Once more, New Jersey governor Chris Christie has proven that he is unfit to be nominated by the Republican party to run for President in 2016. Yes, it’s true — he has once again placed the good of his state over the good of his party.
It was bad enough when he actually said a nice thing about the President after Hurricane Sandy, acknowledging the help his state received from the feds. Just because it was true never stood in the way of the modern Republican party.
But now, with the death of Senator Lautenberg, Christie had the opportunity to appoint a new Senator who would serve until the next election. Clearly, he should have appointed a Republican to fill the seat left vacant by a Democrat, even though the will of the state was clearly to put a Democrat into that seat at the last election. No, Christie has decided to let the people decide who should fill the seat by holding a special election. Maybe they’ll choose a Republican, you never know.
The party is outraged that he would allow the will of the people to be more important than the good of the party. So, by doing the right thing, he has pretty much destroyed any chance he had of getting the nomination of his party in 2016.
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I don’t particularly like Chris Christie. NJ is still in the pits of unemployment, he’s still NOT put back all the pension money his predecessors stole from the public employees, and my taxes have gone anywhere but down.
The one thing I’ll say for him is…he ain’t stupid. He knows any attempt to appoint a party darling will be met with ferocity by the Dems, saying he’s jamming his choice down NJ’s throat. It will look bad on him in an election year, after he’s gotten so much good press prostituting the Jersey shore to make him look good. No, he ain’t stupid.
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He has policies I disagree with, and I can’t imagine I’d ever vote for him, but I always admire an honest politician who says what he thinks and leads instead of follows.
You’re right; he’s smart. If he had appointed a Republican to a seat that had been held by a Democrat, there would have been outrage all over the state, which probably would have ultimately led to the Republican losing the seat in the next election.
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I wish he had held the election in November, not October, but the Republicans *ought* to be pleased with it. It should have the effect of depressing the turn out for both the special and general state elections in 2013, which is the only real way the Republicans can gain ground.
The 2013 vs. 2014 call will bring in a lot of out-of-state money for New Jersey, by having two Senatorial elections rather than just one. Millions will be raised and spent for each of them.
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How about this angle:
Governer Christie WILL be elected President in 2016, and it’s the highly-opinionated, very vocal, generally more left-wing liberals that will get him there.
Consider: According to this article which posted today at Philly.com, (http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/christie_chronicles/Why-a-special-election-is-great-for-Christie.html), Governor Christie benefits politically by holding the special election in October, rather than during the regular election three weeks later. His reasons are honest, but they are carefully thought out from multiple angles. And the Democrats are complaining that Christie is wasting $24 million dollars by holding that special election. Of course, the Democrats would be whining no what Governor Christie decided to do. This way serves the governor politically as well as the people of NJ. (And not all that $24 million is “wasted”. A good bit of it goes to paying people, even if only temporary employment.)
And the pushy, loud, liberals? Their constant attacking of extremist right wingers is having an effect (a large one, I hope) on the more moderate conservatives. So long as they continue their character assassinations on the nut jobs, Governor Christie looks more and more viable. They’ll attack Christie, of course, and as a consequence rile up some of the moderate liberals who will end up voting for Christie because they believe in him and because the Democratic candidate will be further left than normal.
Wait… what’s that? Well, President Obama won the Presidency and his re-election partly on what he was (or seemed to be; opinions vary) – a somewhat moderate liberal at least willing to work with the Republicans – and partly because he wasn’t a stonewalling, hard line Republican. But now, as always in politics, things are shifting. Obama through necessity has begun forcing his agenda, dropping the charade of working with Republicans because, quite frankly, the Republicans haven’t changed in their obstinate, foolish ways. But the next Democratic candidate will be forced to be more liberal, to prove he’s stronger than Obama, that he/she will get things done. This will alienate some of the moderate liberals. The more extreme the candidate, the more who will be alienated.
In steps Christie, a Republican who not only says he’s going to work with Democrats, but has a proven track record of doing do. He appeals to the moderate right and the moderate left. The radical left will of course not vote for him, but the radical right will, choosing Christie as the lesser of two evils.
And Christie is President in 2016.
(PS: How do you embed links into phrases in WordPress if you’re not the owner? Or can you? That link I posted is pretty long and I was hoping to embed into the words, “this article”.
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The problem is that the radical right controls the Republican party, so the point of my original post is that he cannot get the nomination. If the GOP suddenly wised up and kicked out the more extreme members, and the Democrats nominate someone weak, then yeah, this could happen in the general election. But right now, the GOP will never nominate him.
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