Christie's Dem Challenger: HILLARY 'Wrote Me A Nice Letter — AFTER I LOST.'

[Segami]

“...Hillary Clinton wrote me a nice letter — after I lost...”

Former New Jersey state Sen. Barbara Buono offered some harsh words in an interview published Monday about Hillary Clinton and other fellow Democrats who she said abandoned her as she ran last year against Gov. Chris Christie (R).

“Hillary Clinton wrote me a nice letter — after I lost,” Ms. Buono said, pointing out that the potential Democratic standard-bearer did nothing to support the candidacy of the party’s first female nominee for governor of New Jersey. (“You and I are no strangers to the challenges of seeking and holding public office,” read the letter, signed, “Hillary.”) “The vice president called me directly — after I lost.” Senator Cory Booker, the New Jersey star? “No no no. No, no,” she said. “I didn’t get help from a lot of people, and he was one of them.”

The list is rife. Patrick Gaspard, the former White House political director and Democratic National Committee executive director, promised help but did not deliver. The committee’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, “came at the very end and it was like you were at a funeral, she was just not very encouraging.” When Ms. Buono asked the chairwoman to send out an email from her fund-raising list, Ms. Wasserman Schultz suggested she would and then “didn’t even do that; isn’t that sad?” (Ms. Wasserman Schultz has since gone on the Christie warpath, following the governor around the country and telling reporters: “Chris Christie has a culture of intimidation and retribution in his office. It was directed at his own constituents.”)


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/nyregion/amid-christie-scandal-buono-says-some-democrats-have-buyers-remorse.html

She said she watched Mr. Christie’s 108-minute-long news conference on January 9 with her daughter but had a hard time sticking with it. “He is a fraud, a charlatan,” she said. (Mr. Christie’s office declined to respond.) And she confesses bewilderment about the national Democratic strategy of demanding Mr. Christie step down. “He should stay, right, there!” she said, smacking the table for emphasis. “Stand next to all these candidates who are running for governor in 2014. Of course they won’t stand next to him anymore. It is a little comical.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/nyregion/amid-christie-scandal-buono-says-some-democrats-have-buyers-remorse.html

In the interview with the New York Times, Buono spoke with some bitterness about a "nice letter" she received from Clinton after the election was over. “Hillary Clinton wrote me a nice letter — after I lost,” Buono said. According to the Times, Clinton's letter to Buono said, "You and I are no strangers to the challenges of seeking and holding public office."


Buono also said she received a phone call from Vice President Joe Biden after losing to Christie. She also called out New Jersey's most prominent Democrat, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D). "No no no. No, no," said Buono. "I didn’t get help from a lot of people, and he was one of them."



http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/buono-hillary-letter

[Fumesucker]

1. “There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this is not one of them.” -Clouseau

[hrmjustin]

2. I agree that she was abandoned but top Blame goes to the current president and party leaders.

[Chathamization]

8. To be fair though, the race was abandoned before she entered it

She pretty much ran unopposed in the primary. I'm not happy with the Dems abandoning it, but it's not like Buono didn't benefit from that herself.

[hrmjustin]

9. That is true. if they were interested in this race she would not have been the nominee.

[VanillaRhapsody]

53. Of COURSE doesn't everything?

[sabrina 1]

50. Does anyone know why it was abandoned? Dean would never have done that. I think the Dem Leadership

are happy with what they refer to as 'moderate Republicans' many times over Progressive Dems.

Worse than simply abandoning the race, the NJ Dems, 61 of them, ENDORSED the Republican leading the voters to believe there was no point in supporting the Dem.

This needs to be addressed as it is not the first time the Dem Party abandoned their own Candidate in favor of a Republican.

Actually they didn't abandon her, they worked to get Christie reelected. Despite the fact the NJ is a blue state. Despite the fact that voters were at the time, VERY unhappy about his handling of Sandy victims. Despite the fact that Dems, who are a majority in NJ were unhappy with his privatization of the public schools and total lack of respect for teachers.

