See if some of this sounds familiar. Rich Lowry, NRO:
President Obama […] has […] proven — with a few exceptions — to be the servant of a limited political faction. He has exacerbated the nation’s fiscal crisis without dealing effectively with its economic crisis, and has piled on far-reaching legislation of dubious merit. His supporters still lament that Washington is “broken.”
The sweep of Obama’s ambition has necessarily forced congressional Republicans into a perpetual posture of “no,” but they are reluctant to outline their own agenda of “yes.” Out across the United States, a populist movement of great moment and promise wants to pull the country back to its constitutional moorings. Its favored candidates, though, are often shaky vessels, the likes of Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada, who are always one gaffe away from self-immolation.
For adults, look to the statehouses. Look in particular to New Jersey and Indiana, where Govs. Chris Christie and Mitch Daniels are forging a limited-government Republicanism that connects with people and solves problems. They are models of how to take inchoate dissatisfaction with the status quo, launder it through political talent, and apply it in a practical way to governance.
Christie has just concluded a six-month whirlwind through Trenton that should be studied by political scientists for years to come. In tackling a fiscal crisis in a state groaning under an $11 billion deficit, he did his fellow New Jerseyans the favor of being as forthright as a punch in the mouth. And it worked.
Christie traveled the state making the case for budgetary retrenchment, and he frontally took on the state’s most powerful interest, the teachers’ union. He rallied the public and split the Democrats, in a bravura performance in the lost art of persuasion.
[…]
When it comes to demeanor, Mitch Daniels is to Chris Christie what Miss Indiana is to Snooki. In his quieter way — and in less dire circumstances — the skinflint second-term governor has slimmed down and improved his state’s public sector. He inherited a $200 million deficit in 2004, which he turned into a $1.3 billion surplus — just in time for it to act as a cushion during the recession. He has reformed government services and rallied his administration around one simple, common-sense goal: “We will do everything we can to raise the net disposable income of individual Hoosiers.”
Both Christie and Daniels are happy (or, in the case of the latter, pleasant) warriors. They both are distinctive politicians, not what a political consultant would cook up in his laboratory (Christie has too much girth and Daniels too little hair). They both feel the weight of responsibility as the chief executives of their states in a way that hyperbolic congressmen and commentators don’t. They prove that Republicans can govern, that budgets can be tamed, and that politics can work, so long as serious men and women put their shoulders to the wheel.
In short, they are adults. Their like can’t gain control of Washington soon enough.
Amen.
Seems that, at least on a local level, OUTLAW! sells. Too bad it doesn’t work for blogs. At least, not until it’s been fully vetted and approved by GOP boosters, then polished and handed over to someone just vanilla enough to sell it without giving offense.
God bless ’em.
Let’s hope they don’t fuck this up by, say, watering down the message and adding a canned laugh track.
(h/t BJTex)
Chris Christie continues to amaze me, in that I cannot figure out how someone who simply does not fit the politician mold could do so well. Perhaps what the “experts” think about who a viable candidate is are simply wrong.
I think what happened in his case is things went to hell bad enough for someone who perhaps didn’t want the job realized he had to do it so some fuckup wouldn’t get the job in his place. We need more people like that.
Oops, either replace “for someone” with “that someone” or “realized” with “to realize”.
“Let’s hope they don’t fuck this up by, say, watering down the message and adding a canned laugh track.”
And Romney-style hair. And Masscare.
“Masscare” was the MA health takeover, right?
To be fair, perhaps it should be called “RomneyCare,” just to remind people that he is a statist, too.
I always thought MassCare lent itself well to misspellings. MassaCare, MassaCre, MasCara…
As a Floridian, I want to kidnap Christie and have him be OUR governor for a while. It’d take him a while to undo what Crist has done.
But that probably won’t work. As it is, it’s looking as if Crist is finding another public office to fail in. I’d as soon have just about anyone else in that office, except for maybe that axe-the-tax guy (who it turned out was on the take).
We can always pray for lightning. In the lightning death capital of the world, that isn’t as farfetched as it might be elsewhere.
Perhaps what the “experts” think about who a viable candidate is are simply wrong.
I can’t help but suspect that these campaign experts are the same people who help newspapers maintain their market share.
And finance the GOP-booster blogs.
Lose/lose!
I wish Christie was running for president in 2012. I like his rhetorical skills in taking his critics on directly and winning based on real argument, backed by a clear principle.
OUTLAW would sell at a national level too.
Some of you who have not been closely following the Christie thing in NJ (I live in PA so I get lots of local and regional coverage) may not know how both fascinating and astonishing has been his progress as governor.
