Tom Mastrangelo is claiming the high ground and he’s channeling Ronald Reagan to get there. Can a Republican do better than that?

Mastrangelo, no stranger to rough and tumble election scuffles, is trying something different this time around.

Now a candidate in a four-way, Assembly battle in LD-26, Mastrangelo just issued a statement pledging loyalty to Reagan’s oft-quoted, but not always followed, 11th Commandment – “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

Mastrangelo goes on to say that as the campaign inches along to June 8, he will not engage in the type of “gutter politics” he is seeing from some of the other candidates.

Instead, he says he will run on his record of service to Morris County. A county commissioner, Mastrangelo talks about keeping taxes low, cutting debt and making government efficient.

Calling personal attacks “unfortunate,” Mastrangelo says this is the time for Republicans to stand together and change the politics and culture coming from Trenton.

He’s right about one thing. The race has gotten nasty.

The other candidates are incumbent Jay Webber and Christian Barranco, who are running as a team, and incumbent BettyLou DeCroce.

Webber used to hold an annual event celebrating Reagan’s legacy, but the 11th Commandment doesn’t seem to be part of his campaign.

Just a few days ago, the Webber-Barranco team accused DeCroce of being some sort of militant for backing a bill to create a Black Lives Matter day in New Jersey. In turn, Barranco has been called a tax raiser and a phony conservative.

Mastrangelo himself has been portrayed in mailings as a hypocrite and untrustworthy.

So it will be interesting to see if Mastrangelo’s vow to withhold negative campaigning remains over the next  two and a half weeks.

Not that his statement was totally vanilla.

He speculates that his opponents may be throwing mud because they are “embarrassed”: by their records.