Tag: Chris Christie

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Donald Trump Donald Trump News Politics

Don’t Like Trump? Does Trump-Christie Make You Feel Better?

I’ve read some scary headlines over the past few months about the primaries and the Trump march to the GOP nomination, but now that it’s all-but-official, the race for his running mate is beginning to take shape.

The early signs are, of course, terrible: Chris Christie, the roach of the GOP, is back in the national kitchen baseboard.  You read that right, and I hope you weren’t eating.

In a truly remarkable political year, the party that runs on wars–on Christmas, Coal, and Women–has finally declared war on itself.  Both presidents Bush, and the one who did not get there, have all said that they will not go to the GOP convention in Cleveland this summer and will likely not even vote for president in November, even though they could write in Jeb. What a family. Conservatives across the country, from George Will to Russ Douthat to Mitt Romney and myriad others, have urged their fellow Republicans to oppose Trump, nominate a third-party candidate or, apostasy!, vote for Hillary. And they’re doing this because they believe that Donald Trump is not temperamentally suited for the Oval Office (the man’s not even suited for Ovaltine, if truth be told). On this, they are correct.

But there is another reason the GOP faithful are abandoning Trump, and that’s because he hasn’t supported the Reaganite vision of conservatism the party has pushed since the 1970s. Never mind that Reagan couldn’t get elected in a Ted Cruz party, but the sentiment is clear. On this point, that the party needs a true conservative, they are absolutely wrong, and that’s why Trump is the nominee. The GOP has alienated its base so thoroughly, they’ll follow Trump’s isolationist, anti-immigrant, misogynistic, racist rantings all the way to November (of course, many Trump supporters do agree with his ideas). The base doesn’t care about the economics of tax cuts or shrinking the government programs that have kept them afloat for the past few decades. They want their power and their middle class wage jobs back. A more conservative candidate, they have rightfully identified, will not help. So what’s really happened is that the conservatives think the party needs to go farther to the right, but the evidence is showing exactly the opposite. That’s not a recipe for success in November.

How will Chris Christie help? He can be a true conservative even though he isn’t one. He can also, perhaps, batter the Democratic VP candidate into submission the way he did Marco Rubio. He can be Trump’s pit bull on the campaign trail. While these are important attributes, I doubt that they will help Trump, which is why I don’t think Christie will be his running mate. Then again, who thought we’d be where we are now? A unified GOP could not elect John McCain or Mitt Romney. A fatally split party will have a hard time electing Donald Trump.

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Domestic Policies marco rubio Politics

The Christie Era Is Over

It happened so quickly and so quietly that I wasn’t sure exactly what transpired, but it appears that the Chris Christie era in New Jersey is over!

Yes, I know we have to officially endure the Governor until January of 2018, but most of that time will find him drowned out by the presidential race, and by the time that’s over it will be time for candidates to begin announcing their intentions ahead of the June 2017 gubernatorial primaries.

Chris Christie was the main architect of his own downfall, though of course he will blame everyone except himself for his not still competing for president or the George Washington Bridge traffic scandal that has his style written all over it. He banked on being the rude loudmouth in the 2016 race but it turns out that he’s only a piker compared to Donald Trump, Christie’s take-down of Marco Rubio showed that he could use the bully part of the bully pulpit, something that New Jerseyans always knew, but that the rest of the country had to actually see to believe.

The capstone to Christie’s fall, though, was his very quick and very ugly endorsement of Trump not three days after leaving the GOP race. The way he looked standing behind the Donald will be an enduring, iconic image for approximately the next thousand years and will serve as a warning against candidates making major decisions while still in the throes of Stages 1,2,3 and 4 of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s continuum of the terminally ill.

And his move to Stage 5, acceptance, came last week when Christie didn’t just blink, he all but sent a message that he was going through political torture at the hands of NJ Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney and the rest of the Democrats, when he appointed a Democrat to the State Supreme Court, ending six year political battle by, well, giving up (although the new nominee is evidently a financial backer).

All was not terrible for Chris Christie, though. He was able to use political cronies of both parties to get a state employee pension and benefit reform package through the legislature that has contributed to a four-year reduction in take home pay for a significant slice of New Jersey’s middle class. And he can also point to the fact that he didn’t ask the wealthy to contribute more to solve some of New Jersey’s problems, arguing that they would leave the state. Meanwhile, less-than-wealthy people have left the state because they couldn’t afford to live here.

And then of course there’s that confounded bridge.

Chris Christie will go down in history as a failed governor because he wasted his political capital on his White House bid, when he could have done much more and run in, say, 2020 with a fuller record of accomplishments. He has, though, paved the way for a Democratic sweep in 2017. Bank on that.