Iow, he WAS beatable. So why was this race handed, with HELP, to a Republican by the Democratic Party?

Buono has every right to be upset, and so do we and she and we Democrats are entitled to answers.

Here on this forum it is a bannable offense not to support and vote for Democrats.

Why the different rules where it actually counts? Why is it okay for the Dem Leadership to support, endorse AND vote for Republicans over Democrats?

[Chathamization]

54. My guess is

Part of it is that when the media decided that they loved Christie after Sandy, establishment Democrats decided they wanted to go along with the narrative. Establishment Democrats are pretty terrible at challenging media narratives - see the praise that they give Reagan, the concern over the deficit, the outrage over the fake IRS scandal, etc.

Another part is probably the well connected politicians looked at Christie's polling numbers and decided that it wasn't worth the effort. It seems like Booker was entertaining a run before Sandy, but afterwards opted to run for the senate instead.

As for local Democrats who endorsed Christie, I wouldn't be surprised if their party affiliation has more to do with being in a Democratic state than it does with any particular ideology.

I'm sure that someone who's involved with local Jersey politics could shed a lot more light on this. I'm sure there were a number of factors and personalities at play. It does make the local party in Jersey look like a mess (though I'm not sure ours is any better). Hopefully it will encourage some insurgent candidates to go after local strongmen with the "they endorsed Christie!" attack.

[sabrina 1]

55. Good post, thank you.

And you are correct, now is the time to rid the NJ Dem Party of the betrayers, or pretenders. I'm inclined to agree with you that they are only Dems because they are in a Blue State. They should be very vulnerable now and it should be a good time to get some real Democrats, Progressive Dems to challenge them in primaries. I imagine Dem voters in NJ have had enough by now and are ready to vote for some actual Dems.

[Jim Lane]

15. Top blame to the NJ Democratic turncoats but plenty left over for national "leaders"

Obama, Clinton, et al. probably judged that Christie was a shoo-in and saw no reason to antagonize him.

[hrmjustin]

16. This is true. Plenty of blame to spread around.

[arthritisR_US]

30. That would be my take on it too, the whole bloody lot of them deserve the blame. nt

[okaawhatever]

21. No it's called being smart with your money and efforts. She was never promised support. You pick

candidates and races you can win. There wasn't a single poll that showed she could ever win no matter how much money or effort was put forth. She needs to take responsibility for the fact that a lot of people don't care for her personality either. Look at how close the Virginia races were. Do you think attention and money could have been diverted from that race with the same results?

[Bluenorthwest]

26. Democrats are a political Party that can look at an opponent who is trembling on the brink of

multiple corruption scandals and declare him to be super popular and impossible to defeat. What a bunch of chumps. Any national Democrat who had spoken strongly against Christie prior to the scandal would be harvesting very good press for that fact right now. As it is, Booker, Clinton and Biden look not only craven but barely committed to the Party as a whole.
So what happened was tacit and actual Democratic endorsements of a crook. Good stuff, smart choices!

[smokey nj]

33. Well said.

[okaawhatever]

41. What a bunch of malarky. Democrats can look at an opponent who is trembling on the brink of

multiple corruption scandals and declare him to be super popular and impossible to defeat? Who are you f$$kin kidding? When has that happened?

Please explain your comment. When has the Democratic party ever experienced what you just described?

[jeff47]

43. And you follow that strategy right into oblivion.

That is a strategy of gradually shrinking the places where you can "win" until there is nowhere left.

[Jim Lane]

48. I'm not saying empty the coffers in support of her, but at least show the flag.

I agree with you that, unfortunately, party leaders with limited resources have to prioritize and make tough decisions. It would make sense to spend a lot more DNC money in Virginia than in New Jersey. But when a popular Republican is running for re-election, and someone who's a credible candidate has stepped up to take on a race that all the other top Democrats in the state passed on, she deserves some level of support -- better than what Barbara Buono got.

