I am basically taking a mental health day after a full weekend of blogging and with elections coming up tomorrow. But I wanted you to see Ramesh:
If the polls hold up, Cuccinelli’s defeat may demoralize social conservatives — especially if the news media spin the defeat as a sign that their concerns are a millstone around the neck of Republican politicians. Christie’s likely re-election shows that such an interpretation is wrong. Being a social conservative is not by itself a political death sentence even in deep-blue territory.
He’s right. Chris Christie is a social conservative. He’s winning in New Jersey because Jersey folks like his attitude. Now that I live across in the river in Pennsylvania, I’ve discovered that people over here, who are almost identical in every other way, actually think Christie is a rude, overbearing jerk.
Like it’s a bad thing.
It’s actually the only reason he’s popular. The New Jersey economy is in the crapper and compares unfavorably with every state in the region. Christie has been a terrible governor. But he’s got Jersey attitude down to a science. They’re sticking with him.
Just remember, Jersey doesn’t travel well. I know. I’ve lived in a lot of different places.
Go ahead and take a break; RafalcaRomney is keeping an eye on the big guy, as this Twitter tweet from last month shows:
love it!
I first read that as “pig guy”, which also fits.
Hey, I found Christie’s horse!
someone call the equine chiropractor.
isn’t Rammesh basically missing the point that NJ voters are cutting Christie a break due to his Sandy response? And the fact that South Jersey “Democrats” like Norcross are sabotaging Buono?
Dead on Calvin. The sabotage by the likes of Norcross and Divicenzo is the great un-reported story.
How come we never hear about the Christie pushing for Teachers not to be able to use out of state hospitals? And that Norcross wanted this because he owns Cooper (and is part owner of the Inquirer.. go figure)
I completely agree with you, you are right Calvin.
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Ruby On Rails Developers in Bay Area
That is so Jersey! I say that affectionately, Boo.
Of course Jersey doesn’t travel well. Having driven through the state countless times, they easily have the worst car drivers in the country.
They also don’t allow left turns in a lot of spots, which is just nonsensical and screws you if you miss one of those ‘make a right turn to make a left turn’ loops.
I concur, having driven from Newark Airport to Edison NJ many times in the 1980’s.
The 1980s Newark area had the most confusing road net I’ve ever seen, particularly the Routes 1+9 corridor. Every time a local gave me directions, they cheerfully finished with, “You can’t miss it!” Well, I did miss it! Several times. I would wince every time I heard (or anticipated) those words.
“you can’t miss it” for me is pretty much a guarantee that I will. the road spaghetti is even worse now
I am so glad to hear that Christie doesn’t travel well. I am a relatively recent NJ transplant (although I lived here as a teenager) and I am finding the NJ love affair with the governor completely inexplicable. Taxes have gone up. No problems have been solved (really, look into it; none have). He’s probably screwed up education in the state, both K-12 and higher (Rutgers may never recover). The vaunted response to Sandy was an illusion (How much money has the charity headed by his wife dispersed? How come lower and middle income people are not getting aid while the richer are?). And he’s clearly a nasty SOB. Yet people just think he’s the greatest, people who voted happily for Obama. Weird.
do ppl really think he’s that great? most ppl around me dislike him and are aware of how much damage he’s done- you didn’t mention the environment btw and the tunnel. to me it seems more a matter of no real opponent (explained upthread)
This is a true story from the 1980’s. I was troubleshooting a factory automation problem in our can plant in Edison NJ. When I was through, the plant manager assigned a guy from the shipping department to box up my test equipment to ship back to Chicago. I was chatting with the shipping guy who was a pleasant middle-aged Italian man. His hobby was collecting Continental Can memorabilia such as caps, jackets, pencils, et cetera with plant numbers on them. We didn’t have anything like that because I worked out of the research center, not a factory. Upon learning this, he stopped working and said, “If you want me to work for you, you’ve got to give me something. This is Jersey, man!”
He’s winning in New Jersey because Jersey folks like his attitude. Now that I live across in the river in Pennsylvania, I’ve discovered that people over here, who are almost identical in every other way, actually think Christie is a rude, overbearing jerk. . . . Just remember, Jersey doesn’t travel well. I know. I’ve lived in a lot of different places.
True story: my first day in graduate school, at the University of Pennsylvania, after a lifetime spent in New Jersey (proud if clueless graduate of Rutgers College to boot), I was immediately treated to the following, once my Garden State identity was revealed:
Hey, Lucidamente, how many New Jerseyites does it take to change a light bulb?
Two: one to change the bulb, the other to smash it on the sidewalk.
I prefer Bill Pascrell myself.
In my, fortunately, short time living in PA couldn’t find anyone that could explain how Santorum was ever elected Senator and then re-elected.
Who’s the current Governor of PA?
How was Santorum elected?
Because PA is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between. Santorum had the Alabama vote nailed.
