Main Street, New Jersey

This is the opening page of MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis.
Perhaps, tell me of what it reminds you:

This is America—a town of a few thousand, in a region of wheat and corn and dairies and little groves.

The town is, in our tale, called "Gopher Prairie, Minnesota." But its Main Street is the continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois, and not very differently would it be told Up York State or in the Carolina hills.

Main Street is the climax of civilization. That this Ford car might stand in front of the Bon Ton Store, Hannibal invaded Rome and Erasmus wrote in Oxford cloisters. What Ole Jenson the grocer says to Ezra Stowbody the banker is the new law for London, Prague, and the unprofitable isles of the sea; whatsoever Ezra does not know and sanction, that thing is heresy, worthless for knowing and wicked to consider.

Our railway station is the final aspiration of architecture. Sam Clark's annual hardware turnover is the envy of the four counties which constitute God's Country. In the sensitive art of the Rosebud Movie Palace there is a Message, and humor strictly moral.

Such is our comfortable tradition and sure faith. Would he not betray himself an alien cynic who should otherwise portray Main Street, or distress the citizens by speculating whether there may not be other faiths?

"First things first, but not necessarily in that order." Doctor Who

I love walking around on Main Street in Flemington. You run into the most knowledgeable Republican people there:

“Leonard doesn't speak up enough for the Republican Party”, said a local Republican in Hunterdon County of Minority Leader Leonard Lance, ---a local Republican who shall remain nameless. “That’s why he will be challenged for his leadership position in the Senate by Tom Kean, Jr.”

Let’s just say that my Republican source was a former leader of the Hunterdon Republican County Committee, who knows how to come clean when it comes to washing dirty laundry of politics.

So, Jr., fresh off his defeat last year in the US Senate race, and facing a very active opponent in Gina Genovese, former Mayor of Long Hill Township in Morris County is already planning to challenge Senator Leonard Lance to be the Minority Leader in the Senate. My advice to Mr. Kean: Put first things first.

Now, I do admit that the 21st Legislative District, which covers parts of Union, Morris, Somerset and Essex Counties, is a fairly Republican district by and by. And Jr. does have the edge there. But, Gina is no slouch, either.

She is a Democrat, elected in a predominately Republican town. She was one of the first [if not the first] openly gay Mayors in New Jersey. She is very progressive, in a part of New Jersey that is rapidly becoming more and more progressive itself.

She has run a tennis instruction camp for more than a quarter of a century in Morris County, and has lots of name recognition. And she will have much support from the Morris County Democrats [fresh off their great win in the Morris Township special election], the gay and lesbian community in NJ, and volunteers from New Jersey for Democracy. And of course, the New Jersey State Democratic Committee is likely to make her race a priority ---- seeing that her opponent is Kean, Jr.
So, Tom, before you plan to take on Senator Lance, you’ve got to get by Gina first. And, that, ain't gonna be easy.