Tag: Chris Christie

The big news is no news

Photo Tim Larsen, Governor’s Office

Gov. Chris Christie is officially not a candidate.

But the recent dance he has been doing with the Republican Party and its donors says quite a bit about the dissatisfaction that exists within the GOP with the motley crew that has been chasing the nomination.

Photo Tim Larsen, Governor’s Office

The front-runners remain Mitt Romney, whose career has taken him all over the political map and who was rejected by the GOP in 2008, and the absolutely loony Texan Rick Perry. Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman, Ron Paul and the long list of minor players, continue to chase the brass ring, as well.

My question is this: Does it matter? Can any of these guys beat the incumbent at a time when the incumbent is vulnerable? And if they can, shouldn’t that scare the hell out of us?

Barack Obama’s spotty record and his continuation of Bush policies on torture and the terror war have left him without a real base and have deflated the enthusiasm that swept him into office in 2008. He has earned our dissatisfaction and anger and probably should be facing a primary challenge from someone like Russ Feingold.

The protests on Wall Street are as much a reaction to the Obama presidency as they are to Wall Street greed — Obama, like Bush and Clinton before him, has colluded with the big banks and financial firms to save them from serious regulation or reform.

But my prediction is that the prospects of a Perry or Romney presidency ultimately will draw enough liberals to the polls to allow Obama to squeak by and win a second term. Do not underestimate how much of a motivating factor fear can be.

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Comment live on the Christie announcement

Live Coverage of Christie’s Announcement

Patch has opened its live blog to take the pulse of New Jersey on Gov. Chris Christie’s apparent decision not to run for president.

Join us here, on my blog, or go to one of our Central Jersey sites: princeton.patch.com, southbrunswick.patch.com, newbrunswick.patch.com, lawrenceville.patch.com, eastwindsor.patch.com or eastbrunswick.patch.com.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

The end of labor as we know it

I’ve been trying to decide what to write in response to last night’s benefit vote, but I realized that I’d pretty much said what I needed to say a few days ago. Here it is.

To sum things up: The benefits bill strips public workers of important elements of their collective bargaining rights, unilaterally altering existing contracts without offering them any compensation in return. The vote was a political maneuver that continued the scapegoating of public workers and should signal to organized labor that its affiliation with the Democrats has left it vulnerable. It leaves every worker at the mercy of management.

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  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Chris Christie, family man

Gov. Christie arrives by state police helicopter Tuesday afternoon at St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale for the school’s baseball game against Delbarton. Christie’s son Andrew plays for Delbarton. Credit Christopher Costa for Patch

At another time, this might be just the cliched tempest in a teapot, just another governor abusing the perks of office.

But in 2011, with a great budget-balancer slashing state spending and being talked up for national office, Chris Christie’s arrogance gets placed on full view for national consumption.

The story goes like this (broken by our colleagues at the Ridgewood Patch):

Governor Christie landed in Bergen County in a state police helicopter late Tuesday afternoon to attend his son’s baseball game against St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale.

Christie arrived shortly before 4 p.m. to watch his son Andrew play baseball for Delbarton School. He was driven from the helicopter about 100 yards to the field in a black car with tinted windows.

The governor then flew back to Princeton for a meeting with Iowa Republicans — you know, Iowa, where the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses will be held in 2012.

Previous governors — Jim McGreevey, Jon Corzine — were criticized loudly by the Republicans for their use and misuse of taxpayer-paid transportation. I would have thought the governor, who is as savvy a politician as there is in the state, would have seen the controversy coming. But, and this is key, he not only is savvy, but horribly arrogant — probably the most arrogant and imperious man to occupy the New Jersey State House in memory.

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  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

It ain’t easy being green, when all you are is mean

In October 2009, the New Jersey Environmental Federation did something it had never done: It endorsed a Republican for governor.

Four years after endorsing Democrat Jon Corzine, the NJEF concluded that Corzine’s environmental record was a disaster — an accurate assessment — but rather than sit out the election or back the third party candidate, Chris Daggett, it opted to back the conservative Republican based on a set of promises.

Christie won the election, of course, and has made the NJEF look foolish, running up the worst environmental record in memory — worse than both Corzine and Christie Whitman.

The New York Times today, placing his most recent assault in a larger context, offers us the list:

Running for governor in 2009, Chris Christie vowed to become “New Jersey’s No. 1 clean-energy advocate.” That was a hollow promise. As governor, Mr. Christie proceeded to cut all the money for the Office of Climate and Energy. He raided $158 million from the clean energy fund, meant for alternative energy investments, and spent it on general programs. He withdrew the state from an important lawsuit against electric utilities to reduce emissions.

On Thursday, he took the worst step of all: He abandoned the 10-state initiative in the Northeast that uses a cap-and-trade system to lower carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. The program has been remarkably successful, a model of vision and fortitude. Lacking that, Mr. Christie has given in to the corporate and Tea Party interests that revile all forms of cap and trade, letting down the other nine states trying to fight climate change.

The governor also eliminated the office of the public advocate and has slashed DEP funding, but those seem minor given the entire green — or should I say antigreen — record.

It should be noted that Christie’s 2009 campaign featured another important element — an attack on Corzine for breaking promises made during the Democrat’s 2005 campaign. Someone should play those attacks back to Christie and remind him that the promises he has been breaking carry no less weight.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.