For the entire 2013 campaign, was Hillary Clinton busy night and day doing Really Important Stuff, like working frantically for our Virginia candidates? According to Mapquest, the drive from Chappaqua to Newark (NJ's largest city) takes 70 minutes. (Admittedly, maybe longer on the return trip because it goes over the GWB.) She could've popped down here for a rally or a fundraiser.

Obama actually did come to New Jersey during the campaign. He was here in May to inspect post-Sandy rebuilding work. His post-Sandy joint appearance with Christie in the fall of 2012 helped each of them burnish a bipartisan image, so he should have at least taken the opportunity to do something for Buono, like a joint press conference. In fact, however, he wouldn't even meet with her.

You're right about what the polls were showing, but candidates have occasionally closed similar gaps. It's unlikely, but not completely impossible, that, for example, an Obama boost in May could have ignited a swing toward Buono that would have produced an upset. The only thing we can say for certain about a daunting task like closing Christie's lead in the polls is that the Democratic Party won't succeed in pulling off the upset if it doesn't even try. As Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

[sabrina 1]

56. Nonsense. You FIGHT for what you want. It's unbelievable that polls are driving elections now. NJ is

a BLUE STATE. They didn't even need any crossover votes to get their candidate elected IF they wanted a Progressive Dem rather than Corporist 'moderate' Republican.

What people are now concerned about is how many Republicans are being courted by the Dem Party, this isn't the first time, how many Republicans have been appointed, not elected, by this President to positions of power in his administration.

Christie WAS vulnerable. IF the Dem Party had wanted to win that election they could have done so. They question is why is the Dem Party supporting Republicans when the voters throw them out? And then the next question is, 'why vote for Dems if, once they get elected, (see the NJ Dems) they support Republicans and ignore the voters who put them there?

And if you think Democratic voters are not asking this question now, you haven't been paying attention.

[jsr]

3. There you have it.

[ProSense]

4. Why the

crickets to this OP?

She said she watched Mr. Christie’s 108-minute-long news conference on January 9 with her daughter but had a hard time sticking with it. “He is a fraud, a charlatan,” she said. (Mr. Christie’s office declined to respond.) And she confesses bewilderment about the national Democratic strategy of demanding Mr. Christie step down. “He should stay, right, there!” she said, smacking the table for emphasis. “Stand next to all these candidates who are running for governor in 2014. Of course they won’t stand next to him anymore. It is a little comical.”

She's right that Republicans are avoiding Christie, but his ass should be impeached and indicted.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Did Hillary mention Triangulation in her nice letter?

[cali]

6. Hillary does nothing that isn't calculated and calibrated to advance her chances of

being elected President and that's what she's always done.

She's a heaping helping of corporate candidate supreme.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

10. which is better than nominating someone like...who?

who else do you have in mind (ruling out anyone who has already said they officially endorse Hillary in 2016--such as Elizabeth Warren).

[cali]

14. I don't know. I'm looking at Martin O'Malley.

I don't understand why you think it's so important that people who recognize hillary as the corporate piece of... work that she is, have another candidate at this point. I've known since she voted for the IWR that I could never vote for her in a primary.

In any case, I actually don't think she'll ever be elected as President. Yes, I know that's a minority view.

[HappyMe]

17. Or Brian Schweitzer.

[Aerows]

22. No, he's got some weird issues

I'd like an O'Malley/Warren ticket far better than him.

[cali]

27. nope. really don't like or trust him.

[HappyMe]

58. I have changed my mind.

I looked into Schweitzer a bit more. I don't think he shouldn't toss his hat into the ring. The more, the merrier.

I think O'Malley would be a better candidate, and would vote for him in the primary.

[Aerows]

19. Martin O'Malley

can't bring him up often enough. He is a fantastic candidate.

[TheMathieu]

12. Getting Elected 101

Nothing nefarious about that, regardless of her policy stances.

