Chris Christie is falling apart: His hilarious 2016 hubris finally takes its toll

[DonViejo]

As a new report finds him looking at '16 general election, he loses a top supporter and polls show him fading fast

JOAN WALSH

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is sinking fast. Yet another national poll finds that his 2016 hopes are fading, as he falls from first to third place among likely GOP presidential contenders in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, and 20 points behind Hillary Clinton. Like earlier polls, this one finds that Christie is losing his best attribute for 2016: his wide appeal with Democrats and independents.

Now comes another blow: he’s lost the Ron Fournier primary. A year-ago the centrist National Journal reporter, long a Christie promoter, wrote that “the smartest man in politics may be Chris Christie.” Today he writes: “I take it back,” in a piece headlined “Why I Was Wrong About Chris Christie.” While taking no stand on Christie’s direct culpability in the scandals erupting around him, Fournier says they show that “Christie ran a hyper-political governor’s office that focused relentlessly on a big re-election win to position him for a 2016 presidential race.”

Fournier comes a little late to that news, but he’s got a lot of company: If you didn’t believe Christie was trying to run up the score in his 2013 re-election campaign you weren’t paying attention. Why else would he spend millions of taxpayer dollars to hold a special election for senator, won by Democrat Cory Booker, in October, rather than Election Day in November, except to ensure himself a lop-sided if low-turnout victory?

But the extent to which Christie and his team went to run up his re-election numbers, especially among Democrats, is pretty amazing, as detailed by a gripping New York Times piece, “For Christie, politics team kept the focus on two races” – his 2013 re-election, and the 2016 presidential race. Fascinatingly, in this telling at least, Christie’s group was hugely focused on the 2016 general election, with a statewide strategy that focused on towns it termed “mini-Ohios” and “mini-Floridas,” swing districts often led by Democrats. The piece also details the effort the team made to woo Democratic mayors, brazenly coordinating state aid and development decisions with pitches for Christie endorsements.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/30/chris_christie_is_falling_apart_his_hilarious_2016_hubris_finally_takes_its_toll/

[onehandle]

1. I have Always viewed him as a step up from a Trump type candidate.

An entertaining character actor that has zero chance of winning an Oscar.

Long ago I predicted he would not go the distance after being put under a microscope.

Little did I know that the naked eye would kill him this early and quickly.

[global1]

2. My Term For This Is "Chrismet"..... nt

[yellowcanine]

3. But the 2016 is years away so it doesn't matter! Americans will forget!

As long as nothing else comes out, oh, never mind..........recalculating!

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. And deservedly so!

[ailsagirl]

5. This disaster is of his own making

I am glad to discover his thoroughly corrupt practices are seeing the light of day.

Well-deserved!!


With apologies to Lord Acton:

Power corrupts those who are corruptible

(Not everyone with power is corrupt, although I would guess the majority are)

Just my two cents

[olegramps]

6. I absolutely didn't like him before. Thank God that he has been exposed.

People were deceived not only by him, but most importantly by the Main Stream Media. The Fourth Estate is just as corrupt as the slimy politicians they protect and promote. They are a spineless as jellyfish and are nothing more that propagandists for the plutocrats who own them body and soul.

[calimary]

13. Proud to say I'm with you! I was with you before, too! I never liked this creep.

I was never taken in by his "plain-talk" crap. I found him to be a bully a long time ago and I found that - and him - tremendously off-putting. I never understood what this big fawning romance was that too many people supposedly had for this individual. "Oh, sigh!!! How fucking adorable he is! He speaks his mind! That's the REAL "straight talk"! I just LUV him!"

Not in the LEAST!!!! I thought he was crude, mean-spirited, smug, crass, a lout, a bully, and way too busy throwing his weight around - FIGURATIVELY, that is. I do not like in-yer-face. The closest I come to finding it in any way palatable is Alan Grayson.

[olegramps]

14. The MSM spewed that bunch of crap. They and the politicians have been bought.

Anyone who watched that horses ass attack person after person who questioned him and then gave him a free pass is brain dead. The press totally ignored the draconian measures that he took to crush educators and give the millionaires and corporations colossal tax breaks. He is just another evil bastard Republican that is intent on enslaving the working class.

[tblue37]

21. Remember how much in love with McCain the reporters on his so-called "Straight Talk Express"

bus were. They did everything they could to glorify him as a candidate until the McCain-MSM romance finally started to sour a bit in 2008. He schmoozed them and flattered them, and they just ate it up.

I think that the (largely male) press corps gets these bromances going with guys like McCain and Christie, and what Britt Hume calls their "guy's guy" quality (mostly just macho posturing) is a large part of the appeal they have to the guys on the bus.

[rustbeltvoice]

7. about this fellow

It was apparent in Christie's keynote 'speech' for Romney at their convention, that Christie was auditioning for a 2016 coronation.

