Don’t miss Christie’s Speech

The Christie for President fever is about to get a lot hotter.

In his address to The Prospective on Leadership Forum  at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library this evening, the New Jersey Governor will contrast President Obama’s leadership with that of President Reagan and with Christie’s own leadership of New Jersey over the last twenty months.

His address will be an eloquent yet stinging rebuke of Obama and Congressional leaders.

In what is sure to create a national media frenzy and cause an even greater call for Christie to enter the 2012 presidential race the Governor will address foreign policy and America’s standing in the world more powerfully than any of the current GOP contenders for president have come close to doing.

Not only will Christie appear to be a candidate tonight, he will appear Presidential.

You won’t want to miss this address.  It will be televised on CSPAN, Fox News and be live streamed here at 9PM.

I think he’s running, all the denials to the contrary.

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Christie “inundated with calls” to run for president

Captial Quickies reports that Governor Chris Christie and his inner circle is are being inundated with calls from leaders of every walk of life urging to governor to run for president:

“The number of people who have called him, and I’m talking prominent leaders from every walk of life — government, business, politics, everything — it’s astounding the call list,” the adviser said. “Like he said, it’s very flattering. It’s amazing. He’s trying to listen, but also trying to stay focused.”

The adviser did not shut the door on a presidential run:

Asked directly if Christie is thinking about running for president, the adviser said:

“I don’t know the answer to that question. What Gov. Christie says to his friends and advisers is exactly what he says to the public, there is no plan right now.”

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“Real American Exceptionalism”

Excerpted Remarks from Governor Chris Christie’s Speech at the Ronald Reagan Library:

“A lot is being said in this election season about American exceptionalism.  Implicit in such statements is that we are different and, yes, better, in the sense that our democracy, our economy and our people have delivered.  But for American exceptionalism to truly deliver hope and a sterling example to the rest of the world, it must be demonstrated, not just asserted.  If it is demonstrated, it will be seen and appreciated and ultimately emulated by others.  They will then be more likely to follow our example and our lead.

At one time in our history, our greatness was a reflection of our country’s innovation, our determination, our ingenuity and the strength of our democratic institutions.  When there was a crisis in the world, America found a way to come together to help our allies and fight our enemies.  When there was a crisis at home, we put aside parochialism and put the greater public interest first.  And in our system, we did it through strong presidential leadership.  We did it through Reagan-like leadership.

Unfortunately, through our own domestic political conduct of late, we have failed to live up to our own tradition of exceptionalism.  Today, our role and ability to affect change has been diminished because of our own problems and our inability to effectively deal with them.

…

I understand full well that succeeding at home, setting an example, is not enough.  The United States must be prepared to act.  We must be prepared to lead.  This takes resources—resources for defense, for intelligence, for homeland security, for diplomacy.  The United States will only be able to sustain a leadership position around the world if the resources are there—but the necessary resources will only be there if the foundations of the American economy are healthy.  So our economic health is a national security issue as well.

…

There is no doubt in my mind that we, as a country and as a people, are up for the challenge.  Our democracy is strong; our economy is the world’s largest.  Innovation and risk-taking is in our collective DNA.  There is no better place for investment.  Above all, we have a demonstrated record as a people and a nation of rising up to meet challenges. 

Today, the biggest challenge we must meet is the one we present to ourselves.  To not become a nation that places entitlement ahead of accomplishment.  To not become a country that places comfortable lies ahead of difficult truths.  To not become a people that thinks so little of ourselves that we demand no sacrifice from each other.  We are a better people than that; and we must demand a better nation than that.”

Christie’s address can be viewed live at 9PM this evening here.

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Former Governor Kean Says Christie Seriously Considering Presidential Bid

Former Governor Thomas Kean told the National Review that Governor Chris Christie is seriously considering a run for President.

Christie is on a multi-state fund raising tour this week, raising money for the NJ GOP and other state parties.  He is speaking at the Reagan Presidential Libray tonight.

The New York Post is reporting that former First Lady Barbara Bush has reached out to Christie’s wife, Mary Pat , to assure her that the Christie children and family could thrive in the White House.

The Post said that appeals from major figures around the county for  Christie to get into the race stepped up during the GOP debate in Florida last week.

In New Jersey, Christie’s approval ratings are strong, according to a FDU Public Mind poll released this morning. The governor’s approval ratings are positive 54%-36%.  The gender gap has narrowed on Christie who is now favored by women by 46%-42%.

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From the comedian…

Art,

Thanks, I think, for the post on your website about my new skill, pundit/comedian.  We need some levity around here.  However, if you read my post, I said it appears the Kochs would like Christie to get the GOP presidential nomination. And if Christie goes all the way to the Oval Office, then Lonegan, part of the Koch team as head of AFP in NJ, would probably get their backing for the gubernatorial nomination in 2013.  One thing we know about politics is that there are no certainties.  I did not predict Christie would win nor that Lonegan would be the next governor.  I just wrote about what apparently is in the offing, Christie’s entry into the presidential race.  

