My first choice for the next President

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
We are in a real and growing retirement crisis – a crisis that is shaking the foundations of what was once a vibrant and secure middle class. The absolute last thing we should be doing right now is talking about cutting back on Social Security. The absolute last thing we should do in 2013 – at the very moment that Social Security has become the principal lifeline for millions of our seniors -- is allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch. Watch my floor speech on the retirement crisis today.

What makes you think Independents are necessarily somewhere in the middle between Democrats and Republicans? Once I become an American, I will probably be a swing voter between the Democratic Party and the Green Party. Would that make it inappropriate for me to register as Independent?

Your selection of my posts to which you deign to respond is interesting Thomas.

(Of course this opens the door widely to a snarky response, but I like to think you might be above such obvious and cheap retorts)

In any case, I should ask you why you think I believe Independents are somewhere between Democrats and Republicans.

Obviously, you can register however you please, and, to me at least, there is nothing "inappropriate" about registering as an Independent.

If, however, you consistently (and not necessarily exclusively) vote for the candidates of one particular party, your self-identification as an Independent is fraudulent.

Those who subscribe to this fraudulent labeling (and whether or not you are among their number is entirely unknown to me) do so, I am convinced, because they like to delude themselves, and hope to impress others.

Or they could simply be independent but since there are only two parties really at play so to speak, they have to choose which one they mostly align with. Reagan and Clinton was able to get a lot of those independents, Obama did the first time. But for the most part, independents seem to have to go with the lesser of two evils and just grumble about two party systems. Maybe that will change some day, I don't know. At least that has been my observations for whatever they're worth. (not a play for assurances)

Conservative Republicans Recoil at the Notion That Christie Is the Party’s Savior

Time magazine splashed Chris Christie’s profile on its latest cover. High-profile Republicans, including the only female Hispanic governor in the nation, are urging him to run for president. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program seems to be anointing him the savior of the Republican Party.

Everyone, it seems, is celebrating the ascent of Mr. Christie, the governor of New Jersey. Except people like Scott Hofstra.

“We’re so frustrated with all this Christie talk we can’t see straight,” said Mr. Hofstra, who is active in the Tea Party movement and lives in Vine Grove, Ky. He and his friends were especially furious when the governor, on television last week, described himself as “a conservative,” given his recent expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, among other positions.

“He’s no more conservative than Harry Reid,” Mr. Hofstra said, referring to the Senate majority leader, a Democrat.

Mr. Christie’s landslide victory in New Jersey was just days ago, but the conversation about him is moving swiftly beyond the borders of his state. Three years before the presidential election, a governor who was almost a complete unknown until he became a YouTube sensation in 2010 has become not only a political celebrity but also a deeply polarizing force within his party.

To many in the conservative movement, Mr. Christie represents the kind of candidate the Republican establishment has foisted on the base in recent presidential elections — a media darling whose calling card is that elusive quality of electability and whose adherence to the party’s principles is suspect.

The more the news media and the establishment cheer on Mr. Christie, the more grass-roots activists — especially members of the Tea Party — resent it. Mr. Christie appeared this weekend on four of the Sunday morning talk shows. Chuck Henderson, a Tea Party activist from Manhattan, Kan., nearly shouted into the phone when asked by a reporter about the idea of Mr. Christie as a presidential candidate.

“He won his re-election, bully for him, but for him to make the jump up the next rung of the ladder, well, he’s not going to find any support from the people I mix with,” Mr. Henderson said.

A national poll conducted in September by Quinnipiac University underscored the pattern: While 46 percent of self-described moderates have a positive view of Mr. Christie and only 15 percent have a negative view, among conservatives, 33 percent view him favorably and 25 percent have an unfavorable impression.

Those around Mr. Christie are aware of the unease among conservatives and are beginning to emphasize his positions on issues like abortion — he is opposed to it, except in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother — and state spending to try to blunt those concerns.