For those who were reading progressive friendly articles in 2009 it was apparent that Christie was a 'S. of a B.'.

Now, he is a conservative. In the current Republican party, that term does not have one of the dictionary meanings. That word here and now is very close to crazed. Christie is not crazed, he is mean, he is arrogant, but not crazed; so he became the only prominent Republican that was not this crazed 'conservative'. Hubris has kicked in, and he is falling. So is Humpty-Dumpty going to splat when the fall is complete?

Perhaps the worst point is that his manner of governance did not come fully public a fortnight before election.

[calimary]

17. Yeah, they read that as a riff on President Obama's success.

You give the keynote speech on year one. Four years later, POOF! You're in the White House. Well, that's not a rock-solid guaranteed formula for success. It happened to happen to Barack Obama. But as so many radio promoters have said to me - that was a unique situation of "lightening in a bottle." JUST BECAUSE you get picked to give the convention keynote speech does NOT mean you're guaranteed the Oval Office. You just become a member of the "POSSIBLY most likely to succeed" club. They forgot about that. Just because Obama did it - and did make that jump, the bad guys assume that's simply the way to go.

But that feeds into their republi-CON sense of entitlement. I call it the World's Biggest Entitlement Program - that they feel they're ENTITLED to rule, ENTITLED to occupy the White House. Look at her ladyship ann of dressage if you have any doubts. She felt ENTITLED to be given the keys to the White House. It was simply their turn, and don't "you people" understand that?????

[rustbeltvoice]

18. Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton gave a boring keynote speech that would not end, which so tired out his audience that it fed comedians. Johnny Carson ribbed him so hard that Bill asked to go on the show. He did, he played a little saxophone, and he became president, thereafter. Clinton went on to give longer speeches at future conventions.

[Beacool]

20. Bill Clinton is the best politician alive today, he's the master of the game.

Even his enemies admit as much. So his ascent was not just about one overlong convention speech.

[karynnj]

23. He sometimes is - and sometimes is horrible

He was a major media favorite in 1992 - and because of that got passes when things came up that would have killed less favored candidates (think Gary Hart).

As to best politician alive, Bill Clinton was part of the reason that HRC lost in 2008. I think that the best politician is very likely Obama, who managed to take away the nomination that seemed HRC's for the asking.

[Beacool]

24. I disagree.

I think Clinton is still the best.

[libdem4life]

8. I can't understand his wife...she beams at him like she adores him and it's not fake. She has the

prettiest smile, too. Now there's a family about to hit some hard times. His kids will have a hard time. He's surely not down and out, but he'll have to lay low and take what he can get, IMO. Being a pariah isn't a Resume Entry.

[demwing]

11. She probably sees him as he was

back when he was still 1/2 the man he is now (literally):

[libdem4life]

12. Well, now you put it that way...

[Brigid]

16. I think her smile is really creepy.

Kinda Stepfordish.

[libdem4life]

22. Yeah, that too. A bit over the top, but it doesn't seem fake.

Course it may be saying, "OMG keep your day job, honey." Seems she works in finance. He bribes them and she gets their investment account commissions.

[blkmusclmachine]

9. DC DEMS like to help out the GOP. Let's see what they can do for CC.

[Cha]

10. So sad.. the fake Benghazi "scamdal" didn't stick to Hillary or PBO but,

GWBgate and HobokenGate among various other real scandals have.

"So sad" for Crispy Christie that is!

"...he’s lost the Ron Fournier primary. A year-ago the centrist National Journal reporter.." I beg to differ with Joan Walsh. When I see "Ron Fournier" I think bush-cheney water carrier or shit carrier as the case happened to be. Unless he changed when I wasn't looking?

Yeah, fuck New Jersey.. “Christie ran a hyper-political governor’s office that focused relentlessly on a big re-election win to position him for a 2016 presidential race.”

From your link.. this part gives so much cred to Mayor Zimmer's version of events unfolding..

"After spring rains put much of Hoboken under water again, Zimmer attended a meeting she thought was to discuss aid to deal with her city’s ongoing flood problems. But in addition to officials from the New Jersey Department of Environment Protection, the meeting included representatives of the Rockefeller Group as well as Christie state development officials, and moving ahead with the Rockefeller project was the top agenda item. It was a few days later that Zimmer says Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno told her more Sandy aid was conditioned on the development-skeptical mayor approving the Rockefeller Group’s plans."

thanks DV

Mayor Dawn Zimmer is telling the truth and Christie and guadagno are sociopathic liars trying to save their careers and freedom from prison.

[olegramps]

15. I couldn't love this more. He is a genuine a-hole.

[Lysistrada]

19. Yes, he is the gunuine, first class, cream of the crop asshole

He defines.."asshole" and "bully"