Friday, January 10, 2014

Ranting On...Chris Christie and the Bridge


Initially I was just going to include this article in the weekend link roundup, as there didn’t seem to be enough there, but after reading dozens (hundreds?) of articles on the subject, I figured that I should jump in with my own thoughts.  Plus, over the next few weeks it’s going to be nonstop Oscar and movie talk as I sort through some twenty films I need to review, our final fourteen Oscar OVP categories of 2009, the Oscar-nominated short films, and predictions galore.  But first, we need to talk about Chris Christie.

To start off with, let’s get the whole “did he know” question off of the table.  Does anyone really believe he didn’t know?  It’s hard to imagine a governor’s deputy chief of staff closes down a major bridge as political retaliation without word from higher up on the food chain.  I obviously don’t actually know, but let’s put two and two together here.

The bigger question is-what does this do to Christie and the 2016 presidential race (sadly for Barbara Buono, this is a bridge too late)?  It’s always hard to tell in politics which scandals stick and which don’t.  It’s hard to believe that 22 years ago, a governor in the middle of a sex scandal won a presidential nomination and the the White House over two decorated military veterans, or that David Vitter (at one point known as Senator Pampers) is not only still in office, but could well be the next governor of Louisiana.  Some scandals stick, some don’t, and it’s really a matter of skill, aversion, assumed/actual guilt, and sheer luck that determine how you proceed.

But I have to say this doesn’t seem great for Christie, and I’m sort of the mind that this could be a major detriment if there’s anything more to this story (ie other such examples, proof that Christie knew about the bridge closing).  The reason being that Christie is (was?) a great general election candidate-that was his appeal.  It wasn’t because he was the great conservative hero for the Republicans, because he’s not.  Scott Walker or Ted Cruz better fit that bill.  It wasn’t because he has the most experience running a government (that title would go to Paul Ryan or perhaps Jeb Bush).  And it wasn’t because he was a truly new voice with new ideas for the Republican Party (…I don’t know who this is, but I’ll just say Rand Paul to complete the set).  It was because he looked great as a general election.  He regularly polled even with Hillary when others couldn’t touch her in swing states.  He just won a landslide victory in a solid blue state where he has earned plaudits for his bipartisan nature.  After losing the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections, the Republicans needed someone who could deliver independents and maybe even some Democrats in a general, and Christie was easily their best shot.

That glow is now coming off.  Coupling the insights that we learned from the Mitt Romney leak a month or two ago (all of which will be more closely investigated by the DNC in coming months, and certainly more if Christie runs in 2016) with this bridge controversy, we get a candidate whose staff used his office to get favors and endorsements.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a narrative that Christie wanted to deal with less than this; he was supposed to be the “not politics as usual” candidate, and he’s now perpetuating what Americans believe is the worst thing about politicians: their propensity to care only about number one.

This wouldn’t be so damaging if it had been Scott Walker or Ted Cruz, where the Republican Right will just blame the liberal media and move on with their lives.  Christie isn’t trusted by the right-he’s a good option if there was no one else who could win or if he’s the best guy to win.  If he doesn’t bring that to the table, than what does he bring?  That’s the big problem for Christie-electability was his trump card, and he doesn’t have any others.  Christie’s biggest obstacle to winning the White House, much like almost all non-incumbents running for the presidency, is not the general: it’s the primary.

A White House general election is a bizarre process where you instantly start out the race, regardless of anything you may have done beforehand, with 47% of the vote.  Thanks to die-hard party loyalists (and people who consistently vote for the same party but claim they’re “independents”), even if you have a lackluster candidate like John Kerry or Mitt Romney, you still get 47% of the vote.  The challenge is to get the last six percent, which is determined by a host of different factors that you can’t always control (what party had the White House before, the economy, the national mood, our wartime status, etc.).

But the primary, that is a relatively even playing field, especially for the GOP in 2016-there’s no candidate like Hillary Clinton or even Mitt Romney fours years ago that is seen as the frontrunner.  The person who seemed that way is Christie, and only because his national poll numbers (which will surely dive after this) had been the best.  It’s worth noting that Republicans were incredibly fickle in 2012 (when Romney was threatened by Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and even Herman Cain in national polls), and this could eventually subside.  But for a party that has put a premium on partisan purity, Chris Christie seems a whole lot appealing now than he did a month ago.

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