Christie embraces the ogre

The rare glimmers of truth from Christie are over. He looked around at who was left among the Republicans. Let's speculate what his thoughts were...

• Cruz is a wacko conservative and a snake.
• Trump is a loudmouth New Yorker with no policy ideas.
• Rubio is maybe the best of who's left, but I insulted the guy a few weeks ago, so I can't go back on that.
• Um, um, um...
• Trump it is!!!!!

This endorsement is not very convincing to me. But I have to admit that I didn't watch the videos, so maybe Christie sold it to the feeble-minded. I hope Christie ends up writhing in embarrassment well before polling day in November for this little tawdry piece of sucking-up.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this sentiment (from a Politico article):

“I just don't think that [Trump's] suited to be president of the United States," he told Fox in August. "I don't think his temperament is suited for that and I don't think his experience is."

Plain words. Right you are. Christie.

 Not created for this endorsement. Remarkably relevant, though.

Image: memecenter.com

Extras. Also good stuff from Slate, ABC, and especially this from NBC. A co-chair of Christie's campaign (who has a very good outside job) isn't saying good things about Trump or Christie. And a picture too good not to share:

Image: memes.doublie.com

A Tale of Two ...

It's inconvenient for Chris Christie that some conservatives have been calling Obama a thug for the past five years. That puts the term 'thug' in the front of people's minds. So when a few of Christie's staff and appointees conspired to jam up a city in New Jersey, the public is thinking: New Jersey, mob, payback, retribution, thug.

Of course to some people, Obama is a major thug. I'm not sure what they base that on. To me, he's a professorial type, which doesn't share much in common with my image of 'thug.' I guess some people have quite a different impression of Obama from mine.

I don't have many preconceived images for Christie, but I still find it egregious that Christie's people did this, but I started to wonder why. Is this worse than what Obama has done? Is it worse than Benghazi, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, or the IRS treatment of Tea Party groups?

Yes, something does seem worse about it. Benghazi, Solyndra, and Fast and Furious were mistakes in decision-making, but the intentions weren't evil. The IRS, if it was targeting of opposition for the full stricture of regulations, has something in common with what Christie's people did. But to me, it still doesn't feel as bad.

Comment here

It was hard to put my finger on why I felt the Christie scandal was worse. But perhaps I understand now. There's something awful in punishing the people of an entire city where the overwhelming majority are clearly innocent bystanders. Did Christie's staffers really hate that many people? Or maybe they just didn't give a damn. When these staffers valued their vendetta more than they valued the well-being of their citizens, they were clearly unfit to serve in government. Maybe there's a goon squad they can join.

Comment here

Christie is a big target

One day after his reelection by a 60-38% margin, lots of conservatives are sniping at Christie. Christie isn't a doctrinaire conservative, much less a Tea Party patriot who lives and dies by principle. But the targeting is surprisingly aggressive.

Tea Party Critique

Here's a line that you can say about any politician (just substitute a name): "Christie is only out for Christie." Christie isn't a strict GOP partisan, so that makes him "self-serving." Do the people who criticize Christie for that also criticize Ted Cruz or Jim DeMint for behaving the same way--not supporting all their fellow Republicans? No, I don't think they are tarred the same way.

Yet I'm pretty sure this is the inside meme about Christie among the Tea Party. It leaked nationally when Rand Paul said Christie was all "gimme, gimme, gimme" over Sandy disaster aid. Now I'm seeing it again in the comments sections of conservative sites.

This idea that Christie is a self-promoting politician is a convenient ad hominem attack that allows people to dismiss him. There will always be plenty of evidence to support this charge. I don't know how whether the charge will resonate with others--Christie seemed to have put his state first when Sandy hit rather than toeing the party line. Ironically, the same incident is used as evidence that he puts himself first. Good luck finding the objective truth in that argument.

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio is reminding his party not to get too excited about Christie: "...some of these races don't apply to future races." So Rubio demonstrates again that's he's the biggest weasel lining up for the 2016 presidential primary. (Or is that just a different flavor of ad hominem attack that's hard to refute.)

GOP Establishment View

Establishment Republicans, often denoted as GOPe, aren't trumpeting Christie as much as the Tea Party is trying to tear him down. Michael Barone sees lessons for both the GOP and Dems in these elections. Provocation, especially on social issues, leads to losses. Dems can't count on the minority vote because Christie won 51% of Hispanics in New Jersey.

