Keynote Preview?

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Christie addreses the dismal July jobs report, New Jersey Comeback

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FDU Poll: 55% of New Jersey voters approve of Christie but don’t know why

In the first poll conducted by their new Executive Director, Dr. Krista Jenkins, FDU’s Public Mind Poll found that 55% of New Jersey’s registered voters approve of Governor Chris Christie.  The electorate is divided over whether they like the governor for his personality or his policies.

36% say they like Christie and his policies, 29% don’t like him personally or his policies. 14% like his personally but don’t like his policies while another 14% like his policies but not his personality.

Christie suffers a gender gap.  61% of men approve of his performances compared to only 49% of women. 54% of men say the state is on the right track, compared to 44% of women.

FDU did not distinguish between registered voters and likely voters.

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He REALLY doesn’t want Romney to ask him to run for V.P.

Governor Chris Christie had a SITUATION in Seaside Heights last night.

He exchanged harsh words with a heckler on the boardwalk and pursued his taunter who preferred to keep walking rather than engaging in a confrontation with the ice cream cone wielding executive.

Someone recorded the exchange and sent the video to TMZ.

The Governor’s office has yet to comment.

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Christie: SCOTUS confirmed what we knew all along–ObamaCare is a tax

Governor Chris Christie issued the following statement about the Supreme Court’s decision on ObamaCare:

“I’ve been clear from the very beginning that I do not believe a one-size-fits-all health care program works for the entire country and that each governor should have the ability to make decisions about what works best for their state. Today’s Supreme Court decision is disappointing and I still believe this is the wrong approach for the people of New Jersey who should be able to make their own judgments about health care. Most importantly, the Supreme Court is confirming what we knew all along about this law – it is a tax on middle class Americans.”

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We’re Still with You, Mr. Governor

By Matt Rooney, cross posted from SaveJersey

Governor Chris Christie took his tax fight to a standing-room-only town hall crowd in Brick Township (Ocean County) yesterday afternoon.

And at that Brick gathering, my dear Save Jerseyans, we caught a welcome glimpse of the no-nonsense style of politics that quickly transformed Chris Christie into a national figure; you’ll likely remember his viral warning to beachgoers in the run-up to Hurricane Irene:
 

Surely, the contrast between Christie and Corzine in Election ’09 couldn’t have been clearer. I was proud to have been one of his earliest and most vocal grassroots supporters. I still am.

But what is our state party’s winning contrast with the liberal legislature right now in this ongoing budget fight?

I’m with MMM‘s Art Gallagher on this one, Save Jerseyans. There is no meaningful contrast.

Read the rest of this entry »

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APP wants to know: Why no action on Lakewood?

Because The Asbury Park Press Is No Longer Relevant

The Asbury Park Press is outraged that Governor Chris Christie did not make the problems of the Lakewood school system a primary topic of his town hall meeting in Freehold yesterday.  The Neptune Nudniks are also upset that Congressman Chris Smith hasn’t returned their calls for comment or held a press conference about the Lakewood schools since the paper and pay site ran their series CHEATED about the problems in Lakewood schools last week.

Christie spent much, if not most, of his town hall meeting yesterday talking about education reform.  His focus was on tenure reform as a way to improve results in our failing urban schools and to stop paying “a Kings Ransom for failure” by flushing 15% of the state’s tax dollars into failing schools as New Jersey has done for decades.

If ever there was evidence that The Asbury Park Press has become irrelevant, it is their heavily promoted Cheated series, yesterday’s town hall meeting, combined with today’s rants by the Nudniks that Christie and Smith are not paying attention to them.

Why didn’t Christie talk about Lakewood yesterday to hundreds of residents in the APP’s coverage area?   Because no one asked him.  The governor was talking about education.  The APP had just finished a “special series” on the Lakewood schools.  Not one person in the audience of the town hall made the connection and asked the governor a question about Lakewood.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Good reading

Why Do They Want to Pick on Ann Romney?