The governor’s standing among conservatives is important because Iowa and South Carolina, two of the first three states in the Republican presidential nominating contest, are dominated by ideology-driven activists. In addition, grass-roots activists are providing much of the passion and energy for the Republican party right now.

In an interview last week, Mr. Christie said if conservatives had questions about his principles, they ought to examine his record.

“Watch me govern,” he said. “I’ve cut taxes, cut spending, reformed pensions and benefits. Believe me, if Washington were able to do that, they’d have a parade for them. My record is my record. I’m proud of it. And it is a conservative record, governing as a conservative in a blue state.”

But Mr. Christie’s record can be read a number of ways. Some conservatives have already raised questions about his actions on gun control: He vetoed several bills last summer, including one that would ban the .50-caliber Barrett rifle, but has approved others, such as a measure that requires the police to provide the state with more information about guns used in crimes. And while he has made known his opposition to same-sex marriage, he abandoned an appeal of a court decision that legalized it in his state. During his re-election campaign, he also suggested he may support providing in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.

With a civil war underway inside the Republican Party, what conservatives fear most is that Mr. Christie’s nomination would effectively mean that the party establishment had won the internal struggle — and that Mr. Christie’s force of personality trumped ideas.

Asked in an interview whether Mr. Christie could unite the party’s factions, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, responded flatly: “No. I don’t think Chris Christie has any interest in bridging that divide because he’ll run as an aggressive, Northeastern moderate who can get something done. I don’t see him using conservative language. He might be able to get nominated, but it will be running as a personality leader, not a movement leader.”

To an influential bloc of the Republican establishment, of course, Mr. Christie is nothing short of a savior — a charismatic governor with not a whiff of Washington on him, with a proven ability to get votes from the constituencies that have proved resistant to the Republican Party in recent elections, like women and Hispanics.

The excitement is especially noticeable among many party operatives, contributors and insiders, who see Mr. Christie as perhaps their only bet to defeat Hillary Clinton if former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida does not run.

“I think he should definitely consider running for president, and I think he will find there’s an enormous, an enormous, amount of pressure from people who want to support him,” said former Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi.

Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, who spent the final days of Mr. Christie’s re-election campaign stumping for him in New Jersey, said, “I love his authenticity, I love who he is,” and added an unprompted endorsement: “I will support Governor Christie in anything he decides to do in life.”

But Mr. Christie’s foes have clout, too. Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk show host, has mockingly suggested that Mr. Christie will run for president as a Democrat, and the conservative website impresario Matt Drudge has made clear he has little regard for him. “McAuliffe, De Blasio and Christie: Triple feature in a Republican’s nightmare,” Mr. Drudge said in a Twitter post after the results of Tuesday’s elections, grouping Mr. Christie with the Democratic governor-elect of Virginia and the Democratic mayor-elect of New York City.

For all the grumbles about Mr. Christie’s positions on issues like same-sex marriage, for example, or even griping about his embrace of President Obama after Hurricane Sandy, the underlying issue with the right wing appears to be trust: Many are skeptical that he is committed to advancing the conservative movement, much as they came to be about President George W. Bush.

They also worry that any campaign by Mr. Christie is destined to be centered entirely on his pugnacious style, rather than a broader Republican agenda.

“Personality campaigns that get the political establishment all hot and bothered tend not to work in the G.O.P. primaries,” said Craig Shirley, a conservative historian who has written about Ronald Reagan’s campaigns. “At least not for very long.”

“Christie needs a signature issue and he needs to resist the temptation to go to war with the conservatives and the Tea Party,” Mr. Shirley said.

To many in the party’s grass roots, though, it may not matter what Mr. Christie does.

“We want somebody special, a real limited-government conservative,” said Eric Stamper, a Tennessee Tea Party activist. “I don’t think that’s him.”

There's no selection at all. You're just on and off my ignore list, and right now you happen to be off.

Because you concluded that Frank can't be a true Independent because he doesn't ever want to vote Republican again. If the possibility occurred to you that Frank might be swinging independantly between the Democrats and some third party, your responses to him did not show it.