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Donald Trump Politics

Chris Christie Dissed State Trooper and his Funeral to Kiss Up to Donald Trump

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has totally lost all the morals he never had, choosing instead to suck-up to Donald Trump at a campaign rally on Monday instead of attending the funeral of a New Jersey state trooper.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie skipped a state trooper’s funeral Monday to fuel his out-of-control lovefest with Donald Trump with whom he campaigned with in Florida on the eve of that state’s presidential primary.

As mourners honored Sean Cullen, 31, who was killed in the line of duty last week when he was struck by a passing motorist while responding to a highway car fire, Christie was in the Sunshine State, cozying up to Trump

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno took Christie’s place at the funeral, while Christie’s camp referred all questions about his scheduling decision to the Trump campaign.

After Christie’s bizarre Trump endorsement, he told reporters that he would not be a “full-time surrogate” for the Republican front-runner.

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Donald Trump Politics

The New Hampshire Union-Leader Retracts its Chris Christie Endorsement

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie obviously did not win the Republican nomination for president, as the loser candidate dropped out a couple of weeks ago. But while he ran, some were fooled into thinking Christy had what it takes to be President.

Boy were they wrong. And that is exactly what one of Christie’s top endorser is saying now after Christie endorsed Donald Trump.

The New Hampshire Union-Leader just published an editorial on Monday titled “Christie was our bad choice,” it said it made a poor decision.

In its endorsement, the paper said that Christie had conservative values and could take down Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

“Boy, were we wrong,” Monday’s editorial begins.

The Union-Leader says despite the governor’s “baggage,” the paper thought he had the skills and experience necessary to take the presidency — and the best chance to take down Trump.

It then went on to slam Christie for his recent endorsement of Trump — something he said he’d never do, the editorial said.

“Watching Christie kiss the Donald’s ring this weekend — and make excuses for the man Christie himself had said was unfit for the presidency — demonstrated how wrong we were,” the editorial said.

“Rather than standing up to the bully, Christie bent his knee. In doing so, he rejected the very principles of his campaign that attracted our support.”

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump News Politics

Trump-Christie Agonistes

This is what happens when a political party is in the midst of self-destruction. I remember it well when the Democrats dissolved between 1972 and 1984, and these last, frantic days should remind us that it’s not pretty or helpful when a major political organization goes nuclear.

Such is the Republican Party.

I have been saying, for quite some time, that I didn’t believe Donald Trump will be the GOP nominee this year, and I will cling to that belief until the numbers say that I’m wrong, but it’s fairly clear that ego, infighting, stubbornness and incompetence have put Trump on the brink of attaining that prize. For once, though, I don’t fully blame the Republican Party as much as I also blame the voters it nurtured and the utter disdain and hatred they have for President Obama and government in general.

There are still some Republican leaders who do understand what their actions have wrought, such as former NJ Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who says that she will support Hillary for president, even as they are now seeing that saying ultra-conservative things, but governing less so, has gotten them into a pot of boiling water they can’t climb out of easily.

The debate last week was bad enough; a WWE-type smack-down that had little to do with politics and everything to do with the stunted maturity of the party’s front-runner and the anger of the intellectual dwarfs who want to take him down. The candidates discussed precious little about what they would do as president, which in all cases would be a disaster for the middle class, women, minorities, anyone whose sexuality differs from the norm, potentially productive immigrants and most animal species, and focused on bodily functions and who might have lied the most. They then continued the fight through the week, referring to bathroom habits and other national security issues they believe are the keys to their success.

And then came the angriest, most-inappropriate, venom-spewing know-nothing of them all: Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is so terrifically angry that the GOP decided to support Marco Rubio over him as the party’s savior that he threw away what was left of his dignity, common-sense and governing doctrine. Christie will have to spend most of his time walking back comments he made during the campaign about how unqualified his new friend Don is to be president.

Christie has clearly had it with the Republican Party, and in his mind he has good reason. After all, he spent years cultivating supporters by giving time and speeches to candidates when they were running for office. Then, as Chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association he threw himself  into party politics, doled out resources and, again, spent many months on the campaign trail, biding his time until the 2016 election, when he would gather up his favors and chits and be the instant front-runner for the presidency. The GW Bridge traffic jam destroyed his credibility and his actions on the campaign trail, including his torching of Marco Rubio in the debate just before the New Hampshire primary, proved to be not only his undoing, but the cause of his own political self-immolation.

