Tag: New Jersey

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This Is Where I Get Off

I know a number of Democrats who are looking for a reason not to vote for Chris Christie for President in 2016. These are my deal-breakers.

Memo to Chris: Marriage equality and women’s reproductive rights are, respectively, the civil rights issue and public health crisis of our generation. Get on board, or you’ll never wear the post-partisan mantle.

This is where liberals can and should choose to engage. We’ve lost the privacy/spying debate. Even if the polls were on our side, we’d still be up against an intelligence/industrial complex that makes Eisenhower’s departing warning seem quaint. We certainly won’t win the public on that issue, but if we get into power on other grounds, we can effect the change we want in those areas, too.

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Christie 2016

Everybody’s got a little hole in the middle
Everybody does a little dance with the devil

The Hurricane1 does it again! Chris Christie continues his campaign to win my vote in 2016, making him the first Republican I’ve ever voted for in a national election. We still disagree on several deal-breaker issues, but he’s getting there. He’s decided to appoint an interim Senator until a Special Election can be held in October to finish the remainder of Senator Frank Lautenberg’s term after the Senior Senator from New Jersey passed away this week. Not everyone is happy with the decision, however:

[Former House Majority Leader Dick] Armey accused the governor of trying to curry favor with Democrats by not appointing a Republican to the seat until 2014. He’ll name an interim senator by next week to serve until the special election.

“All Christie has to do is appoint a Republican. That’s the correct move for him to make,” Armey said. “Now, I put it down as debilitating stupidity. The first rule of politics is ‘Don’t lose the friends you already have for the friends you’re never going to get.’ And if he thinks the Democrats are going to love him for being the guy who plays fair rather than takes the political opportunity he’s crazy.”

A Democratic governor would have “seized the opportunity” and appointed a senator from his own party, Armey argued Tuesday.

This was the classy, statesmanlike thing to do. And anything that pisses off Dick Armey off is a good thing.
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1That’s my nickname for him.