Our friends at Politickernj have gone old school in the new media age. They are using a long abandoned journalistic tool to find out what their subjects are really thinking: Alcohol.
Last week Max Pizarro got some tipsy Democrats to reveal what they really think of President Obama:
“But I’m at the point with Barack Obama where I don’t like him,” the source added – then whispering under the bar buzz – “I hate him.”
“He’s not a leader,” a second high-powered Democrat groaned. “Say what you want about Christie, but he knows how to wield power. Barack doesn’t.”
“He’s very thin-skinned,” said the source. “He can’t deal with criticism, that’s why he’s going to Africa with his family on a safari. Is he nuts? A safari in this economy?”
The Democrats Pizarro drank with think Obama is still a lock to win New Jersey’s 14 electoral college votes handily next year. That is the conventional thinking. However, I bet those same Democrats thought in 2008 that the equally disliked Jon Corzine was a lock for reelection.
Turning their attention to New Jersey gubernatorial politics, Politickernj’sBack Room got blank stares from two “Democratic Party bigshots” drinking on condition of anonymity when asked to speculate who would challenge Governor Christie in 2013.
Newark Mayor Corey Booker? “Newark is too much of a wreck,” and “his time has come and gone.” Congressman Bill Pascrell? Would have been great “ten years ago.” Senator Barbara Buono? “We need someone outside of Trenton,” like Christie was in 2009.
Looking outside of Trenton, the drinking Democrats see Congressmen Frank Pallone and Rush Holt:
“If Frank gets banged up in redistrcting he may be the best guy to do it,” said the first source. “He’d be ticked enough, angry enough, he could easily unite the progressive wing of the party. He’s got the money. Obviously, he has no strong friends among the bosses. That could be a problem. The question goes to whether he would want to be governor. I’ve always heard his primary interest is senator.”
MMM hereby throws its unequivocal support behind Pallone for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2013. We’d love to see him get “banged up” in redistricting….like putting Long Branch into Chris Smith’s district…setting up a race between the two most senior members of the New Jersey congressional delegation that Smith would win easily, assuming Pallone chose to compete. Given the choice of running against Smith for congress or retiring and launching a gubernatorial bid, we think Pallone would challenge Christie. After losing his first statewide race against Christie, Pallone could launch his 2014 U.S. Senate campaign, assuming Frank Lautenberg retires again.
Holt for Governor? We hope those guys had a designated driver.
“Yes, I admit he’s not the world’s greatest speaker, but he’s gotten better,” said the second source. “Plus, he’s a good campaigner. Rolls up his sleeves. He gets it. He realized he had a legitimate challenge from Scott Sipprelle (last year), and he rose to the occasion.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo are both being hailed in the media for the “landmark” legislation they were able to get passed by their respective legislatures last week. Christie got his pension and benefits compromise passed and Cuomo led New York into becoming the sixth state in the nation to give homosexuals the right to marry.
In what could be considered a level of dissatisfaction with the current field of 2012 presidential candidates, including President Obama, there is now a media buzz about both Christie and Cuomo competing for their respective party nominations for President in 2016.
While Christie and Cuomo have put together similar records of bringing fiscal discipline to their state’s budgets and pension systems, the two governors part ways over gay marriage. Christie says he believes that marriage should remain between one man and one woman and points to the Democrats inability to pass a marriage equality law during the lame duck session in 2009-2010 when they controlled both the legislature and Governor’s office.
Besides gay marriage, the other big difference between Christie and Cuomo is how use the media.
Christie is all over the national media…Piers Morgan on CNN two weeks ago, the Today Show last week, Meet The Press yesterday, MSNBC, Fox and Friends and Imus today, followed by Steve Malzberg on 710 AM radio and his monthly NJ 101.5 Ask The Governor gig tomorrow.
Cuomo has taken the exact opposite approach. He told his staff not to discuss or speculate about his presidential ambitions and has turned down most requests for interviews from both the national and New York media during his first six months in office, according to Fredric U. Dicker writing in the New York Post:
Cuomo ordered his staff not to discuss or even speculate on the possibility that he harbors presidential ambitions.
He also directed his aides to turn down invitations to appear on several high-profile national news shows to discuss gay marriage, believing the media would turn them into discussions of a possible presidential campaign, administration insiders said.
“He’s seen this dance before, with his father,” said a source close to Cuomo, referring to former Gov. Mario Cuomo’s flirtation with a presidential run in 1992.
“It’s distracting and possibly destructive to a governor, and you have to shut it down immediately, immediately, because it will begin to fuel itself if you don’t.”
Cuomo has repeatedly turned down most requests for interviews by national and New York news outlets during his first six months in office, but interest exploded following Friday night’s gay-marriage vote.
“The governor also views the speculation as disrespectful to the position of governor, and it would make the governor look like just another politician looking to take the next step on the ladder, which is not the case,” the source said.