And now Chris doesn’t have to spend more time in New Jersey being Governor, which I’m certain is one of his main reasons for making this endorsement. Christie is essentially over state politics and craves the national limelight and cable television programs. It’s Kim Guagdano’s gig now, but the Democrats have the power. Christie is fast becoming irrelevant on the state level.

Also, he probably sees Trump as the only candidate who would give him a job if (shudder) he wins the presidency. Does Christie on the Supreme Court grab your attention? It should.

Let’s see what happens on March 1, Super Tuesday, and in the big states that hold primaries between then and March 15. Trump is not likely to gather enough delegates to win the nomination and if Rubio can consistently get 20% or more in each state, he can stay close until April, when more big states will vote. Also, John Kasich will probably be out of the race very soon.

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Donald Trump Ohio Politics

John Kasich Tells When He Will Quit his Campaign for President

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump yesterday. Yeah, that happened.

An unbelievable Pause goes here.

In the meantime, Ohio governor John Kasich is laying out his exit strategy from running a losing campaign for president.

“I will beat Donald Trump in Ohio, and that will be the beginning of a new day,” Kasich told a crowd in Nashville, according to the New York Times.

“Some of the other candidates, if they can’t win their home state, they got to get out, OK?” he added. “If I don’t win my home state, I’ll get out. But you know what? I’m going to win Ohio.”

The remark was a dig at his rival Marco Rubio, who is trailing Trump by 16 points in his home state of Florida, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll.

Ohio goes to the polls on March 15. Another Quinnipiac poll puts Trump ahead of Kasich in Ohio by 5 percentage points, just outside the poll’s margin of error, but the governor has insisted that he will have no problem winning the state.

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Domestic Policies New Jersey News Politics

Public Workers: Working Hard, Paying More, Getting Less, Being Blamed. Solution?

Governor Christie wasn’t back in New Jersey for two days before his administration and its apologists went back on the attack on public worker pensions and health benefits.

The man who promised that he wouldn’t touch pensions in his gubernatorial run in 2009, and who staked his presidential ambitions on a bipartisan pension and benefits bill in 2011 is now touting a plan recommended by his appointed board of campaign contributors and Wall Street executives that would further degrade the benefits that are part and parcel of people’s decision to enter teaching, firefighting, police work and government administration in this state.

The latest plan, which was first unveiled last year and clarified on Thursday, calls for an end to the health plans that most New Jersey state workers get as part of their employment. Christie’s plan would move workers to the equivalent of Affordable Care Act Gold Plans which, despite their lofty name, have higher deductibles and more limited health care options for their subscribers. But the plan gets even better because no longer would health care be paid for by the state and employees; the cost would be shifted to the municipalities and school boards. Then the money that the state saves would be used to replenish (and plenish) the pension system.

Ingenious, right?

We got a further clarification on this proposal by Thomas Byrne, one of the members of Christie’s pension reform panel. And his point, in sum, is that teachers get more benefits than most workers in the private sector. Besides, they say the plan he and the panel recommended is the only way to solve this problem. Talk about reinforcing your own limited thinking.

What Byrne and his apologists don’t say is that there are many private sector workers who get far better benefits. Why can’t he compare public employee health care with those people? Because, simply, the same people calling for benefits reform are the same people who want to privatize public work and to destroy the power of the public worker unions. So comparing us to the average worker who’s been shafted over the past 40 years by Republicans and conservatives makes people angry at what we have, rather than what we have earned through legal collective bargaining. The rich keep what they have and the rest lose out. Haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

I do have to say that I agree with one of Byrne’s points, and this is likely to get me in trouble with my public worker brethren and sisteren. I think that putting a constitutional amendment that forces the state to make a full pension payment every year is a losing issue. Most New Jerseyans support their local teachers and don’t want to penalize them, but the thought of having to pay billions of dollars at the expense of other programs – which is what the opponents of this amendment will argue – will turn most voters against it.

Governor Christie has done a terrific job, and a terrible one at the same time, by turning public workers into the face of the budgetary, taxing and spending problem we have in New Jersey. It’s not right, it’s not fair and it’s a disgraceful turn away from decency and respect, but it’s the truth and Democrats need to understand that. An amendment will fail. Nix it.

Likewise, a millionaire’s tax would help, but will not raise enough money to pay for the shortfall. Reducing pension investment fees is also a necessary step, but a small one. So what to do?

A 1% tax on corporate profits. After all, it’s the business interests that have been driving educational reform since 1983, including the calls for more cooperative learning, back-to-basics content retention, tenure reform and the Common Core Curriculum Standards. Business is interested in education because schools supply their future workers, and they also have an interest in well-run towns, police forces and firefighters. So why not have them pay a greater share of the expenses? That way, all public workers could share in the proceeds and homeowners wouldn’t have to bear the burden of ever-rising property taxes. One percent is not too much to ask and any company that decides that it’s too much and leaves New Jersey would be sacrificing its highly educated labor force and would risk ridicule for running away.

