It's Official: New Jersey Gets A Fighting Progressive Challenging Leonard Lance

Tuesday Ed Potosnak made it official-- he's running for the central New Jersey seat currently held by healthcare hypocrite Leonard Lance. Following his vote to repeal healthcare Lance mislead voters into believing he did not take government healthcare when in fact he is taking a totally free plan that costs New Jersey taxpayers $23,000, a year. Then he moved on to vote for Paul Ryan's bill to gut Medicare. So Blue America was delighted to see Ed Potosnak, who we endorsed last year, jump into the race earlier than most candidates around the country are willing to commit.

Ed's a newcomer to NJ’s political arena and he mounted a highly energetic, hard fought, issue-oriented grassroots campaign against the 20-year career politician last time around. Ed’s activist-driven campaign astonished political insiders when he earned the support of 71,902 voters, in a horrible year for Democrats. He received nearly the same percentage of the vote as the 2008 candidate who spent more than five times the money against Lance and was heavily backed by the DCCC. Ed pushed back against the Red Tide mightily to match the Democratic performance in 2008. Ed spent less than 10% of what Democrats dumped into the race during the last cycle with approximately the same results. What could his campaign have accomplished with 20% of '08? Simple: a victory. His campaign was a winning campaign-- well run, consistently on message, grassroots, and energized. As a candidate, Ed was articulate [take a look at the debate video above], knowledgeable, engaging, and hard working. Even more important for Blue America, he was on the right side of the issues that matter most: jobs and the economy, healthcare, education, financial reform, improving America's competitiveness, human rights.

“There are important things that need to be done in Washington and partisan politics are preventing progress. We need to work together to get the job done.

“As a small business owner, teacher and scientist, I have experienced firsthand the struggles New Jersey families are having in this economy-- high unemployment, anxiety over whether you will have a job tomorrow, how you will pay for healthcare for your family-- and concerns about our country’s struggles to compete in the global economy.

"Creating good jobs to secure America’s future, stimulating research and development, improving education so that future generations can innovate and lead, and protecting the American Dream are among my top priorities. Congressman Lance has changed since going to Washington, and his ever-changing policy positions are damaging America’s future.

“Congressman Lance is voting the party line and America’s middle class is paying the price. Mr. Lance wants to take away Medicare from our seniors struggling on fixed incomes and to expand off shore drilling to build more rigs off the east coast like the Deep Water Horizon rig that caused an environmental catastrophe. Since Republicans took control of the House all they have been doing is protecting Wall Street, big oil and big business rather than helping the middle class-- Mr. Lance is not representing our families and businesses.”

If you'd like to help elect Ed to Congress and help him replace Leonard Lance, you can do it here through ActBlue. Congress needs more dedicated school teachers and less dedicated corporate shills. Below is the radio ad Blue America ran in NJ-07 a couple months ago: