Texas Rep. and former presidential candidate Ron Paul has endorsed Steve Lonegan for governor.  

“I was very impressed by Steve Lonegan’s record of budget restraint as Mayor of Bogota, NJ. Steve has been a vocal critic of runaway spending and taxpayer funded bailouts, and he understands that we must reject the nanny state and return government to its proper, restrained role,” wrote Paul in an email to New Jersey supporters.  “Sending Steve Lonegan to Trenton would be a tremendous victory for the people of New Jersey.”

The endorsement comes just a few days after Murray Sabrin, an ally of Paul’s who chaired his presidential campaign in New Jersey, endorsed Lonegan rival Chris Christie.  Sabrin, a former Libertarian candidate for Governor, won 14% in his bid for the GOP U.S. Senate nod last year.

The Christie campaign has been trotting out conservative voices recently to establish the frontrunner’s conservative credentials.  Upon posting the news of the Paul endorsement, conservative blogger and activist Michael Illions, a Lonegan supporter, shrugged off those endorsements.  

“Steve Forbes who? Bret Schundler who? Rudy Giuliani who?,” he wrote.  “Finally a real true fiscal Conservative from A to Z has endorsed the only real true fiscal Conservative in the race for the GOP nomination for Governor.”

Paul got a little over four percent of the vote in New Jersey’s Republican presidential primary last year.  He endorsed Sabrin in the 2008 U.S. Senate pruimary.