Current governor of PA? One Term Tom Corbett. He won because the Democrats ran an awful candidate. Re: Santorum, I don’t know. Did he let his freak flag fly when he was first elected? I’d bet he didn’t.
California once had Senators George Murphy and S.I Hayakawa. But both were only elected to one term.
I looked up Man-on-Dog Santorum in Wikipedia. He was a hot mess early in his legislative career. Per his Wikipedia entry:
In 1993, Santorum was one of 17 House Republicans who sided with most Democrats to support legislation that prohibited employers from permanently replacing striking employees. He also joined a minority of Republicans to vote against the North American Free Trade Agreement that year. As a member of the Gang of Seven, Santorum was involved in exposing of members of Congress involved in the House banking scandal.
Also, he won two terms in the House in districts that leaned somewhat Democratic. Compare that to what happened later.
Based on that record I would have voted for him too.
Yeah, now that you mention it, there wasn’t much negative info on Santorum when he first got in the Senate, or perhaps he was just letting “selected audiences” know.
Once it was abundantly clear that Santorum was a hard-right wingnut, PA resoundingly gave him the boot. But it took a while for the reaction.
Saint Ronnie was governor of my state and, while it is not something discussed openly now, he was very capable of being a big time jerk. He was a jerk to the ‘right’ people though. Christie could fit that mold. The big daddy syndrome is strong in American politics.
After what we’ve seen in the last few years, can you really be positive he won’t sell?
Ah yes. California dumped one of the most capable Governors ever for Ronnie. What was exceedingly weird about that is that Pat Brown’s competency was generally acknowledged by the public. It was like “he’s good but let’s try something different.” Eight years later, the voters went for the restoration with Jerry Brown. (There was a bit of that in 2000 when BushI didn’t seem so bad in retrospect.)
But we don’t have to reach back to decades old history to see CA voters acting like nincompoops. They tossed out the boring but reasonably competent Davis in favor of Schwarzenegger. So, we’re now back to Jerry Brown who is now far beyond youthful and liberal.
I haven’t lived in CA, but wasn’t Davis involved in corruption? And associated with police brutality? People will absorb large amounts of both, I know because I’ve lived most of my life in Chicago or the near suburbs, but at some point they get revolted, especially when “the city that works” stops working because every dime has been sucked out and sold off.
There were multiple issues re: Davis, but the biggest was that he didn’t do enough to halt the phony (Enron led) energy crisis–he was weak. A tough, bright shiny object, Arnold, was needed to straighten things out. It was all so stupid and is why I think Christie has a chance.
I recall Arnold’s campaign, besides the movie star angle and the presence of bipartisan Maria Kennedy Shriver, hitting largely on vague anti-govt themes — incompetence, corruption, high taxes (the fee incr on annual vehicle registration), the sense that things were not working properly. Arnold ran around the non-elite non-coastal areas of the state with a broom promising to bring sweeping changes to Sacramento once he got in.
It wasn’t that Davis was corrupt (no more than any big state pol, and less so in fact) but that he was so low-keyed a personality that he came off as a rather dull and perhaps weak pol in comparison to tough talking ex-muscleman Hollywood superstar Arnold. Californians were and are attracted to and impressed by celebrities.
1966 was not a good year to be running as a liberal Dem — VN heating up, rioting by blacks in Watts the prev yr, long-haired beatniks causing commotion on college campuses, decisions by the liberal Warren Ct seeming to favor criminals, etc. Iow, the political terrain was primed for a conservative backlash election.
And Pat Brown had already served two terms. Plus he badly underestimated Reagan’s appeal to the public — in fact, his fear was that the GOP would nominate the mod-lib Republican mayor of S.F. George Christopher to run against him. Pat wanted Bedtime for Bonzo Ronnie, someone he thought would be a laughably easy opponent.
The rise of Arnold in the special circus election of 2003 was greatly aided by division and lack of a coordinated message and strategy by party Dem officials, the mostly star-struck statewide media (LAT an exception, but rather late), and the joke of a debating format where Qs were given to candidates in advance, greatly assisting political neophyte Arnie.
And I thought on the threshold Q — would voters decide to recall Davis — that the gov was much too soft-spoken, gentlemanly and above-the-fray almost in a Dukakis-like way, as he failed to vigorously object to the corruption of proper political processes that the bogus recall election represented.
They had a rather extended clip of Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor’s race, declaring the race to be “a referendum on Obamacare,” and the reporting going along with that. It was kind of surprising, because I figure that NBC has had to have seen the polling that McAuliffe is headed to a convincing victory.
I suppose, though, that when Christie wins New Jersey, NBC will declare the results inconclusive.
That tells you that NBC is in the bag for the Cooch.
On related topic, it does seem to me that the accumulation of plagiarism incidents puts a stop to Rand Paul’s presidential aspirations.
No, it just raises the bar a little more, so that everyone who can waltz under it is qualified to be president.
See: Sarah Palin.