[geek tragedy]

23. ugh, the 'calculating' talking point.

Yes, she thinks things through before taking action. really horrible quality in a person

[cali]

34. It's not a talking point. It's my opinion. And no, it's not about thinking things through

it's about doing things, not because she is sticking to a belief, but because she thinks it will help her land in the Oval Office.

[geek tragedy]

38. how did sending Buono a letter help advance her presidential ambitions? nt

[sabrina 1]

52. Really? In one of her most important decisions of her careeer, a life and death decision and there

no more important decision for an elected official than deciding on whether or not to take the country to war, she calculated that since she planned to run for president it would benefit her to vote FOR a war even morons like us, was totally based on lies.

No one who does that, either because they 'believed' Bush or because they were calculating, as it turned out once again, incorrectly, on their OWN political future rather than the lives that would be lost, is fit to be a leader. Which is why I have never supported her and never will. That vote made her unfit to make major decisions for this country.

[HappyMe]

7. Huh. So Clinton couldn't get a

'secret letter' together and help Buono out BEFORE the election.

Way to support women.

[TheMathieu]

13. It is unbecoming of her to keep up this whining.

If she can't accept responsibility for her own shortcomings, then she was never a candidate worth supporting.

[treestar]

18. This kind of thing only goes so far

Why would she have won or not depending on others? If a person is from NJ, they have the option of voting for the Democrat whether out of state Democrats do or say anything or nothing.

[geek tragedy]

20. You know what, stop whining Ms. Buono. You lost, and it's not Hillary's fault.

It's not Joe Biden's fault.

It's not Barack Obama's fault.

It's not Corey Booker's or Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's fault.

You didn't make the case against Christ Christie, Ms. Buono, according to the voters. The only reason you got the nomination is that no A or even B list candidates from the NJ Democratic party wanted it.

So, please shuddup already with the complaining when you were quite clearly never up to the task in the first place.

[hrmjustin]

24. good point!

[okaawhatever]

25. I'm with you on this one. She isn't a very likable candidate and her whining is only convincing me

that my initial assessment was correct.

[hrmjustin]

29. Her commercials were not good at all.

[asjr]

28. Those remarks will not help her if she

decides to run again for Governor. Did she reach out to them in the first place? She sounds a bit like Christie blaming someone else.

[BeyondGeography]

31. Buono isn't terribly smart, is she?

Zero upside here...a comment that can only hurt you.

[NOVA_Dem]

32. I think the Democratic Party took a knee as payback for Christie playing nice during Hurricane Sandy

[smokey nj]

35. That's what I think as well.

[okaawhatever]

37. I don't think so. I think it was an unwinnable race and the Dems knew the effort wouldn't have any

gains. Obama didn't need Christie to play nice after the storm. New Jersey went for Obama. If anything Christie was being nice to Obama to get the moderate Dems in NY and NJ to support him. Christie did benefit from being at the helm during a catastrophe. Same as Rudy Guiliani. His popularity soared in spite of all the horrific decisions he made before, during and after 9/11. He could do no wrong in the eyes of many.

[NOVA_Dem]

39. Every race is "unwinnable" when you don't put forth an effort.

This is more Rahm Emmanuel-esque "strategery" that Howard Dean complained about.

[okaawhatever]

44. No. When you have a finite amount of money and resources you use them for your greatest gain.

The national party faced that decision and made the best use of their resources. Buono simply wasn't a candidate who could win. Your quote from Dean does nothing to change that. A quick review of the numbers facing the national Democratic leadership:

The Rutgers-Eagleton poll found that 67 percent of registered voters now view Christie favorably — a 19 point jump from October.

"It’s unbelievable, frankly," David Redlawsk, the director of the poll, said. "I’ve never seen anything like it."

What’s more, 61 percent of all New Jersey adults said Christie’s performance made them more supportive of him. Even half of Democrats — 49 percent — said they view Christie favorably; last month, only 22 percent did.