Obviously I don’t have complete details and I’m sure the accountants would discover all manner of roadblocks. Plus, having corporate interests pay for things usually means they’ll want their names and logos on it. But I think this is better than having taxpayers voting on a multi-billion dollar plan that will hike their taxes. And it just might solve the problem of our underfunded school systems.

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Domestic Policies

Christie’s Fat Tuesday Result Leaves His Campaign In Ashes

Those of us in New Jersey knew that this day would come, and it’s really best for the country that Chris Christie has ended his presidential bid. The governor does not have the personality to be a thoughtful, caring, empathetic leader and there’s some poetic justice in the fact that he lost mainly because Donald Trump won. Christie always thought that he was going to be the wise-cracking loudmouth in the race, but Donald upset that cart with his first campaign utterances last spring. Add in the terrible job Christie has done with the economy, his utterly disgraceful YouTube rants and his poisonous attitude towards public workers and anyone who disagrees with him, and you have the recipe for…well, for what just happened.

What struck me about Christie is that he didn’t seem to have a moral compass when it came to running for office. He would say anything, even contradict himself if it served his goals. His charge to the right on many issues left New Jersey in seriously bad shape. He vetoed a train tunnel that the state and region desperately needed, refused to raise the gas tax to pay for our potted roads, and slashed budgets for social services that many state residents needed to survive after the financial crisis hit. He did make his name during the aftermath of Sandy, but even that is overshadowed by the number of people who still don’t have their homes back.

Christie will now come back and be the governor, for at least a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if he left at some point because what’s he really got to work for now? His legacy? Another run in 2020? He can be a FOX News host or lobby for a radio program, but I can see him getting very bored and frustrated by an emboldened Democratic majority that will savage him during the 2017 election, and the state GOP that is furious with him for abandoning them during the Assembly elections in 2015. The man has no coattails. He doesn’t even appear to have much of a coat.

I’m thinking that the biggest beneficiary of Christie’s supporters will be John Kasich as he tries to navigate the rather unfriendly South Carolina political landscape. Perhaps Carly Fiorina’s backers will go with Kasich too. Or maybe I’m just a dreamer and they’ll all go to Trump because he’s such a peachy guy.

The campaign moves on.

Chris Christie goes home.

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Politics

A Defeated Chris Christie Pulls Out of GOP Race for President

Becoming president of the United States was a long-shot for Chris Christie ever since the New Jersey governor hugged and thanked President Obama for bringing federal help to the people of his state during hurricane Sandy. Couple that with the fact that Donald Trump, another loudmouth, callous Republican is in the race, no one cared what Christie had to say.

So after Tuesday’s sixth place reward in New Hampshire, Fox Business News is reporting that Christie is calling it quits.

Despite a strategy that heavily focused money and resources on New Hampshire, Christie ended up in a disappointing sixth place Tuesday. Christie announced shortly after Tuesday’s loss that he was retreating to New Jersey and would be reevaluating his campaign.

Another major hurdle to Christie’s prospects was that he was very unlikely to make Saturday’s CBS debate. Polling at seventh place nationwide and sixth in the next primary state of South Carolina, Christie faced an uphill battle with no clear path to victory.

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marco rubio Politics

Christie Slams “Boy in the Bubble” Marco Rubio During GOP Debate

Republican U.S. presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio (L) speaks as businessman Donald Trump (R) listens during the Republican U.S. presidential candidates debate sponsored by ABC News at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire February 6, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri . SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters' editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage.

Besides standing on stage next to Donald Trump with his 3 inch heels on and still looking too short for the podium, Marco Rubio had other issues at Saturday’s Republican debate, namely Chris Christie.

On the days leading up to Saturday’s debate, Chris Christie laid focus on Rubio, giving the young Florida Republican some attention Rubio probably didn’t want. Christie actively tried to re-coin the phrase “Boy in the Bubble” to describe Marco Rubio – the robotic Republican presidential candidate, who is apparently well versed in the art of memorizing and regurgitating portions of written speeches to answer questions. Christie zeroed in and chritcized Rubio and an inexperienced first-term senator who has no place running for president.

In the last Republican debate before New Hampshire goes to the polls, Christie seized the opportunity and continued hitting Rubio.

“Marco, the thing is this,” Christie said during one heated exchange early in the night, “when you’re president of the United States, when you’re a governor of a state, the memorized 30-second speech where you talk about how great America is at the end of it doesn’t solve one problem for one person.”

