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Here is Charlie Stile’s article:
Conservative surge
Christie’s election represents the high water mark of an informal group of conservative activists who began meeting regularly at the Empire Diner in Parsippany eight years ago.
The Tuesday Group began its lunch sessions in 2002, which could be considered the nadir of the conservative movement in New Jersey. But several activists became inspired and puzzled that year by staunch conservative E. Scott Garrett’s election to Congress despite the state’s Democratic tilt. They began holding occasionally contentious discussions about how to replicate the Garrett model elsewhere in blue Jersey.
Two Tuesday Group alums, former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler and Sussex County freeholder Harold “Hal” Wirths, are joining Christie’s cabinet, Schundler as education commissioner and Wirths as labor commissioner. And the meetings’ once-sparse attendance has been replaced by standing-room-only crowds.
“We’re ecstatic,” said Alan Ashkinaze, a Hackensack lawyer and one of the group’s founders.