Obama has a 61 percent favorability rating among the state’s registered voters — up from 56 percent in the last Rutgers-Eagleton poll, and 84 percent said he handled the crisis well.

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/11/gov_christies_approval_rating_1.html

Inside the Garden State, Christie's response to the storm was very well-received. His approval rating jumped up to a nearly unheard of 77 percent in one poll taken just after Sandy. (It was 56 percent before.) Another survey showed it at 72 percent. Christie's decision to tour storm damage with President Obama -- controversial among some Republicans given how close it was to Election Day -- was heartily welcomed by the heavily Democratic Garden State.
Christie went from a competitive bet for reelection to an overwhelming favorite. And he's never looked back.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/10/29/how-superstorm-sandy-became-chris-christies-defining-moment/

Christie has made few political missteps regarding his handling of the storm and even found ways to rebuff criticisms of his state's lack of preparedness, setting himself up for an easy re-election Nov. 5, where he leads his Democratic opponent by more about 26 points, according to a RealClearPolitics.com polling average, and bolstering a potential presidential bid in 2016.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/28/hurricane-sandy-blows-chris-christie-to-the-top-of-the-polls

[NOVA_Dem]

45. A more effective supporting argument would show the other races that the DNC had to spend money on.

Instead you put up polls showing that Christie was popular when the Dems abandoned their candidate and didn't support her financially or through campaigning.

[okaawhatever]

46. I shouldn't have to do that for someone who claims to be a Democrat. I think the races in Virginia

are an excellent example, though.

[NOVA_Dem]

47. So you looked and couldn't support your argument.

The ONLY other high profile election was Terry Mcaulife's (professional fundraiser) in an off year?

Why don't you go through my post history again to learn how to formulate an argument.

[Jim Lane]

51. That was part of it. The other part was not wanting to associate with a projected loser.

The standard political wisdom is that if a top Dem does something for Buono, and Buono loses anyway, then that defeat reflects badly on everyone who helped her.

For my part, it would work the other way. Anyone who was willing to lend support for a very uphill campaign against the vile Christie would have gone up in my estimation, regardless of the outcome.

[oldandhappy]

36. Why am I not impressed with this?

She can trash her state organization all she wants. The state Dems did or did not help her. The national figures are not responsible for organizing her campaign. And she just turned of a few of us.

[DonViejo]

42. I'm inclined to agree with you oldandhappy...

I've managed campaigns for candidates for City Council, State Rep, State Senate. the US Senate and for Governor; in every one of those elections, it was my responsibility to gather up endorsements. If I phoned someone, e.g., a former U.S. Senator to request his endorsement of my candidate, that former Senator's secretary would tell me if I needed to have my candidate phone the Senator and request the endorsement. That actually did happen on one occasion, the rest of the time I spoke with the potential endorsers and she or he would either say yes, or no. I'm kind of baffled by all of Ms Buono's complaints. Where was her campaign staff?

Also, does anyone know what other Gubernatorial campaigns either the President, Sec'y Clinton, the Veep or other national pols have interjected themselves into?

[Jefferson23]

40. The voters of New Jersey went with a Republican creep, again. The only demographic he lost

was the youth vote.

Wake up New Jersey and listen to your young.

[brooklynite]

49. Please share with us the support Buono received from Elizabeth Warren...or Bernie Sanders...

More Third Way sellouts, right?

[Smarmie Doofus]

57. Truth is, corporate DEM -types *liked* Christie. He's just like THEM.

And they still like him, politically.

(So do some people posting here.)

It's just that NOW it doesn't look so good.


And a lot of the local NJ DEMS are in on the gravy train. To maintain otherwise is to betray naiveté.


I think it's great that Buono's calling them out.

[Oilwellian]

59. It needs to be done if the party is to survive

The Third Way Dems are destroying the Democratic party. This story shines a bright light on that fact.