Four years ago, the pundits predicted a Giuliani/Clinton presidential contest.  So much for the experts.  There is a “lifetime” between now and the first caucuses and primaries.  Yesterday, the FL straw poll results add fuel to the Christie for President bandwagon.  Bachmann is toast, Perry is toast, and the others are marking time.  Santorum and Gingrich had their egos stroked from yesterday’s results but they are going nowhere.  

Cain is the latest “flavor” of the week.  But he in not going anywhere either.  He wants even bigger government than Obama as DiLorenzo points out today on the LRC blog.  Ron Paul benefited enormously from the results yesterday.  He was right there with the other candidates.  In short, he is not a fringe candidate as much as the MSM would like to portray him as such.

One more thing; The title of my post: Is the fix in?  Not, The Fix is In as in your post.  Big difference.

Regards,

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Casagrande’s Cowardice

By Olivia Nuzzi

As noted here, six of LD11’s seven legislative candidates have come out in support of gay marriage. They include Democratic Senate candidate Ray Santiago, Democratic Assembly candidates Vin Gopal and Kathy Horgan, and independent Assembly candidate Dan Jacobson. 

Also on the list are Republicans Senator Jennifer “Romney” Beck and Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini, both of whom pledged – Angelini after significant hesitation – on September 18th during an interview with Garden State Equality at Monmouth University, to override Governor Christie’s veto of a same sex marriage bill should the opportunity arise in the next legislature. 

Conveniently, Caroline Casagrande, Beck and Angelini’s running mate, could not attend the event at Monmouth because she was busy with a “family commitment.” I suspect her family committed to travel far, far away from anyone asking her about gay marriage, an issue she has refused to take a stance on.

One of the many jobs of a public figure is to know a thing or two about public relations. Everybody, public figure or otherwise, knows that “no comment” is, more or less, always a confirmation. Evidently, no one forwarded that memo to Caroline Casagrande who has adopted a strict policy of “Don’t Ask me about gay marriage and I won’t Tell You a bunch of evasive nonsense.” 

Her refusal – while inexcusable – is understandable, given that without question, there are a significant number of voters in newly formed LD11 who are not going to agree with, accept or respect a politician who opposes gay marriage. However, no one can respect a coward. A coward, as it stands now, is precisely what Caroline Casagrande is.

If you want to be a social conservative, go ahead and be one – your base will revere you for it, and your ideological enemies will have no choice but to respectfully disagree. 

Instead of taking a stand, Ms. Casagrande has skirted around the issue of gay marriage, going as far as to employ Senator Sweeney’s regrettable history as a cop-out. 

By asking the “tough” questions that anybody who knows anything about the fight for marriage equality already knows the answer to, she is doing the best she can to make this seem complicated. “What about protections for religious institutions?” she challenged, as if the Big Bad Gays are planning to storm into Sunday mass to force the congregation to Vogue in unison. 

Ms. Casagrande is attempting to slide under the radar. She is hoping that this massive insult to the intelligence of those that she hopes to represent goes unnoticed. In adopting dishonesty as her policy, she has succeeded in fooling no one, she has merely made a fool of herself. 

You could call her running mate, Senator Jennifer “Romney” Beck, many things (a lobbyist or a liar, for instance), but a cowardly ideologue she is not. Ms. Beck at least had the guts to flip-flop as soon as LGBT-supportive Asbury Park and Ocean Grove became her problem. Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer the audacious displays of dishonesty to the panicked whispers… I’m a romantic, what can I say? 

Beyond embarrassing herself with her stunning lack of bravery and admission (however fabricated) that she cannot comprehend a simple issue, Ms. Ummmmm? also managed to miss an opportunity to follow the wide path of Declare and Defend set by her Messiah, Governor Christie. Aw shucks, what a shame.

We elect people who we believe possess the skills necessary to handle the many issues that NJ faces at once. If Ms. Casagrande can only handle one issue at a time, perhaps it is time for us to reevaluate her competence to serve. I say this only because I care about her well-being. After all, it would be cruel to continue to overwhelm her with the many complex legislative responsibilities that rest on her shoulders in Trenton. 

Olivia Nuzzi is a student from Middletown and an intern for the District 11 Democratic campaign.  MMM welcomes her fair and biased contributions. 

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Murray Sabrin The Comedian

My friend Murray Sabrin is trying to give Joey Novick some competition in his role as comedian/blogger.

If you’re not familiar with Novick, he’s a liberal Democratic lawyer and stand up comedian that makes up stuff about Republicans in his column at Politickernj.  Sometimes Joey makes up stuff about Democrats too.  He wrote that Carl Lewis was going to appeal to Judge Judy to get back on the LD 8 ballot as a Senate candidate.  Joey thinks he’s funny.

Sabrin writes funny stuff too.  Only Murray doesn’t think he’s being funny. Murray wrote that The Fix Is In.  The Koch brothers have arranged for Chris Christie to be elected president in 2012 and that Steve Lonegan will be elected governor of New Jersey in 2013.

That is funnier than anything that Novick has ever written.

Joey and Murray should create a joint act, The Liberal and the Libertarian.

