The Associated Press is reporting that a group of Iowa Republican fundraisers is coming to New Jersey this month with the purpose of recruiting Governor Chris Christie into the race for the 2012 presidential nomination.
Bruce Rastetter, Iowa entrepeneur and GOP fundraiser
The group, is led by Bruce Rastetter, the CEO of Hawkeye Energy Holdings, America’s third largest ethanol producer, will meet with the governor on May 31 at Drumthwacket.
Rastetter, who met Christie last year at a fundraiser for Iowa Governor Terry Branstad last year, is a major player in Iowa politics. He was the chair of Branstad’s inaugural committee. Branstad appointed Rastetter to the Iowa Board of Regents.
“There isn’t anyone like Chris Christie on the national scene for Republicans,” Rastetter said. “And so we believe that he, or someone like him, running for president is very important at this critical time in our country.”
“He clearly understands smaller government, less government spending, job creation, and how to create a better education system — certainly, all the things I and those accompanying me care about,” Rastetter said.
Christie has been steadfast about not running for president.
I gave it twenty minutes, but I couldn’t take it anymore.
Governor Chris Christie is far more compelling when speaking policy and politics than he is when talking about sports. Craig Carton was far more entertaining as a “Jersey Guy” than he was during the twenty minutes I endured watching the Boomer and Carton show on MSG this morning. Christie is sitting in for Boomer Esiason.
They loved Christie at Harvard. We love him at his Town Hall meetings. I have called Christie the best communicator since Ronal Reagan. Please Governor, when it comes to extended appearances on the radio, stick with Eric Scott and talk about New Jersey.
Maybe someone from the NJEA, Tom Moran or Steve Lonegan will call into the show and make it interesting.
Christie will be on the show until 10 AM. The number to call in is 877-337-6666.
The New Jersey Education Association has launched an advertising campaign to encourage people to “Tell Christie he’s done enought to help millionaires.”
There is a full page ad on the back page of section A in the print edition of the Asbury Park Press (which is how using the header THE PRESS). Capitol Quickies reports that the ad also appeared in the Home News Tribune, Daily Record and Courier News, all Gannett owned papers.
The ad says “Governor Christie cut our schools, women’s health care and our public safety to give a tax break to millionaires” and touts their website, MillionairesForChristie.com. The website encourages readers to email their legislators to “to let them know that you’re against Governor Christie helping millionaires. Its time to protect our schools!”
Readers of the site can also sign a petition to Governor Christie and preview a TV ad that repeats the nonsense.
I wonder why the NJEA waited until after the school board elections to launch this advertising campaign.
Governor Christie has not given any tax breaks to millionaires. The Democrats let the millionaires tax surcharge expire before Christie took office. Christie vetoed the reinstatement of the tax last year, just as he promised he would in his campaign.
Governor Chris Christie and Senate President Steve Sweeney announced that they had reached a compromise over the nomination of Anne Patterson to the NJ Supreme Court.
Christie nominated Patterson to the court one year ago today to fill the seek of John Wallace. Wallace’s term was expiring but he had not reached the age of mandatory retirement. Christie acted within his constitutional authority but broke with tradition by not reappointing Wallace.
Christie’s Democratic critics, in the legislature and the media, charged that the governor was interfering with the independence of the judiciary. Christie countered that he was fulfilling his campaign promise to reshape the court which has a long history of overstepping its bounds and legislating from the bench, especially with the Abbott decision which mandates education spending and the Mt. Laurel decision which mandates the development of affordable housing. These two judicial decisions are responsible for New Jersey’s highest in the nation property taxes.
Sweeney pledged that Patterson would not get a hearing in the Senate and that her nomination would not be voted on until Wallace, who hails from Sweeney’s home county of Gloucester, reached the age of retirement; March of 2012. For a year the Wallace seat has filled by appellate Judge Edwin Stern who was appointed by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner as a temporary fill-in.
As a result of the “compromise” announced yesterday between Christie and Sweeney, the governor will withdraw Patterson’s nomination to Wallace seat and nominate her for the seat of retiring Justice Roberto Rivera-Sota. Sweeney pledged a fair hearing for Patterson, and that timely hearings will be held for the Wallace seat and the seat of
Justice Virginia Long who reaches the mandatory retirement age in 2012.
