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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumPundits blow it again: No, Christie is not the next great moderate hope
The media will want to crown Chris Christie as the GOP's new model centrist. Here's why that's ludicrous
BY ELIAS ISQUITH
In the wake of his landslide reelection to the governorship of New Jersey, Chris Christie has got to be feeling good or as hed be more likely to put it, hes got to be feeling damn good. Not only did The Governor, as his campaign portentously called him, manage to secure a second term, but he did it by an almost comically large margin. With men, women, whites, blacks, latinos, asians across the board, Christie matched or surpassed the levels of support a generic Republican would otherwise have received. One wonders, in fact, if anyone in the state of New Jersey knows what Christies Democratic challenger, Barbara Buono, even looks like. Without the aid of Google, I sure wouldnt.
Compare Christies landslide to another Republican running to be governor of his state, Virginias Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and the list of reasons for The Governor to smile grows longer. Unlike Cuccinelli, Christie managed to transcend his partys national image and overcome the stigma of being a Republican in a deep-blue state like New Jersey. And unlike Cuccinelli, no one associates Chris Christie with the now seriously unpopular Tea Party, or sees the New Jersey governor as a chief architect of the Republican Partys so-called War on Women. In a nutshell: Chris Christie, unlike Cuccinelli, doesnt have to waste his time disassociating himself from Ted Cruz.
Now, in the coming days, weeks, and indeed years, a lot of pundits are going to look at Christies feat and conclude that hes some kind of moderate. How else could he win in New Jersey? Nurturing that impression is certainly part of the reason why Christies team decided to run up the score, waging a vigorous reelection campaign despite the fact that Christies triumph was never in doubt. Yet while its true that Christie has at times shown an admirable willingness to buck the most extreme elements of his partys base, itd be going too far much too far to call the man a moderate.
What Christie is extremely good at is implementing what my colleague Blake Zeff previously described as the GOPs blue-state playbook. Its pretty simple, really. To stay alive in these politically hazardous environs, blue-state Republicans make a show of breaking with the rest of their party on issues that may be prominent in terms of media attention, but are actually of secondary or tertiary importance from a policy perspective. So, for example, you get the once omnipresent images of Christie walking side-by-side with President Obama in the wake of Hurricane Sandys devastation; or you get Christies decision to drop a clearly doomed appeal to a judges ruling ushering in gay marriage in his state.
In both instances, Christie ticks off just enough conservatives for it to get noticed (Matt Drudge, for example, is not a fan) but not so many as to actually, materially damage his position within the broader conservative movement. On the real, bedrock issues for modern conservatism low taxes on the wealthy, cuts to public services and attacks on the workers who help provide them, and opposition to womens reproductive health Christie is about as conservative as they come. The smart Republicans know this, and give him a pass for those other few breaks with orthodoxy, not unlike how many Democrats once gave Barack Obama a pass for his once-squishy stance on gun safety, or his cagey answers on class-based affirmative action.
Indeed, as Real Clear Politics Sean Trende recently argued, Christie is easily the most conservative politician elected to statewide office in New Jersey in the past 60 years, and possibly longer. Trende continued:
full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/06/pundits_blow_it_again_no_christie_is_not_the_next_great_moderate_hope/
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Pundits blow it again: No, Christie is not the next great moderate hope (Original Post)
DonViejo
Nov 2013
OP
bigdarryl
(13,190 posts)1. He had a WEAK ASS!! democrat candidate running against him
This state is not in very good shape Property taxes off the charts high ass unemployment
TomCADem
(17,387 posts)2. The MSM is working overtime to try to rehabilitate Republicans...
...and just because a Republican does not overtly appeal to the insane nihilists in the Republican party, he is portrayed as a moderate.