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Newsmax: Christie Reconsidering 2012 White House Run

Obama responds by outlawing asthma inhalers

Newsmax is reporting that Governor Chris Christie is reconsidering his decision not to be a presidential candidate in 2012 and will make his new decision within days.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is reconsidering his decision not to enter the 2012 presidential race — and he says he will let top Republican donors know within days about his plans, Newsmax has learned.

During the past few weeks, several leading Republican donors and fundraisers have been urging the popular Republican governor to reconsider his decision not to run and to enter the GOP primary.

These Christie supporters note that significant GOP support has remained on the sidelines of the primary fight. Many leading fundraisers have yet to commit to any current primary contender, including frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

Newsmax has learned that the effort to draft Christie culminated in a hush-hush powwow held in the past week with Christie and several notable Republican billionaires.

A source familiar with the meeting suggested that Christie seemed inclined to enter the race but said he needed more time.

Christie promised to make a final decision “within two weeks,” the source said.

Another source involved in GOP fundraising tells Newsmax that that uncommitted fundraisers and donors have been receiving phone calls from top political aides to Christie, seeking their feedback about his possible entry into the race.

President Obama must have gotten word of Christie’s secret meetings with billionaire Republicans.  The Obama Administration’s EPA is set to ban over-the-counter asthma inhalers.

Christie suffers from asthma and uses an inhaler.

Mike DuHaime, Christie’s chief political strategist, has not responded to MMM’s inquiry as to the accuracy of the Newsmax story.

UPDATE

Christie confidant and advisor Bill Palatucci says, “Newsmax is wrong,” according to the Star Ledger’s Mexican reporter Ginger Gibson via twitter.

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Nelson Appointed To NJEDA

Governor Chris Christie has appointed Brian M. Nelson, Esq. to the Board of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Nelson is the Managing Partner of Nelson, Supko & Hanlon, LLC, Shrewsbury.  He is the municipal attorney for Middletown and Tinton Falls.

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Change is inevitable for the post office…..and newspapers

The Neptune Nudniks got one right today. 

In their editorial, Change inevitable for post office, The Asbury Park Press editorial board accurately spells out how the Internet and digital technology has changed the economics of information delivery, making the United States Postal Service obsolete and insolvent.  

The post office is undergoing a major downsizing. Appropriately so because people are just not using it they way we used to.  Electronic exchange of documents and information is just far more efficient than physically moving paper across town or across the country.

The Press concludes that, “we cannot subsidize what should be a self-sustaining entity any more than we could subsidize the buggy whip industry at the turn of the last century.”

That unassailable reasoning should also be applied to the subsidies the newspaper industry receives in the form of state mandated legal and public notices advertising.

Classified advertisings in newspapers has gone the way of the buggy whip industry. It has been replaced by craigslist, ebay, autotrader.com, realtor.com, realtytrac.com, and countless other websites.  The once thick classified sections of newspapers are now four or five pages daily, half of which is government compelled legal and public notices.

Bi-partisan legislation, The Electronic Publication Of Legal Notices Act, passed the State Senate in July of 2010 and the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee in February of this year.  Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver has blocked the bill from being voted on by the full Assembly.

With millions of dollars in government mandated subsidies at stake, the newspaper industry came out in force to lobby against the bill arguing that legal notices on government websites instead of in newspapers really wouldn’t save the government money, that poor people without computers would not have access to the vital information( do poor people attend foreclosure auctions and zoning board hearings?) and that elected officials could use the power to withhold legal notice advertisements to punish newspapers for unfavorable news coverage.  The newspaper publishers said that their role as unbiased watchdogs would be compromised.

The assertion that newspapers fill the role of unbiased watchdogs is laughable.   Yesterday’s Star Ledger editorial laying out a strategy for Democrats to counter Governor Christie’s effective Town Hall meetings, along with the paper’s slanted “news” coverage of Christie’s meetings eariler in the week is just one recent example of how “newspapers” are just as biased as this or any other blog.

But the publishers’ argument that allowing newspaper advertising and/or Internet advertising on governement websites of Legal Notices gives government officials the power to punish newspapers whose coverage they don’t approve of (or to reward newspapers for coverage they do approve of) has merit.

That potential for abuse could be fixed by amending the Electronic Publication Of Legal Notices Act to require that legal notices be published only on government websites.  Reasonable fees for ads that are now paid to newspapers by planning and zoning applicants, foreclosing lenders and other private interests that are compelled to advertise could be collected by the municipalities to offset the cost of maintaining their websites and as a new source of much needed revenue.

The rest of New Jersey’s traditional media should embrace The Asbury Park Press’s outstanding reasoning, as it applies to the post office, and apply it to themselves in the interests of the public good. They should let Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver off the hook and suggest she post The Electronic Publication Of Legal Notices Act for a vote before the full Assembly where their friends in the chamber should amend the bill to prohibit governments from spending taxpayers dollars on legal notice advertising and eliminate the requirement that private interests pay to advertise anywhere other than on a government website.

Of course, the 1st amendment would allow the newspapers to continue publishing the notices, as a public service, or as a private sector revenue driven profit center.

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