http://themoderatevoice.com/191024/the-chris-christie-florida-travel-log-the-weather-is-fine-and-expected-to-get-even-hotter-in-new-jersey/
THE CHRIS CHRISTIE FLORIDA TRAVEL-LOG: THE WEATHER IS FINE HERE AND EXPECTED TO GET EVEN HOTTER IN NEW JERSEY: THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
By JOHN F. McCARTHY
TMV COLUMNIST
Is there a smoking traffic cone in Bridgegate?
The taint of a brown burn mark on the bright orange plastic yet?
And if there is - will it hurt Chris Christie's chances to be elected President in 2016?
So few national op-ed columnists have weighed in on the New Jersey Governor's plight ...
that I thought I'd take a flying bridge leap (a Tony Scott if you will) at it myself.
Dirty tricks - or as they're called in the Virgin Islands - "politricks" - are nothing new.
In fact, they are an American tradition. They date back to the first contested Presidential election in the United States – when Thomas Jefferson hired journalist James Thomas Callender to slander his opponent Alexander Hamilton – who grew up in St. Croix – (that wasn’t the slanderous part.) Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon made a career out of them - long before he even imagined the Checkers Speech and a run at the White House.
What's new about Chris Christie's take on them is that THE JOKE IS ON THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR HIM. When Nixon's "plumbers" sprung a leak at the Watergate complex - at least the plan in motion at the time was to muck up the competition - meaning the Democratic candidates themselves. So it was poor planning on Chris Christie's henchmen (and women’s) part because - as DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said about the dirty tricks backfiring over the bridge – “it was directed at his own constituents.” Instead of shock and awe - what they got was a "Joisey" toxic spill of "mock and ow!"
If a trademark yellow and black book "Dirty Tricks for Dummies" existed – it might have contained helpful information for Chris Christie’s staff: "Chapter One: The dirty trick is always played PRIOR to an election. Chapter Two: The dirty trick is always played ON a political opponent, NOT ON THE POLITICIAN’S OWN CONSTITUENTS. Chapter Three: The object of playing the dirty trick is to allow the player to win by an even greater margin. And most importantly, Chapter Four: The dirty trick is never, ever played AFTER an election." After all, what would be the point of that?
The other thing Wasserman Schultz suggested was that Chris Christie’s office was a breeding ground for a “culture of intimidation and retribution.” What Nixon employee Donald Segretti called the dirty tricks campaigns – (“ratf---ing”) – can’t be printed in a family online newsource like this one. And in a race to the bottom it is hard to imagine the Governor going so low as to actually being fruitful and multiplying in that posiition nationally.
What hasn’t been hard to imagine are the comparisons between Chris Christie and Richard Nixon – political cartoonists – like the ones featured proudly here at Cagle Cartoons – have been having a food fight field day portraying the portly Jersey-born Governor in the cheek and jowl of the former Saddle River, NJ resident Richard Milhouse Nixon in full “I am not a crook” persona – generously subsituting the word “bully” for “crook.”
And the similarities are there. Strangely enough, the gridiron is one of them. There is a culture of sadism and meanness in the sport of football that is usually tossed off as “toughness.” And you have to buy into this mental state psychologically if you are going to play it in an organized fashion as long as Nixon and Christie did. Each player was also a standout student and successful attorney – including prosecutorial duties – and Gridiron is a city in New Jersey – what more do you want?
But the similarities end there – especially politically. Because the Newark native is/was a winner – and Richard Nixon was a sad sack loser – losing three or four major elections (including one for Governor of California) for every minor one Christie lost. In football, too, there is no real comparison. Chris was a starter – and Dick sat the bench. Whoever is running Chris Christie’s campaign for President has to explain how it is that they’ve managed to put Tricky Dick and the Builder of Bridgegate – onto the same team – and in the same sentence.
The Governor said in the press conference for the “Fort Lee Lane Closure scandal” – (as it is called on Wikipedia) that the buck stops with him. So although Chris Christie gets no credit for purposely snarling traffic on the world’s busiest bridge – he did engineer his own office – which built the scandal. So the question becomes: Is this how you reward the “cross-over” voters who put you in office two times in a row? And if Chris Christie didn’t know about the scandal until we were 24-hours into it – how is it that he admitted to having two sleepless nights prior to being informed of it?
It’s a little early for Spring break – but Chris Christie went to all the places – Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Palm Beach – where young people like to go to party. He might have had a tear in his beer, though, if he thought about the jam he was in while he was there. Because although he was seen at places where Republicans have been wont to go for generations – places like Golf and Country Clubs and gated communities called “Hawk’s Landing” and “Lost Tree Village” – he brought a lot of baggage with him.
He got a warm welcome in Florida from local Democrats who had hoped the scandal was contagious and would spread to Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) as he fundraised and schmoozed with an elite group of G.O.P. donors including billionaire co-founder of Home Depot Kenneth Langone and Sugar Baron Pepe Fanjul, Jr. But the days of Chris Christie leading Hillary Clinton in national presidential polls are long gone.
The Governor cancelled yesterday’s inaugural bash for his second term in office – the official reason: “snow.” With the news Monday that even nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis had gone public with charges that Chris Christie bullied him, too – I’m not sure he has to worry about cold weather in New Jersey, because I expect things are about to heat up around “Drumthwacket” – which is not the sound the George Washington Bridge makes when it closes – but the official residence in Princeton where the Governor has deigned not live since he was first elected.
Time for a little memo on the Fort Lee scandal to “officially” get through to the big guy.
Time to pack it in?
© 2014 Secret Goldfish Publishing House/John Francis McCarthy
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS TO THE ARTICLE ON THE INTERNET:
“Thank you for your defense of Chris Christie. It’s about time somebody pointed out that the honorable governor’s actions actually saved lives and promoted the interests of U.S. servicemen both home and abroad.
“It took an objective view from the Danish West Indies. You are to be commended.”
--SimonSays93 on January 22, 2014 @ 1:09 p.m.
“The article here points to a bleak future for Chris Christie. One of his own making. I do not see how he actually “saved lives and promoted the interests of servicemen both home and abroad.” Maybe wrong article?
--sheknows on January 22, 2014 @ 1:23 p.m.
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