We’ve seen the Christie for President in 2012 or 2016 buzz fuel itself and be encouraged by the Governor.
When was the last time you saw a national TV interview with Mitch Daniels? Daniels withdrew from consideration for the GOP 2012 nomination and hasn’t been heard from on a national level since. Christie has repeatedly denied any interest in the 2012 race, saying he’s not ready. Yet Christie and the national media can’t get enough of each other.
Christie doesn’t see the national attention as being a distraction from his job. He’s made it part of his job. Christie’s probably the most televised governor in New Jersey history. And he hasn’t done a “Perfect Together” tourism commercial.
One thing I’ve come to believe about Christie since I started observing him in early 2009 is that he always has a purpose and a plan. Even when he speaks off the cuff, he’s on purpose and forwarding his plan.
Christie and his team are too smart to believe that all the attention he is getting now will have an impact in 2016. If he’s not running for President now, as he insists, what could his purpose be in fueling all the national media attention?
Since the “chopper gate” story hit the fan last week, The Record’s Charles Stile has been gleefully making the case that the media and partisan noise about Governor Christie’s use of the State Police helicopter has been so ferocious because of “smash mouth” style. Stile, and other NJ media elites, have cited two recent polls, both taken before the chopper hullabaloo, that showed Christie’s approval ratings slipping as evidence that his style is wearing thin on New Jersey voters.
Stile has noted correctly that the chopper noise has been so harsh, despite the facts that Christie’s use of helicopter has been far more frugal than that of his predecessors and that his use of the chopper didn’t cost taxpayers anymore money than if he had traveled by SUV, because of Christie’s “in your face” plain spoken style. Christie’s political opponents and their media lapdogs have been laying in wait for an opportunity bash him back.
Stile has joined The Star Ledger’s Tom Moran in arguing that Christie should be nicer and more polite while turning Trenton upside down. Stile and Moran would have Christie’s compromising more and reforming less.
The irony here, from my point of view, is that over the last few months Christie has been nicer and more compromising. He’s toned it down. His opponents have subsequently stepped it up.
Maybe Christie’s poll numbers have slipped because he’s toned it down. Last spring he was railing against the NJEA and urging voters to defeat school budgets where unions wouldn’t compromise. Voters responded by defeating budgets in record numbers. Christie’s polls were strong. This spring Christie was silent on the school budgets.
Is there no more waste in our public schools? Has the the problem of excessive compensation, pensions and benefits been solved?
Since the GOP lost the legislative redistricting battle, Christie and Senate President Steve Sweeney announced a compromise over Supreme Court nominee Anne Patterson’s nomination that had been held up for a year. Part of the compromise included a promise by Sweeney that a hearing to fill the Court seat of former Justice John Wallace, which has been vacant for a year because Sweeney didn’t like that Christie did not reappoint Wallace, would take place next March. By making that agreement Christie acknowledged that Sweeney would still be Senate President in March, meaning Republicans are not going to win control of the State Senate in the coming election.
That the Democrats will retain control of the Legislature after the November election is probably realistic calculus on Christie’s part. He probably made a strategic decision that he can get more of his agenda accomplished by compromising than by fighting. That might be the best decision, but it also means that New Jersey will only have incremental improvement to our dysfunctional governments, rather than real reform…turning Trenton upside down reform…for the rest of Christie’s term.
I’d rather have the confrontational governor we elected. Even if it means stalemates and the shutting down of government, I’d rather Christie ridicule and embarrass the Trenton cesspool than compromise with it. Christie has only been in office less than 18 months. The cesspool has spent decades putting us into the mess we’re in.
As a matter of style, the chopper hullabaloo demonstrates that the media/establishment cesspool is not going to respond to a kinder, gentler Christie in kind. As a matter of substance, today’s news that the Democrats are going to attempt to increase education spending more than the Supreme Court has ordered and increase income taxes, demonstrates that the cesspool will always try to maintain and protect the status quo that makes them fat at the taxpayers’ expense.
Christie came into office promising to govern as if he only had one term to get the job done and without consideration for whether or not he’d be re-elected. Since then he has admittedly fallen in love with the job and become enamoured with national attention and presidential wooing his in your face style has brought to him.
Christie’s “in your face” style works. His adjustments should be by adding humor and charm to his ridicule, like Reagan did, not by compromising and being more polite.
If Christie has concluded that he has accomplished all he can in New Jersey with confrontation, he should get ready quickly and run for President. New Jersey and the United States both face horrendously serious problems. Compromise and tinkering around the edges of a broken system will not do.
We need Chris Chirstie’s unabashed leadership in New Jersey and in America. As Christie advised the new Republican leadership in Washington, we need to put up or shut up.
Governor Christie spoke at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University earlier this month. The final question of the evening was asked by Linda Sipprelle, mother of Lincoln Club President and former congressional candidate Scott Sipprelle. Linda didn’t really ask a question. She told the Governor how she would love for him to be President.