One of the HotAir writers wants the readers to see that Christie has a winning formula. However, the commenters mostly push back. Rich Lowry of National Review (quasi-establishment) sees some potential in Christie, but also some problems:

"...he offers a different kind of politics that can potentially unlock the presidency after a period of national futility for his party...
What Clinton had that Christie evidently lacks is a well-thought-out approach to his party’s predicament ...
Christie’s potential is in matching that Everyman appeal with substance. He could set out to make himself a Republican by and for the middle class in a substantive and stylistic departure for the contemporary party. -- Rich Lowry writing in Politico

Who Can Win vs. I Don't Care

The huge difference is how these groups see Christie is that one group (GOPe) sees Christie as a presidential contender who will bring in a lot a votes and won't be just a marginal winner. They are concerned with the mechanics of putting together enough votes to resist the Dems' demographic advantage.

The Tea Party group doesn't talk about demographics at all. They don't worry whether they can carry enough swing states. They are so sure a Tea Party candidate will win that they don't question it at all. To me, that's amazing--that you could be so sure that you wouldn't consider the electability of your nominee. Of course they've been burned on electability before. McCain was the most electable in 2008, though really he had only a ghost of a chance. Maybe they should have gone for the most conservative candidate that year, which was ... Romney. They definitely got burned in 2012. The Tea Party is pledging not to get burned in 2016. Well, we'll see. I'm not convinced that the Tea Party is the majority in the GOP, but perhaps we'll find out in 2016.

I know it's still too early to predict the 2016 primary race, but everyone is talking about it. Funny, the 2008 election didn't start in 2005, but the 2016 election started quite early in 2013. I chalk that up to the cold war in the GOP, which is getting hotter all the time.

Christie looks like the best hope for the GOPe even if a midwestern governor like Mitch Daniels or Scott Walker jumps into the race. Daniels looks like an older establishment Republican (yawn) and Walker is nerdly and possesses less charisma than Jindal. The establishment likes to coalesce around a candidate early, but that may not happen because Christie isn't exactly the GOP mainstream. Yes, it is too early to say.

Image: ronpaulforums.com

Leader of the opposition

Ed Morrissey of HotAir writes a couple of interesting columns on who will be the de facto leader of the Republicans. He correctly points out that Boehner and McConnell will be too busy and too tainted with deal-making, so he offers these names:

1. Rand Paul
2. Bobby Jindal
3. Rick Perry
4. Marco Rubio
5. Chris Christie

These are mostly good picks in that they're likely to be visible leaders, if not the leader. (It makes me wonder who was the leader from 2009 to 2011 when the primaries started. Critics say it was Rush Limbaugh, and maybe it was. Luckily not anymore.)

Rand Paul is certainly going to be the leader of the small-government libertarian pack. He has stayed almost constantly true to those principles. However, the libertarians aren't the dominant force in the GOP, so he couldn't be the dominant leader. His small-military views just aren't popular with most of the GOP, and they can't overlook that.

Bobby Jindal bucked a fair amount of the 2012 losing rhetoric, so it seemed that he was trying to make a name for himself as an intelligent reformer of the GOP. As a moderate, I like that, but I don't know if enough Republicans feel that way. Certainly the noisy ones don't. Nonetheless, he deserves to be on this list right now, but he could easily fall off by going too far or not far enough.

Rick Perry doesn't deserve to be on this list. He was a laughable candidate in 2011. Maybe the pain meds have worn off, but you can't fix stupid. He gives every indication of having been briefed on all of his opinions, rather than mulling them over and developing his own ideas. I think he's someone's marionette. If he can become a national leader, then I don't know anything about American politics.

Marco Rubio is certainly running for leader and running for president. However, Romney's campaign showed the weakness of choosing someone who is constantly running for office instead of being engaged in actual governing and problem-solving. Rubio is flash but no substance at this point. I don't think the GOP will go for a lightweight again.

Chris Christie has lately been reviled among many Republicans, so it's hard to imagine him rising above that to be a spokesman and leader of a large enough slice of the GOP. He's certainly got the verbal talent and a can-do record, but too many Republicans hate him right now, and that's not going to be easy to change.

