Let's go ahead and stipulate that Chris Christie has demonstrated multiple times that he is probably not temperamentally suited for the White House, or even a Senate seat. He's an asshole who enjoys being an asshole; you don't even have to get into any cheap "throwing his weight around" shots to make such a point, there's no shortage of YouTube clips attesting to this.
That doesn't mean Christie's a bad governor or even a bad guy. His love for his state and its people seems palpable. In fact, Christie's passion for pretty much everything he talks about is his major selling point. He loves Springsteen more than you or I will ever love just about anything in life, and there's something to be said for that. And his ability and willingness to run athwart fellow goopers makes him more appealing to non-Republicans / conservatards.
No doubt Bridget Kelly, the senior aide whose unfortunate email commentary got her unceremoniously dumped, got a decent severance package out of it, presumably with a non-disclosure agreement of a year or three. There might even be some folks out there who genuinely believe that Christie was completely out of the loop on jamming up the GW Bridge going into Fort Lee.
In the end, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks about Christie, since he almost certainly will not be the GOP nominee in 2016. There is also a chance, lesser but still possible, that Hillary Clinton, who will turn 69 shortly before Election Day 2016, may not be the Democratic nominee. But the Republicans are going through an identity crisis, indeed something of an ideological implosion. The only thing keeping them alive in the House is a comical level of gerrymandering.
Christie is the media's current flavor of what a leading Republican candidate should "be" like -- a Republican governor of a Democratic state who polls high, likable for the most part, unafraid to buck party orthodoxy, gives "good head," in the journo sense that he's almost always going to be more quotable than the next guy. But he's also the crack-free version of Rob Ford, in a sense, because he is so insistent on never taking shit from anyone and always having the last word, it becomes a pattern, a defining characteristic.
Christie's bulk, fair or not, doesn't help him either -- in such a heavily driven media age, a short or fat person is simply not going to do well, and Christie is both those things. It's not just the "Secretary of Cake" jokes either; like aging cancer survivor John McCain in 2008, an obese candidate in his 50s is going to receive extra scrutiny as to his running mate, the implication being that succession planning is of utmost importance. Again, fairness is not a consideration here, it's just the way things are.
Even if Christie were to change his attitude and drop a hundred pounds tomorrow, the thing is that the media get tired of their pets after a while, and now that Christie's bumptious Everyman schtick has been found to have a vindictive, petty side, that's the tack they're going to take. His reputation may be shot before we hit midterms later this year, much less 2016.
The kneejerk conservatard response, as you might guess, is Benghazi. Because of course it is. In this instance, however, there may actually be a pebble of wisdom buried in their dross, in that it behooves Democrats and or liberals to just let this thing run its natural course, and leave it until they need it, as opposed to bringing it up at every cocktail party and neighborhood barbecue, as the 'baggers do with Benghazi. Somehow they have talked themselves into Benghazi as if it were Pearl Harbor or 9/11 (well, it did happen on September 11th), and cannot fathom why everyone is slowly backing away from them. It's one thing to make a molehill into a mountain, but quite another to build a cabin on said mountain and refuse to leave.
Also, too.
That doesn't mean Christie's a bad governor or even a bad guy. His love for his state and its people seems palpable. In fact, Christie's passion for pretty much everything he talks about is his major selling point. He loves Springsteen more than you or I will ever love just about anything in life, and there's something to be said for that. And his ability and willingness to run athwart fellow goopers makes him more appealing to non-Republicans / conservatards.
No doubt Bridget Kelly, the senior aide whose unfortunate email commentary got her unceremoniously dumped, got a decent severance package out of it, presumably with a non-disclosure agreement of a year or three. There might even be some folks out there who genuinely believe that Christie was completely out of the loop on jamming up the GW Bridge going into Fort Lee.
In the end, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks about Christie, since he almost certainly will not be the GOP nominee in 2016. There is also a chance, lesser but still possible, that Hillary Clinton, who will turn 69 shortly before Election Day 2016, may not be the Democratic nominee. But the Republicans are going through an identity crisis, indeed something of an ideological implosion. The only thing keeping them alive in the House is a comical level of gerrymandering.
Christie is the media's current flavor of what a leading Republican candidate should "be" like -- a Republican governor of a Democratic state who polls high, likable for the most part, unafraid to buck party orthodoxy, gives "good head," in the journo sense that he's almost always going to be more quotable than the next guy. But he's also the crack-free version of Rob Ford, in a sense, because he is so insistent on never taking shit from anyone and always having the last word, it becomes a pattern, a defining characteristic.
Christie's bulk, fair or not, doesn't help him either -- in such a heavily driven media age, a short or fat person is simply not going to do well, and Christie is both those things. It's not just the "Secretary of Cake" jokes either; like aging cancer survivor John McCain in 2008, an obese candidate in his 50s is going to receive extra scrutiny as to his running mate, the implication being that succession planning is of utmost importance. Again, fairness is not a consideration here, it's just the way things are.
Even if Christie were to change his attitude and drop a hundred pounds tomorrow, the thing is that the media get tired of their pets after a while, and now that Christie's bumptious Everyman schtick has been found to have a vindictive, petty side, that's the tack they're going to take. His reputation may be shot before we hit midterms later this year, much less 2016.
The kneejerk conservatard response, as you might guess, is Benghazi. Because of course it is. In this instance, however, there may actually be a pebble of wisdom buried in their dross, in that it behooves Democrats and or liberals to just let this thing run its natural course, and leave it until they need it, as opposed to bringing it up at every cocktail party and neighborhood barbecue, as the 'baggers do with Benghazi. Somehow they have talked themselves into Benghazi as if it were Pearl Harbor or 9/11 (well, it did happen on September 11th), and cannot fathom why everyone is slowly backing away from them. It's one thing to make a molehill into a mountain, but quite another to build a cabin on said mountain and refuse to leave.
Also, too.
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