Christie’s response was perhaps his most comprehensive answer to date as to why he continues to reject the calls for him to run for President and to why he keeps entertaining the question.
At the time of this posting, the video of Christie’s answer has only been viewed 46 times. It really should go viral.
Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain is the top choice for the GOP nomination for President, according to an IBOPE Zogby poll released yesterday. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is second.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s standing among GOP voters improved in this latest Zogby poll which was conducted May 20-May 23. In the previous poll conducted May 6-9, 27% of the respondents said they would never vote for Romney. Only 9% said they would never vote for Romney in the more recent poll.
37% of the respondents believe Romney is most likely to be the nominee. No one else gets more than 6%.
Christie does best in a match-up with Obama, but trails, 45%-44%. Obama leads both Romney and Tim Pawlenty by 45%-40%. Obama is ahead of Cain, 46%-38%.
Declaring that no candidates in the current field of Republicans can beat President Obama in 2012, this morning Donald Trump told Fox and Friends that he wouldn’t rule out reentering the race for the GOP nomination for president.
Personally, I think Trump left the race too soon and that his presence in the campaign was positive.
Trump’s unique position in American culture as an accomplished business leader and an entertainment celebrity gives him a voice and a platform from which to criticise the President that no one else can match. Unlike other candidates who could be politically damaged by counter attacks by the Obama campaign and the main stream media, Trump gets stronger and his stature elevated by the counter attacks. He really is biggest threat currently to Obama’s reelection.
By leaving the door open to enter the race late, Trump has taken back the platform he gave up when he said he wasn’t going to run. I hope he keeps using it to weaken the President politically.
The Christie for President buzz has the Obama campaign doing opposition research on the Governor, according to Josh Margolin at The New York Post.
The Corzine campaign already did that. They found that Christie likes Haagen Daz, has received traffic tickets, doesn’t stay at Motel 6 when traveling on government business, and ripped the label off a mattress.
Margolin reports that well-heeled GOP donors in New York are spreading the word that Christie might enter the race if he can get part of his pension reform package passed and score a GOP takeover of one of the Democratically controlled houses of the legislature.
Given the new legislative map, there’s a better chance that Christie will beat Carl Lewis in a 100 yard dash than there is that he will run for president.
In an email to supporters sent early this morning, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said he would not enter the race for the GOP nomination for president, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The two term governor who worked for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush said his decision came down to family concerns:
“I was able to resolve every competing consideration but one, but that, the interests and wishes of my family, is the most important consideration of all,” he said in an e-mail sent after midnight.
Daniels and his wife Cheri divorced in 1993 and remarried in 1997. During those four years Cheri married a California man. The Daniels’ four daughters, now adults, remained in Indiana with there father. The Governor issued an other statement this morning to the Indianapolis Star this morning defending his wife against growing media scrutiny into their marriage, divorce, remarriage, and the claims by some that Cheri abandoned her daughters during their split:
“The notion that Cheri ever did or would ‘abandon’ her girls or parental duty is the reverse of the truth,” said his statement.
He called the idea “absurd to anyone who knows her, as I do, to be the best mother any daughter ever had.”
With Daniels out of the race, many observers expect the national Republican establishment to step up their efforts to recruit New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to seek the nomination. Christie has repeatedly declared that he will not be a candidate while at the same time establishing himself as a national leader for education reform, entitlement reform and reducing the size of government.
Daniels withdrawal will also increase the focus on former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman. Huntsman, who was President Obama’s ambassador to China, is on a five day tour of New Hampshire. He delivered the commencement address at Southern New Hampshire University and has made 12 campaign style stops throughout the Granite State.
If Huntsman formally enters the presidential race, for the first time two Mormons would be competing for a major party nomination. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the leader in most polls for the GOP nomination, is also a Mormon.
The Donald announced that he won’t be a candidate for President and that he will continue as the star and co-producer of Celebrity Apprentice raising “lots and lots of money for charity.”
He then said he would have won the Oval Office had he run.
With Trump and Mike Huckabee both out, the race for the 2012 GOP nomination will be a lot less entertaining. Time will tell if that is good or bad. Entertaining gets people to pay attention.
I don’t believe Trump was ever serious about seeking the nomination. Yet I liked the role he was playing. He, more than anyone was able to lay a glove on Obama. He got under the candidate in chief’s skin. Taking politically incorrect positions actually helped Trump’s agenda. He created room for “real” candidates to take on the President.
If he had his druthers I think Trump would have played the gadfly through the summer. But NBC needed to let their affiliates know if Celebrity Apprentice was going to be back on the air in the fall. The Donald made the business decision he was always going to make.
Hopefully Trump will continue to speak out. He can do the country a service positioning himself as a conservative counter punch to Michael Moore and his ilk.