Something missing from this list is the conservative-pragmatic governor archetype. I'm thinking Mitch Daniels, Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Rick Snyder. They've all dealt (cleaned up/reformed) at the state level with the kinds of problems the federal government faces--how to trim spending and reduce benefits for government workers without massive service cuts. Also important, they haven't tainted themselves with culture war rhetoric on abortion and contraception as Virginia governor Bob McDonnell has.

These governors are the solid, working leaders in each of their states, but who speaks for them nationally? If they did have a national champion, that would be a formidable leader. I'm going to be curious to see how this develops. The next few months will be worth watching.

 

Image: qctimes.com

Extra. Will we have new leaders in punditry? It's less important, but it would be such a relief.

Update 6/21/13. According to this column, Jindal has trotted out the typical GOP fallback position of bashing liberals. It looks like Jindal will put on any stance when it is expedient, including clear-eyed reformer. Too bad it was just an act.

Report from the GOP convention

[Warning: This post doesn't discuss the last day of the convention when Clint Eastwood rambled and yelled at a chair. For a serious discussion of that day, um, good luck. For funny twitter reactions, look here and here. If anyone wants to read about the other days, I've left this post up. But, really, why is anyone going to want to know about any other day?]

The first day of the GOP convention sounded pretty dismal. Ann Romney tried to make Mitt lovable, but left people still wondering if there anything lovable about him. Maybe you have to be a Mormon to understand. Christie talked about "hard truth" and left it at that, no actually hard truths, just the words. Well, no matter. The convention is a pep rally, not the strategy session where you assess your strengths and weaknesses. [Disclosure: That's my impression of Tuesday based on written reports. I didn't listen.]

Pawlenty, Huckabee

Tonight, I started listening during a drive. Pawlenty wasn't have bad except for not having a memorable moment. Huckabee insults Debbie Wasserman Schulz and then says "Bless her heart." He let the evangelicals know that it was OK to vote for Romney, but he stayed away from the current hot-button issue of abortion and let people know that contraception is OK too.

The "We don't hate" Women

Condi Rice had a good speech, and a great remembrance of growing up under Jim Crow, but her parents made her feel that she could grow up to be president. There was thunderous applause, making me wish she could have been the VP nominee. But she couldn't because she's pro-choice. I also remember that she was a yes-man to Bush and Cheney, and one good speech doesn't undo a hundredth of those years.

Paul Ryan

Susana Martinez had a good speech about boot straps. It sounded like her first use of Spanish was booed. I'll have to find out. [Can't confirm.] Paul Ryan started off slow and awkward, but finished strong. He said some phrases that are going to boomerang on him. He said that any measure of Obama has to take into account the condition of the economy. But how about taking into account the obstruction of the Republicans? A commentator pointed out that Ryan said Obama threw away the Simpson-Bowles plan. That omits Ryan's own role, which was voting against recommendations along with the rest of the House GOP commission members. Ryan played a huge role in torpedoing Simpson-Bowles before it even got to Obama. That's going to be an issue he can't duck in the next two months.

The GOP convention sounds middle-American. It hasn't been overly angry, or stern, and has avoided culture wars and blaming the poor. I wonder if the Dems can remain as positive as the Republicans were tonight. (Sure they can, sure.)

The Scary Future

Of course, the weak link, Romney himself, is coming up tomorrow. We'll see if he ruins the tone, weakens it, or actually enhances it. About Romney, I'm no longer an optimist.

Not the only blip in the pep rally?

Image: rt.com

The man who should be king

 
... actually, he should be president. That is my gut response to this video of Chris Christie. (Disclosure: I have a weakness for unvarnished talk, preferably with occasional profanity.)

At 10 minutes in, he gives Obama the same advice I'd give Obama if I could get on Meet the Press. Take Simpson-Bowles off the shelf (saying the politician equivalent of "I made a mistake"), and back it hard around the country and in Congress.

Watch the whole video. Highlights are that Christie would join the ticket with Mitt Romney, how he's handled canceling a huge transportation project, and how he's lowering New Jersey's highest-in-the-country state taxes.

This straight-shooter's pick out of this sorry bunch of GOP candidates: Romney. Republicans should be listening. Ron Paul supporters should be listening too.

Update 1/22/12. I love this guy. Partial headline from Google news:

Gov. Christie nominates two for state Supreme Court including gay African...