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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Tue Apr 8, 2014, 11:19 AM Apr 2014

CROSSING CHRISTIE: What the bridge scandal says about the Governor’s political style, and his future

BY RYAN LIZZA
APRIL 14, 2014

On April 1st, Chris Christie, the beleaguered Republican governor of New Jersey, attended a celebrity roast, in Newark, to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Brendan Byrne, the state’s governor from 1974 to 1982. “He’s an inspiration,” Christie told the audience, referring to Byrne, who won reëlection against long odds, because he has “shown that political comebacks can actually happen.”

Christie sat on a long dais with five former governors and five local comedians, listening to the guitarist John Pizzarelli sing an ode to the state: “I may leave for a week or two, but I’m always coming back.” Christie was seated next to former Governor Thomas Kean, a longtime supporter, but he did not say hello or shake his hand, and he glared at the comedians as they delivered their lines. “You scare the shit out of me,” Stewie Stone said to Christie during his routine.

Just five months earlier, Christie had won a sweeping reëlection, securing nineteen of New Jersey’s twenty-one counties, sixty per cent of the vote, and endorsements from Democratic officeholders. He won fifty-one per cent of the Hispanic vote and twenty-one per cent of the African-American vote. His plan was to shed part of his Jersey persona, and perhaps a few more pounds, and begin in earnest the transition from state politician to Presidential candidate.

But the past was catching up with him. In September, an unusual incident had occurred in Fort Lee, the small town on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. Without warning, the number of access lanes from Fort Lee to the bridge’s toll plaza had been reduced from three to one. The lanes were closed for four days, and the resulting traffic jams caught the attention of several Democratic legislators. They opened an investigation and eventually accused the Christie administration of engineering a plot to punish the town’s Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, for his failure to endorse Christie’s reëlection. The accusation seemed so ludicrous that Christie belittled a reporter for asking about it. “I moved the cones, actually, unbeknownst to everybody,” he said during a press conference in early December. But on January 8th an e-mail surfaced showing that Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s deputy chief of staff, had instructed David Wildstein, who was the Governor’s second-highest appointee at the Port Authority, the agency that runs the bridge, to engineer the gridlock. Months of scrutiny and withering criticism followed, and Christie’s approval rating fell twenty points.

more
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/04/14/140414fa_fact_lizza

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CROSSING CHRISTIE: What the bridge scandal says about the Governor’s political style, and his future (Original Post) DonViejo Apr 2014 OP
BlueJersey on 'NJ's Whodunit Procedural: Part IV' proverbialwisdom Apr 2014 #1
That was the best comprehensive article by Ryan Lizza.. thanks Don Riveting! Cha Apr 2014 #2

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
1. BlueJersey on 'NJ's Whodunit Procedural: Part IV'
Sat Apr 12, 2014, 01:33 PM
Apr 2014
http://www.bluejersey.com/diary/25038/njs-whodunit-procedural-part-iv

NJ's Whodunit Procedural: Part IV
by: Bill Orr
Fri Apr 11, 2014 at 12:51:57 PM EDT


[center]"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."[/center]
This commonly quoted line from Walter Scott could serve as the epigram on a front page of this whodunit tale. Through Part IV of our series we have written about 11 key characters caught up in the web of Bridgegate. The biggest, of course, is Gov. Christie whose reputation has been severely damaged but whose involvement and ultimate fate remain unclear. Five high-ranking characters have resigned or been fired - Wildstein, Kelly, Stepien, Baroni, and Samson. There are other individuals lurking in the background who may take on importance.

In this installment, Part IV, below the fold we look at the "Press Spokesman from Hell," the "Holder of the Keys," and of course no crime procedural would omit the "bumbling or duplicitous police officers."

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