want to spend 2011 building networks and relationships, speaking to as many groups as possible, so we can really hit the ground running in 2012 and put a third party candidate, with no ties to the Democrats or the Republicans, into DC.....when we will need an independent voice more than ever.

-Jim