I fail to see the “deal” here. Where’s the compromise? What did Christie get? Christie could have withdrawn Patterson’s nomination for Wallace’s seat and nominated her for Rivera-Soto’s seat without consulting Sweeney. Sweeney keeps the Wallace seat filled by Stern until March. Was Sweeney threatening to hold up the nominations to replace Wallace and Long beyond their retirement dates? Would Sweeney allow three seats on the seven member court to be held by temporary Justices appointed by Rabner?
The other thing I don’t like about this deal capitulation, is that it is an indication that Christie assumes that Sweeney will be Senate President next year. While that may be a realistic expectation given the new gerrymandered legislative map, it is disappointing to think that Christie, as the leader of the Republican party, has already given up on trying to win control of the Senate in the legislative election this November.
If Christie has given up on winning control of the Senate, who am I to argue that it is possible?
As for the killing of bin Laden, you know, so you will recall, I was nominated to United States Attorney by President Bush on September 10, 2001. And the job that I accepted that day from the President became significantly different about eighteen hours later. And for me it was also extraordinarily personal. My wife was two blocks from the Trade Center when the attack occurred. She had come through the Trade Center that morning with my brother who was working down at the New York Stock Exchange at the time. Both of them had to go through escaping from Manhattan that day, after the attacks, after the buildings had come down. And so this was not only professional for me, in terms of taking over as the state’s chief federal law enforcement officer in the immediate aftermath of that attack, but also personal as well, given the experiences, and the fortunate experiences, of both my wife and my brother being in lower Manhattan that day. And so, I think there’s an extraordinary sense of closure for a lot of people that the person who masterminded and ordered these attacks that killed 3,000 of our citizens has now been brought to justice himself. And I can’t think of anything better for Osama bin Laden than to have met his end at the hands of the American military and to be buried at sea. It’s exactly where he belongs.
…
I don’t think there’s any doubt in anybody’s mind that the President would get up last night and tell the world that Osama bin Laden’s dead unless Osama bin Laden’s dead. And so, I have complete confidence in the President’s statements and unless proven otherwise, complete confidence in his judgment on how they move forward with this. We’re not going to sit here behind this podium in Trenton and second-guess what the President of the United States is doing in Washington. And that’s what I said last night in my statement. I commend him and his administration. If you read the stories of the extraordinary work that went into this operation, the intelligence portion of it and then the execution of it, the President, as the Commander in Chief deserves extraordinary credit for what he was able to do here and I commend him for it. Because these decisions are never easy. They always look easy in retrospect. When you’re the person sitting in the chair having to make some of these calls, you recognize that these are really difficult decisions to make. He’s putting men and women in harm’s way and just as well as things went, they could’ve gone poorly. And then there would’ve been a whole chorus of second-guessers out there who would’ve been second-guessing the President’s judgment in every step along the way. So if they’re going to do that, when it goes real well, like it did for our country last night, then the man in charge deserves the credit. The President deserves the credit for doing really an extraordinary job.
…
To the families and friends of those who perished on that day, you know, nothing’s going to bring their loved one back. And vengeance at times is a difficult thing. You may think that seeing bin Laden dead will make you feel better, and in some respect it gives us all I think a sense of justice being done. But I think what the families will be left with, is the idea that their loved one is still gone. And I don’t know how they deal with that from day to day. I think only if you walk in their shoes do you know how they deal with it. And so what I’d say to those families today, is that our prayers and our thoughts are with you today in just the same way they’ve been with those families every day for nearly the last ten years. All of us, I suspect, in this room, know someone who lost someone dear to them on September 11th. I know Mary Pat and I have unfortunately a number of friends whose children are now without a father, who go to school with our children, a member of our parish who was killed that day. A number of people very close in our lives, with daily contact with some of them, those families have never been the same. The fact that Osama bin Laden is now dead will not restore to them the presence of a father or mother or sister or a brother, husband or a wife. It won’t do that. But, this is someone who deserved to meet this fate much sooner than he did. But, in this instance, justice delayed is not justice denied. Justice has been done. The President deserves great credit for that and I hope that the families today, at least for a short period of time can feel some measure of solace about the fact that the man who perpetrated these crimes is now sitting at the bottom of the sea somewhere. Hopefully that gives them some measure of solace.
Governor Chris Christie has spent the day with Republican members of the of the Redistricting Commission, according to a report published on Politickernj.
The commission, 5 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 11th member Dr. Alan Rosenthan of Rutgers have been holed upped at the Heldrich Hotel in News Brunswick today. Democrats and Republicans have been meeting with Rosenthal separately throughout the day, making their respective cases for the new legislative map’s configuration.
