Well, this year, Corazine has actually forced our town to become Libertarian by withdrawing all state money. We're still forced to do what the state mandates, but with absolutely no state funding, which means our councilmen will be civilly disobedient.

I suggested franchising the name of our town to the highest bidder, and the council loves the idea. We are a small town forced to pay into a large school district, but little by little I see us extracting ourselves from the formula of the rest of the county, not only because we are a poor town, and a racially diverse town in a see of white middle class towns, but because almost our entire town is made out of self-employed people.

I suggested taking over the Democratic party here, because the party has no leadership in the county. Ocean county, with the exception of its extreme north, and anomolies like Lakewood, which, by the way, may be the least governed town in the state (or rather, the most privately governed, has more NRA members than Democrats. There is no political correctness. In fact, one of the exercises they do on the school baseball team is called "slap the midget". In any case, the only Democratic leadership here comes from out of state, and only shows up for state and national elections. The Republicans here , for the most part, are Christie- Whitman type "moderates", not a small government person among them. Our taxpayers recently shelled out 250,000 to build an indoor winter facility for little league in Toms River, and over 2 million to astroturf the fields of the three high schools in the district.

In the meantime, I'm Libertarian to the core. I homeschool my kids, and run a program called "Youth For Profit", that takes at-risk kids, and teaches them to sell ads at a higher rate than they would if they were to sell drugs. Even though my group is non-profit, the kids involved make a profit, and this program is self-supporting. I have instituted a program called "Government for profit", which by the summer will have a business plan to show our town how we can utilize our resources to fund basic services without resorting to taxes. I am also an environmentalist, and believe that we must turn the engine of the economy to favor the preservation of wilderness, by finding ways to make wilderness profitable. I don't believe you can truly foster a spirit of independence and liberty raising kids in a mini-mansion and worrying about the length of your neighbor's grass. Kids need open space to hide and play and misbehave. Then, there's zoning. One big thing local libertarian councilmen can do is destroy zoning laws, "lawn nazism".

Anyway, I'm rambling...

All good points, Jay. I too, am from Gloucester County and the Democrat machine down here is in full swing. Senator Sweeney runs the show (along with with a guy named Norcross) The town of Westville elected three independents that were against using eminent domain. After being elected two become pro eminent domain Democrats, one actually stuck to his guns and was either driven out or quit. Ballot acces in this area is not impossible for a Lbiertarian (I did it in '05) but at this point, getting elected probably is. We would need to come up with a serious fundraising and volunteer campaign to come up with anything. Last I checked, the Democratic Assemblypersons had $350,000 sitting around waiting to crush the next challenger. The County parties of the area could have ten times that to throw around. I think I spent $500 on my Assembly campaign and recieved no money from the NJLP to get around 2% of the vote. The Green Party has polled as high as 12% in this area. A 3rd Party does have a chance, we just have to get organized, serious, and recruit ALOT more people to help out.