It would be a mistake to let this season pass without taking a moment to reflect on Jon Bramnick, the candidate for governor, the senator, the man, and a New Jersey neighbor whose good nature, humor, and professionalism make it easy for him to find friends.

Fundamentally, every New Jerseyan, regardless of party, should be proud of Bramnick.

Our country is under siege by a President and his followers who are conditioned by propaganda and hate. Our troubles run even deeper, of course, and go beyond merely a man and his cronies, but Trump is symptomatic. He has found a way to play on people's fears and prejudices, or his own troubles projected, in any event, certainly the opposite of what Lincoln termed our better angels. To the extent that he persistently cultivates a pre-Civil War mentality in our land, Trump represents the gravest and most insidious and persistent immediate threat.

Going around to various political rallies down the stretch of this cycle I heard Mikie Sherrill and Ras Baraka respectively talk about Republicans who fear criticizing Trump, and Democrats who abused power of a kind that sped Trump's rise to power.

I am grateful to have known for 25 years, someone in our public life who fits neither of these feeble designations.

That person is Jon Bramnick.

For the entirety of time that I have known him, Bramnick has demonstrated a public character and consistency, which run counter to everything Trump stands for with his MAGA crowd.

Bramnick stands for character, in fact.

Sadly, that puts him in a difficult position in this Republican Primary, which largely hinges on the other candidates' attempts to placate Trump.

The precise emphasis of the GOP gubernatorial candidate's ideas, priorities and messaging distinguish him critically among those running.

Bramnick is running a law-and-order campaign, but law-and-order to him does not consist of exhorting police to slap people around whom they have arrested, as Trump once did at a campaign event. Bramnick is talking as much about due process as giving law enforcement the tools they need to succeed on the streets. It also makes him pointedly critical of the President’s pardon of violent Jan. 6 rioters. “Let me make this clear: Either we’re the party of law and order or we’re not,” Bramnick said at a GOP debate in February. “You can clap, you can boo if you want, but I will stand with police officers every time.”

Bramnick too is running a campaign for good and efficient government, without advocating the DOGE style tactics of Elon Musk, who has supposedly already run afoul of Donald Trump. Who really knows what's true with those guys? The only reason we have to care is because is it might be you or me next who finds himself in cuffs on the whim of someone trying to massage Trump's massive, delicate ego.

Running substantively for governor, as a veteran lawmaker and caucus leader with well-tended relationships throughout our state in both parties, Bramnick wants to cut income taxes by simplifying brackets and adjusting for inflation. Under his plan, a joint filer making $110,000 would see an annual savings of $1,600 and a single filer would see $1,000 in savings. He also would implement property tax relief that will fully fund our schools, requiring any excess state funding to be returned to property taxpayers. Property taxes for the average resident would fall by $800 immediately. This is a plan he has advanced without hatefully trying to divide a state that is in fact already too sorrowfully segregated going back to our origins.

"There are two ways to win over the Republican base," Bramnick told InsiderNJ in April. "One is saying exactly what everyone wants to hear. The other is being yourself and showing them your conservative credentials, but not by mimicking what they want to hear. I know what the soundbites are. I watch the same channels they do. But what they need to know about me is I'm fiscally conservative and I'm watching their money. I'm respecting police officers and law and order and making sure people who commit crimes get punished. I'm not spending people's money unless it's absolutely necessary. I'm not over legislating. That's conservative. Democrats over legislate. They don't understand that you can't fix every problem by passing a law. Less government is the best government. We're not going to solve every problem. You don't want to make things worse by legislating. Schools that are successful, for example, leave them alone. That's the essence of what conservative ideals are about. Leave people alone in their lifestyle. Sometimes we want to over legislate people's lifestyle. It's a mistake."

That's leadership.

You may disagree with his prescriptions for how to fix our troubled state.

But Bramnick will never demagogue an issue, tantalize himself or a crowd with an easy and careless answer, attempt a solution by scapegoating a population, by abusing the weak or the vulnerable, or shrink from criticizing the powerful, starting with Trump, whom he has vociferously and consistently opposed, more than any other New Jersey Republican.

He's funny, Bramnick. Everyone knows that.

But he will never go for a cheap and hurtful laugh at someone's expense.

At this time of such ignorance, ill-preparedness, tawdry iconography advanced at the expense of substance, and disrespect for the Constitution undertaken to mollify megalomania, Bramnick comes to the dance with integrity - a showman, too, in his own way, a lover of the human comedy, but finally deeply serious, a legal expert, Constitutionalist, a state representative intent on building consensus, and a successful businessman, who from the beginning as his party kowtowed to Trump, stood for reasonableness, and justice. Know, New Jersey, because it's important, that we have someone in our midst otherwise in desperately short supply, namely, a good man, and whoever you vote for in Tuesday's election, it counts to pay just a little attention.