My post today at WHYY’s Newsworks looks at that oddball candidate for U.S. Senate, Steve Lonegan, and his new weapon against front-runner Cory Booker:

Steve Lonegan, N.J. Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, is suddenly preoccupied with school vouchers. On Saturday in Camden he attacked his likely Democratic opponent, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, for failing “the children, the parents, and the taxpayers of Newark in never providing school choice and never solving the deep problems confronting Newark.”

And Lonegan’s website sharpens the needle: “It is time for Cory Booker to man up and say once and for all whether he will support school vouchers if he is elected to the U.S. Senate or will he join President Obama in shutting down school voucher programs…Cory had seven years to give low-income students in Newark a chance at receiving a quality education. Instead, he has offered platitudes and vague statements.”

How did New Jersey’s election for the late Frank Lautenberg’s seat morph into a referendum on the use of corporate tax credits to fund vouchers to private and parochial schools?

Read the rest here.