Our friends at InTheLobby are questioning Trenton Democrats political sanity. Daily Muse says the Democrats seem to be poised to blame Governor Christie for NJ’s average 4% property tax increases, yet they are giving Christie very strong ammunition with which to run against them in the coming legislative election by failing to pass the “tool kit,” pension and benefit reform and expanded veto power over the shadow government of the authorities and commissions.
But a lot of what is taking place in Trenton these days confuses us.
We get that Democrats are looking to blame Christie for the 4% rise in property taxes. Higher property taxes are always a good campaign issue, especially in a year when all 120 seats in the Legislature are up for re-election.
What we don’t get is why the Democrats are giving Christie so many talking points to counter that with on the campaign trail. They won’t pass the bulk of the tool kit; they haven’t passed the pension or benefit reforms; and they won’t give Christie the expanded veto power over authorities that he wants.
We know that the unions are opposed to the pension and benefit reforms. And we know that the Assembly is balking at any health benefit reforms, saying that the reforms should be made in collective bargaining. Which, by the way, doesn’t sound like it’s a point that will sell well with the rest of New Jersey’s voters, but we’ll see how firm the Assembly’s resolve is after Senate President Steve Sweeney posts his health benefit bill for a vote.
But that still leaves the question: why don’t Democrats call Christie’s bluff, and pass the rest of the tool kit, the epanded veto power, and the pension and benefit reforms? They’ll still have the 4% increase in property taxes, and they’ll take away one of his campaign speeches. Otherwise, he will barnstorm the state, accusing Democrats of being beholden to the special interests, and choosing them over the taxpayers.
Frankly, as it stands now, it’s almost as if Democrats instead are giving Christie a tool kit of campaign rhetoric he can them against them this fall.
I don’t think the Democrats behavior is confusing at all. They are doing what they always do; protecting the status quo and hoping to find ways to preserve the troughs from which they and their friends are swilling.
There are two things the Democrats are waiting for before they will do anything about Christie’s reform agenda. 1) The new legislative map and 2) certainty that Christie will complete or not complete his term.
The Democrats don’t want Christie’s reforms to happen ever. They want the economy to improve so that the public’s mood improves and cash starts flowing into the Trenton coffers. They want to bide their time waiting for an angry electorate to become complacent again in order that Trenton can resume its spending rampage.
If the Democrats think the new legislative map favors their retaining control of the legislature they won’t give Christie the reforms he is proposing. If the new map is one they think favors Republicans picking up at least one house of the legislature, the Dems are likely to be more cooperative with the governor.
Likewise, so long as there is a Christie for President buzz, the Democrats are motivated to stall on his agenda. Their stalling weakens Christie’s resume of accomplishment if he does run for president. If he runs, they won’t have to deal with him. They don’t know how tough Kim Guadagno is, but they don’t think she is as tough as, or as talented a politician as Christie is.
There is not likely to be any movement on Christie’s reform agenda before the November election, unless we get a new legislative map that is a clear Republican gerrymander. That is not going to happen.
Regardless of the map, Christie will make this election a statewide race. Every district will be a race between Christie and his legislative running mates vs. the Democratic legislative candidates. The governor will spend the summer and fall on the campaign trail throughout New Jersey with the power of incumbency. The election will be a referendum on Christie’s reform agenda.
If Christie pulls off another improbable statewide victory by winning both the Senate and the Assembly, turning blue jersey red, his presidential prospects will soar. The clamour for him to run for president will become a national demand. If he can turn the governor’s office over to Kim Guadagno with a Republican legislature to enact the reform agenda he can declare that he has succeeded in turning Trenton upside down and that he is accepting the call to save our country from another four years of Obama.
Should the Democrats retain control of both houses of the legislature and retain or expand their margin of majority, Christie’s national prospects become more complicated. On one hand a statewide defeat would hurt Christie’s national prospects on the top of the national ticket. On the other hand he might personally conclude that with the legislature safely in the hands of the Democrats for another 10 years that he has turned Trenton as upside down as it is going to get. In that case, the Vice Presidency might not look so bad if the thinks the eventual GOP nominee in 2012 has a chance to beat Obama.
I don’t see anything happening with Christie’s reform agenda until after the November election, nor do I see the Christie for President buzz going away or getting louder before the November election.
By Art Gallagher
