That Guy Christie Again...NJ voters disapprove of him.

Do you think he has been any worse for New Jersey than were his two predecessors?

Yeah...I really do, George.

The last two were no winners by any means. I will grant you that. But if you lived here and had to deal with this buffoon the way we do...I suspect you might feel that way also.

He is selling the state down the river for personal glory...that he will never get. It is actually difficult to watch.

New Jersey had huge problems before the fat man showed up....Every mayor of Newark but one since 1962 has been charged with committing crimes while in office, you had the gift of Atlantic City and somehow managed to **** that up for the last few generations....to name just two of many examples

Where do you live, Hawk. Some place where there have been no problems?

New Jersey doesn't have a monopoly on corrupt politicians although I've heard it said "it has its share." One remembers Governor McDonnell of Virgina who was indicted along with his wife and each has to serve separate terms. I must admit Governor Christie's leadership is unparalleled with his corrupt audacity. In the face of the obvious he proclaims "I did not know what was going on." Well, Bridgett Kelly made it clear on Friday at her indictment she had more to say, and the mistaken idea that she was the only one in the office who knew about Bridgegate was ludicrous! I'll bet that got Chris Christie shaking in his boots.

New Jersey has had several downgrades under Christie's administration. New Jersey's unemployment rate is at 6.5 while nationally, it's 5.6. When my husband bought our New Jersey Condo in 2007, the following year we got a property tax rebate, as well as the following year. In 2009 when Christi first got elected, the rebate check was canceled.

Chris Christie has been terrible for New Jersey...he is self-serving, and the New Jersey people be damned. In order to get elected in a blue state, he did a helluva job disguising the real Chris Christie; he used a great deal of charm on New Jerseyans; I never liked the man, not only because I have a bias against most Republicans, but because his obeseness offended my sensibilities. I could not comprehend how anyone in public office should carry around so much unnecessary fat.

Chris Christie had to know in advance regarding the disruption of the GW Bridge, which was a major upheaval! The GW Bridge is regarded as the busiest bridge in the world and for subordinates ON THEIR OWN, in Christie's admin to take on this daunting task to close all three lanes and strategize to close it on the first day of school, interfering with ambulances, etc., is freaking unbelievable! For an underling to undertake such a responsibility with the risk of doing this behind their boss' back would be tantamount to suicide or being fired big time!

AMEN!

It is true that unemployment in ew Jersey is relatively high compared to national averages, but that has been true for a long time going back to the previous several governors of the state. It is likely that there are other factors than just the actions of your current governor at work here. Texas has very low unemployment and has seen a much faster economic growththan most other states. How do you feel about the current and previous governors of Texas?

I'm not particularly fond of Christie as a political figure myself, and I am bemused by your reference to the "charm" with which he supposedly deceived the people of New Jersey. I would say that is not one of his key strengths.

Still , you guys are better off than Illinois. They, like New Jersey are plagued with high taxes and low economic growth. Worse, their public pension fund is on the brink of insolvency, and two of their recent governors are in prision for offenses while committed in office.

In defense of New Jersey it has the second highest urban population percentage of any state in the union, and cities are not doing well. This is in large part because since the disaster that was 70's era urban renewal Washington has made the conscious decision to let cities rot.

I sure wish the journalists would start to see beyond race, see that what has gone wrong has to do with class and with general economic decline much more than race.

But 50 years later the NJ brain trust still cant figure out a solution for Newark??!! I gotta think they are not trying very hard.

Big problems in Newark and Camden, Hawk. I don't have the slightest idea of how to deal with them...and it looks as though the people entrusted with the duty of dealing with it don't either.

Tough world.

Our problems look like peanuts compared with the problems others have around this globe.

Not all cities in this country are doing poorly. Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas, Huston, Austin, Indianapolis and the urban areas of Tidewater and Northern Virginia, and many areas of the Dakotas are experiencing boom times. Until recently New York was doing very well too. Many local factors are involved in this, but politics is a factor too. The largely Democrat political machines that tend to dominate large city governments in most areas (red States with blue cities) aree dominated by public sector unions and have generally served their citizens poorly.