The trouble for Rubio began soon after the debate started when the ABC News moderators asked Christie about Rubio’s experience in the U.S. Senate, and Christie pressed his case.

Rubio critics have made much of the fact that his experience is akin to that of much-derided Democratic President Barack Obama, elected in 2008 when a first-term senator.

Rubio’s defense was that his and Obama’s world views are different, not that Obama has simply led the country down the path it is on because of inexperience.

“Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing,” Rubio said.

When Rubio repeated the same line again, Christie sought to reinforce the charge that Rubio is so inexperienced that he relies on well-worn talking points and cannot think on his feet.

“There it is. There it is. The memorized 25-second speech. There it is, everybody,” Christie said.

Rubio repeated the line enough that someone created a Twitter profile called

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Domestic Policies News Politics

Christie’s Last Stand

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gives a news conference in Trenton January 9, 2014. Christie on Thursday fired a top aide at the center of a brewing scandal that public officials orchestrated a massive traffic snarl on the busy George Washington Bridge to settle a political score. Christie told a news conference he was stunned and heartbroken by revelations that his staff was behind the traffic jam designed to punish a local mayor who declined to endorse Christie's re-election bid. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS HEADSHOT) - RTX177WY

It’s too late to say it with any meaningful conviction now, but Chris Christie should have run for president when the Republican Party and Nancy Reagan were imploring him to do so in the late fall of 2011. He was the guy, the shining star, six months removed from pounding out a public worker pension and benefits bill that would be his most lasting achievement. The stars were aligned, and let’s face it; that doesn’t happen twice.

Then came his insatiable desire to win the biggest landslide in New Jersey history which led to the George Washington Bridge scandal which occurred at the same time that New Jersey’s economy was doing bupkis and the governor was actively running away from his signature accomplishment. When asked the NJ Supreme Court to rule his pension and benefits bill unconstitutional so he wouldn’t have to make a full pension payment. This is not at all presidential and, to their credit, most of the national Republican electorate has rejected Christie’s message, such as it is, his bluster, and his insufferable swaying back and forth on the issues. Of course, that same Republican electorate seems to have fallen for the political alchemy that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are pandering would suggest that the voters are batting .500.

Last night’s debate was really and truly Chris Christie’s final chance to turn an aggregate 5% polling average into a stunning political comeback. He yelled mightily at Marco Rubio and continued to tout his aggressive style of governance, which is exactly what the country doesn’t need. He was angry at the weather when it forced him to leave the campaign trail in January and understands that he needs to finish way ahead of Jeb Bush and John Kasich in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.

I don’t see it happening.

Christie should blame Trump for most of the damage done to his campaign. Christie was all set to be the loudmouth truth-teller, but even he couldn’t have foreseen Trump’s supreme ability to say whatever was on his mind and watch his poll numbers rise. When terrorism reared its ugly head in November, Christie’s numbers rose too, but ultimately there were just too many other candidates for him to leapfrog in the standings. If Christie can somehow finish in the top three or four with double-digit number next to his name, then maybe he can move on to South Carolina and Nevada and get squashed there.

But then what? Christie says that he’s going to come back to New Jersey to finish out his term, but he will return to a very different political landscape. He won’t be able to be the dominant force in Trenton that he would like, and will find that many GOP legislators will defy him if it’s in their political interests. And it will be. The Democrats can smell a victory in 2017 and will do all they can to get a supermajority in both the Assembly and the Senate. Further, those Republicans who voted against Christie when bills would come up for votes but then vote to uphold Christie’s vetoes, will not always do so in the future.

On the flip side, Christie will not need to be so conservative if he returns, so maybe we can get some common sense laws on firearms, school financing, health care and transportation. In the end, it will be up to the Governor and what he wants to see as his legacy.

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bridgegate Donald Trump Politics

Trump Slams Chris Christie – He knew about the Washington Bridge Shutdown – Video

Donald Trump resorted back to 3rd grade campaigning tonight when he went after Chris Christie because, according to Trump, Christie “hit me hard today!”

At a stump speech in South Carolina, Trump went into attack mode and focused in on New Jersey governor, Chris Christie. Earlier in the day, Christie spoke out against Trump’s call for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States.

In his stump speech, Trump took the opportunity to lash out against Christie, pointing out the crowd that Christie knew about the bridge closure, because he had breakfast with the people who shut down the bridge everyday. Trump also hit Christie on the fact that under his governorship, New Jersey saw 9 downgrades in its ratings, and lastly, Trump hit Christie for being close to President Obama during the President’s hurricane Sandy visit to New Jersey.

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