He ran a campaign almost exclusively on the budgetary crisis, the inability of both Corzine and the legislature to deal with it and the need to stop taxing to only partially pay it off. He promised to take on anyone and everyone who would get in his way to cut spending, limit property taxes, veto any tax increase and reform the entitlement systems to balance the budget.
Shockingly, he’s done everyone of those things despite a concerted effort by the press, unions and Democrats to characterize him in every disparaging way imaginable. What has been the most telling aspect of how he has succeeded is his almost innate ability to roam around the state, face his accusers head on, and pound them into sand. He made his point that he doesn’t care if he’s reelected and, unlike others who have made similar promises, proceeded to act the part.
In effect, he has done what establishment Republicans cringe at even thinking about: He has forced the state to face the truth of their problems and to face the truth, and pain, of the solutions. Every attempt, through town meetings and millions spent by unions on advertisements, left him completely unbowed and he had a sharp, smart answer to every charge.
The next time someone tells you that Team R has to be careful and fluffy to appeal to independents, point to NJ and say, “Thanks but I’d rather have someone who sees the problem and organizes the solution … regardless of the political cost.”
I’d also like to point out that we need writers and commentators like our host who are less concerned with following the Marquis of Blogsberry rules of “don’t be too out there” and more concerned with shining the light on our pending national disaster and vigorously defend themselves and their principles against the ideological ignoramuses determined to convert our Republic into semi-socialist bankrupt Xanadu.
As Danger would say “Fire down range!”
Oh and thanks for the H/T, Jeff. As I wrote in my E-Mail to you, I’d like to see adult political commentators as well as adult politicians. I promise not to disparage your maturity despite your growing cache of barely legal lesbian porn,
This guy was an outlaw…
New Jersey has one of the highest property tax rates in the country. In some towns, a modest home can have a local property tax burden that can be more than mortgages elsewhere in the country. And New Jersey has a sizable sales tax and an income tax.
People are fed up there. They know that they are being screwed over by teachers unions and other groups and not getting fair services in return.
“Barely legal” is still legal, sir.
Agreed.
However, as linked yesterday, it’s far from certain that these men aren’t one statement away from becoming enemy number one amongst the Hot Air types.*
Christie better watch his ass.
The “Hot Air types” need to man up, methinks.
Btw, just to be abundantly clear, I am really talking about the Hot Air folks. This place doesn’t have that insane fiscal/social chasm that’s so discouraging on other sites.
bh – Heaven forbid they do something sensible like focus on the finances.
It’s not just the Hot Air types bh: I sure found myself shifting uncomfortably in my seat as I read the name Rich Lowry on the by-line last night.
Agreed, BJ; agreed, JD; yeah, I’ll admit Rich Lowry also has that effect on myself from time to time, sdferr.
He echoed the witless Noonan as he set up his argument.
There is a fine line between “disagreeable” and “jingoistic.” Christie understands that he can be firm and even blunt without coming off as a caveman conservative. The best example I’ve seen is when he proposed a wage freeze for teachers and a 1.5% contribution to benefits. The unions and their minions were quick to play the victimization card, proclaiming that Christie “doesn’t care about educating children. Christie’s response was to lay out all opf the benefits that teachers have in NJ and compare that to what average folks have to deal with in a stagnating economy. the money line? (paraphrasing)”The next time you hear a teacher tell you that I don’t care about children ask them how much they care while they have their hands in your pocket.”
Priceless.
Hmmmm … Speaking of adults: Dem Blumenthal’s over 20 point lead in the Connecticutt race for Dodds senate seat is now down to 10 points.
ADULTS!!
Odd, this post seems to be troll free… I wonder why?
Daniels is a most excellent choice. Fuck hotair.
There’d be a nice bit of symmetry if Christie were to run for president, considering that precisely one hundred years earlier, Woodrow Wilson – also a New Jersey governor – was elected president and did much to put us on our current statist path. Christie could be the anti-Wilson.
Absolutely never forget the “Sweet, Sweet, Chris Christie porn bit.
i like when kiddies at halloween are dressed as chris christie
and u hold out the bowl/ basket of candy and u
know they are only gonna take one..
it’s them other fat bastard kids i ..dislike..
grabby!
I don’t watch TV, so I have no idea who this Snooki is but she keeps popping up so I feel I ought to know. I gather she is a character on some New Jersey reality show, but what is the particular nuerosis/psychosis that makes her such an icon?
No one seems to know, B Moe.
Driving to work this morning I caught the tail end of the first hour of Bill Bennett’s radio show. He was supposed to have Romney on, but Romney decided to be a no show. Purely speculation on my part, but I can’t help but conclude that Romney chickened out because Bennett’s show was all Prop 8 and Romney didn’t have time to have his deeply held convictions on the matter spoon fed to him by his pollsters.