The so called Tea Partiers, such as Paul, are no better than the extreme leftists and actually are a major cause of the gridlock within DC. Most of these "extremists" on each side have never Governed or been responsible for complex companies or held any position of leadership.

People like Chris Christie who actually has a record of Governing and accomplishments is a breath of fresh air. Some may call it "hot air" but one thing you can say about Chirs Chirstie is he will tell you exactly what the realities are and will work to form a consensus. He does not make excuses and I find that refreshing.

Yeah, he does seem to strike a lot of people from across all political affiliations as refreshingly blunt, except when trying to pin him down to some views which would endear him to tea parties but not too many other people. I haven't really looked to how he governed, but read that it was conservative, but nonetheless, he won twice in a blue state. I imagine Sandy helped him a lot there.

He is a hidden cancer!

Reformed pensions of public service sector, notably teachers unions.
Capped Property Taxes
Told NY to shove it when total cost of overruns in new tunnel solely at the cost of Jersey Taxpayers.

Sandy was photo op. Still lots to do and he knows it and so do I. Yet he has made accomplishments.

Just to name a few. This with Democrats in the State House.

Apparently Frank thinks otherwise but can not communicate why he feels that way.

I don't have to. If he is elected to the presidency...something I do not think will happen...the country will quickly understand what people like me were warning about.

If you vote for the candidates of one party or the other more than 90% of the time, why register as an Independent unless it is to convey an image you consider to be somehow positive?

You're right, I didn't consider that Frank might be consistently swinging between the Democrats and a third party. If he were he might indeed credibly call himself "independent." However, I think I have read enough of frank's posts to reasonably conclude this is not the case.

In any case, I don't consider the terms "independent" and "moderate" to be synonymous and so the idea that independents are somewhere in the middle (ideologically) of Republicans and Democrats is not at all what I have suggested.

I appreciate, though, that many who self-describe as Independent, do consider the term synonymous with "moderate."

I'm afraid I don't see the allure of being considered vanilla.

Well, you are generalizing here about Tea Party members , just like those on the left.

I agree that ideologues without any practical experience in governance and management make for poor presidents (see BHO), but it doesn't mean they can't be good legislators.

A lot of the folks in both parties who you might consider less than "extreme" have no practical experience in governance or management, so that can't be the missing ingredient in your recipe for an unlocked grid.

I've been a huge fan of Mitch Daniels and alternate between fury and admiration for why he won't run for president.

Fury, because we all know that if he does, his past personal life will be the focus of his opponents and the media, and admiration, because he refuses to sacrifice
his family for political aspirations.

I like Christie too, but I think you are bestowing upon him greater virtues than he deserves. He is at the very beginning of a second term as governor. While this is a quantum leap beyond Obama's executive experience, it doesn't come close to the executive experience of Mitt Romney, Ronald Reagan, or George Bush.

Because you do not want to be registered as a member of any of the parties!

That was easy.

Mostly, I vote for Democrats...or simply withhold my vote. Even though I am an Independent, I have not seen many independent candidates with reasonable ideas.

In any case, I support a progressive agenda...with emphasis on protecting and expanding safety net programs. The Democrats seem to do a much better job in that regard than the Republicans.

I, like you, do not see "Independent" to be "moderate" or "middle." I take iconoclastic positions...and I seldom see candidates who significantly reflect my positions.

I see that you have already been infected, Thomas. Escape while you can.

Christie had a career as a US Attorney, Count Freeholder and Lawyer. So his experiences are certainly different than those you mention (not better, but different).

My view of so called Tea Partiers is they are really moderates in many areas, they just refuse to admit it. They say they stand for 2 things, lower taxes and smaller Govt, but when you press them on certain issues, I find many are center right (fiscally conservative, somewhat moderate socially).
Even so called (small l) Libertarians like Paul are similar.

To me they are not being honest with themselves (except idiots like Cruz who honestly thinks he is conservative), so I discount much of their rhetoric.