It is extremely hard for me to understand why members of Romney’s campaign decided to tell Politico that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was Mitt Romney’s first choice as a running mate and that some members of his team thought Christie had actually been offered the job. I see that some people are arguing that this is a sign that the campaign is unraveling and starting to point fingers at each other. As further evidence of this, people are pointing to an Associated Press article about Paul Ryan’s future plans as a non-vice president. I don’t really see these two articles as a tandem. The piece about Christie seems to be clearly a conscious choice of the Romney campaign, while the Ryan piece is unmistakeable evidence that people around Ryan know that Obama will be reelected.
My suspicion is that the Romney folks wanted a Politico piece that explained why Gov. Christie wasn’t chosen as Romney’s running mate. What they got instead was a piece that made it sound like they preferred him to Ryan but couldn’t put up with his tardiness at a couple of campaign events. The result is an article that makes Paul Ryan sound like a reluctant choice.
There may well be members of Team Romney who think Paul Ryan was a stupid pick and that Chris Christie would have been better. I’m not sure you can really argue that in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy because Gov. Christie would probably put his state first even if he was on the ticket. I think everyone should be grateful that Gov. Christie can dedicate his time to helping his constituents rather than trying to campaign for office.
The overall effect of that piece was, “Fuck you? No, fuck me!”
I really don’t know what the leakers were trying to accomplish. It just makes the whole Romney campaign operation look like a pack of morons. Again.
Not sure I agree that the two stories are unrelated. Both could reflect a rift between Mitt and the Twit. Ryan’s had a pretty low profile at least since his debate, if not before. Could it be that the Romney campaign is setting it up to blame the loss on the Ryan pick, while the Ryan campaign is trying to puff him up as some kind of political giant who can write his own ticket after Mitt the wimp loses the election through no fault of Ryan’s?
I got the impression that the Ryan folks are preparing for him to lose both elections. Professor Ryan?
Sounds a lot like opening arguments in the divorce proceedings to me.
OT, but what a douche!
https://twitter.com/TheReidReport/status/264766198800072705
It’s a signal.
It says “You keep saying ‘You all are batshit crazy’. But we’re willing to nominate non-batshit-crazy people. Boorish, overbearing, anti-union teabag-curious, non-batshit-crazy people. Sure, we didn’t, but we were willing. Vote for us.”
A little humor to get us through the next 3 days.
Plz share with ur friends of caucasian persuasion.Chris Rock – Message for White Voters: http://youtu.be/EDxOSjgl5Z4
Done.
That was funny.
Done.
It is a sign of disarray and that they know they really aren’t going to win. If they were winning, it would be a happy family outwardly until everyone has gotten a phony-baloney job with the Feds. Or a nice line on a resume or a referral. In other words-“Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan”.
A winning team is upbeat and focused and talking about (privately) the stuff they are going to do once they have actually one. It’s like the day before Christmas-anticipation of a good day makes everyone a bit more cordial and more forgiving of slights.
I also suspect that win or lose his seat, Ryan is leaving Congress. If he wins, I think he will resign the seat, and of course if he loses the seat, just let it be. He’s too big to be another fish in the pond of the House now. He doesn’t have seniority enough to head a large visible Committee either. It looks like if Romney loses, it will be a cluster for about 3-4 years until they coalesce around someone. A think-tank financed retirement would be the perfect spot to stay above the fray and position himself for a statewide run, or even a national one.
Unless I’m mistaken, Paul Ryan is the chairman of the Budget Committee, which is headed for another showdown with the President.
you are not mistaken.
this reminds me of the ending to that Simpson’s episode about the Lemon Tree. In the end, the Springfieldians are drinking lemonade after victoriously reclaiming the lemon tree. By contrast, the Shelbyville people are seen sitting around, drinking turnip juice, and praising that they were free of that cursed lemon tree.
Chris Christie shunned Mitt Romney and praised Obama; now the Romney campaign is trying to make it seem as though they shunned Christie first. It’s like making turnip juice out of turnips.
As much as I’d like to think it means “we know we’re going to lose,” it could also be just another example of Mitt’s inability to put together a competent campaign. Even in the primaries, there were a lot of moments where I wondered just where he’d found these people, because they didn’t seem to have a clue about running a campaign.
It would have made an interesting twist if indeed Christie had been picked and then Sandy arrived and he would have had to pull off the campaign for the last week. Romney would have come to NJ and Christie would likely have really been in a bind. Juggling Mitt, Sandy & Obama would have been a feat.
The numbers are very bad for Romney now and I’m sure his internal team knows it, hence the leaked stories. From their point of view the beaten-by-Sandy meme has a ring of truth. The insiders had to know 1.5 weeks ago that Obama had a small but solid lead in enough swing states but also felt that it was close enough that they had a shot given the tidal wave of negative ads and hope that they could get some anti-Obama publicity in the final weeks. Of course, even then the trend was slight but positive for Obama, but they had to feel they had a shot. Since then the trend has actually gotten stronger for Obama and Sandy and Christie gave the President the perfect final week optics for pitching to the persuadables. They have to know now that barring some last minute catastrophe it is over for them.
Attending Voter Protection training this morning in Colorado I learned a ton of useful stuff about the tactics the GOP is using and also a lot of surprising stuff about voting laws (much less restrictive than we’d been led to believe by the MSM as it turns out).
I also was told by an OFA insider that, while they can’t release numbers yet, there are two very positive indicators for Colorado. First, while the early voting advantage isn’t at 2008 levels (and you’d not expect that … Colorado was won with 9%) it is far above 2010 levels when Senator Bennett won a close race. Also, for new registrations they quickly exceeded their goal and then quickly exceeded a new goal of twice that. Two local canvassers told me that even in redneck Colorado Springs when the stopped at houses where the Obama target person had moved they found that the majority of the time the new person was pro-Obama (that was definitely NOT my experience in my very deep red district in 2008).
I was again impressed with the level of sophistication in the preparation for the voter protection stuff. One point to note if anyone asked – the Democrats have a strict policy of NEVER challenging anyone’s right to vote. We’re also told to help anyone regardless of party affiliation if asked. Quite the contrast to the anti-Democracy party.
We’ll see how it goes. I’m assigned to a precinct that is near, but outside of, the two Colorado house districts that the GOP is focusing most of their voter intimidation efforts. It’s a solid majority Republican but 20% Black or Hispanic so we might see some (illegal) attempts to challenge people based on voting-while-dark-skinned.
Despite all the speculation, I don’t recall seeing anything that would have led me to believe Christie was ever really interested in being Romney’s running mate.
This latest thing with Politico may be nothing more than a clumsy attempt to signal that Christie’s recent closeness with Obama should not be interpreted as causing or reflecting any bad blood between Romney and Christie.
Christie is in the national spotlight and undoubtedly has caught the attention of a lot of moderate Republican voters.