Karin McQuillan, a retired psychotherapist and author who served in the Peace Corps in Senegal, writes at American Thinker that Hillary Rosen’s recent rant that Ann Romey never worked a day he her life is part of the Obama political strategy rooted in the politics of envy.  Worse, she says the strategy is deeply rooted in Obama’s psyche as a result of his upbringing.

I guess that’s a theory that one would expect from a psychotherapist.  McQuillan makes a fascinating case.

A FUNNY GAME OF TABLE TENNIS

Closer to home, our friends at InTheLobby have a hilarious account of how Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni turned the table on U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg during the senator’s hearing this week over the fairness of toll increases and patronage at PA.

Turns out that Lautenberg as a former commissioner of the PA he had a free EZ pass for decades and didn’t pay tolls from 1978 through 2006 when the PA stopped issuing free EZ passes to cronies.

Regarding patronage, a former Lautenberg campaign staffer joined PA in 2002, and U.S. Senator Bob Menendez’s son is an intern at PA now.

West Virginia U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller came to Lautenberg’s defense.  New Jersey Democrats have been silent, just as they were during Lautenberg’s dust up with State Senate President Steve Sweeney and George Norcross over the Rutgers-Rowan merger earlier this month.

The InTheLobby piece quotes The Asbury Park Press and The Star Ledger.

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Christie’s “Condesending” Message

“I’ve never seen a less optimistic time, in my lifetime, in this courtry.  And people wonder why. I think it’s really simple.  It’s because government’s telling them stop dreaming, stop striving, we’ll take care of you.  We are turning into a paternalistic entitlement society…”

“….more importantly, there will be more money, more hope, more aspirations, in the hearts of our children and grandchildren than there are today.  And that’s what will make the 21st century the second American century.  That more than anything else, will allow the United States to export hope, and liberty and freedom around the world.  Not by just saying but by living it everyday in the way we conduct ourselves and in the way we govern ourselves.”

~Governor Chris Christie

Chris Christie believes that unrestrained by oppressive and “paternalistic” government, that ordinary people can and will live lives of accomplishment.

Tom Moran, that sanctimonious polyhistor responsible for The Star Ledger’s editorial page, thinks that makes Christie conceded.

The Asbury Park Press editorial board,  the Nudniks of Neptune who have fewer orginal thoughts that Joe Biden, agrees with Moran.

Christie made his remarks at a George W. Bush Presidential Center gathering in New York on Tuesday, April 10.  Moran posted his rant calling the governor’s message “condescending” early yesterday morning, the 12th.  The Nudniks followed yesterday evening calling Christie’s message “hectoring,” “insulting” and “condescending.”

The editorialists of New Jersey’s two largest news outlets must be appalled by Christie’s soaring popularity. 

It was the content of Christie’s remarks in between the two phrases I quoted above that got to the liberal regressive pundits.  Without naming the president, Christie had the audacity to point out that the Obama agenda has not resulted in hope, but in pessimism.  That if it continues we will be financially and morally bankrupt, waiting for the check to show up rather than striving for bigger checks.

Here’s what Christie said, unfiltered by the bias of Moran, the Nudniks or MMM:

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Codey’s running for Governor

Star Ledger photo

Former Acting Governor Richard Codey’s media stunt guised as an undercover investigation into the plight of homeless men in Newark is a sure sign that the author/insurance salesman/funeral director/legislator will be a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination next year.

Codey’s investigation was so “undercover” that he invited The Star Ledger to photograph him getting made up for his 9PM visit to Newark’s Goodwill Mission last night.   Codey appeared on Good Day New York and the John Gambling radio show this morning to get free media talk about the findings of his investigation.  Those TV and radio producers move fast!

Codey tweeted about his appearances and make up this morning.

Codey’s investigation revealed that homeless men are turned away from shelters if they are not on welfare.  If they are on welfare, they have to turn over their checks if they want to spend the night.  Codey is not on welfare.  He should have offered his watch.

While Codey’s stunt will do more for his political prospects than for Newark’s homeless, he did prove that he doesn’t need the taxpayer funded security detail he was enjoying before Governor Christie canceled it last December.

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