Under our Constitution States are self governing, except in specific areas reserved for the Federal government. Same goes for Cities.

The exonomic welfare of the so called middle class has indeed suffered during the past eight years, but our current government tells us iut isn;t their fault: someone else did it.

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/05/for_christie_jerseys_economic_woes_may_be_biggest_roadblock_to_white_house.html

I gotta figure that the super high cost of living is a major reason for this. From what I have read it is housing costs that are the biggest cost of living problem. This is hard for me to understand....is there a land shortage? No more swamps to drain maybe? I have two employees who vacated New Jersey primarily because of the cost of living problems, before they told me about it a couple of years ago I was ignorant. But I still cant get a bead on what the underlining problem is.

Does anyone have any facts or guesses?

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/nj_residents_are_leaving_for_p.html

Considering that I was reading that NJ has over $80 billion in unfunded state pension and health obligations, plus an infrastructure that needs lots of investment, it does not appear that the state tax problem is going to get better anytime soon.

Chris Christie just forfeited any chance at the Republican nomination. Yesterday he publicly said climate change is real and humans contribute to it. Truth doesn’t set well with most republicans.

Until we descend into the brutality of summer heat and humidity, just about anybody has a chance still. That includes Christie and a few that haven't been to the hat tossing ring yet.

As to your assessment of the matter of truth, it doesn't fit in well with most Democrats either- truth you see, is a political liability.

if that is true then it is also true that we have the government that we deserve.

Shocking: NJ Star Ledger fails to endorse Christie for President
POSTED AT 6:01 PM ON MAY 20, 2015 BY JAZZ SHAW

I must confess… “fails to endorse” doesn’t really do this justice. The largest newspaper in New Jersey actually goes into full blown freak-out mode and essentially declares the governor to be insane. In case that sounds suspiciously like hyperbole to you, the title of their editorial includes the phrase, “Loses His Marbles.”

For months, we have wondered how Gov. Chris Christie thinks he can win the presidency when New Jersey is in such rotten shape after his six years in office. Now we may have our answer: The man has lost touch with reality.

In a national TV interview Monday, Christie was asked to explain why 65 percent of New Jersey voters think he’d make a bad president. His answer: We love him so much that we want him to remain our governor.

“They want me to stay,” he told Megyn Kelly of Fox News. “A lot of those people in that 65 percent want me to stay. And I’ve heard that from lots of people at town hall meetings.”

To be fair to the Star Ledger, that’s a pretty crazy thing to say. Chrstie’s numbers have been sagging since the beginning of Bridgegate and there were far better explanations – all more “tethered to Planet Earth” as the paper put it – than saying that the population of his state had signed on to some vast, Hidden Hand plan to keep him in New Jersey by telling pollsters that he would make a lousy president. I would guess that the boss and his staff somehow failed to anticipate the question before going on Megyn Kelly’s show and that’s what he came up with on the fly.

But the tone of this entire editorial is so over the top that you’d expect to find it in a tabloid rather than a supposedly mainstream, legitimate newspaper. They go on to say that Christie must exist in such a bubble that hard truths have a tough time penetrating. Launching criticism of an elected official’s policies or highlighting negative results is one thing. Petty name calling is another. The paper is also quick to repeatedly cite Bridgegate as one of the potential reasons that he needs to ask himself, “Why don’t people love me?”

Of course, the editors fail to mention that “Bridgegate” was such a big deal on the tip of everyone’s tongues largely because they ran one story after another on it like a rabid dog with a bone, long past the time when the well had gone dry in the Governor’s office. They similarly fail to note that after all of the media sturm und drang, the investigations cleared Christie of involvement. And why would they dwell on that inconvenient fact? The mission was accomplished in their eyes.

The article waits until the very end to get down to the business of non-endorsement.

It’s no wonder that New Jersey is screaming a warning to the rest of the country. God forbid he gets a chance to make an even bigger mess on a larger stage.

As I’ve written here in the past, it’s entirely possible that Chris Christie is politically wounded to the point where he’s no longer viable on the national level. If so, he’s brought some of the pain on himself, particularly when his natural tendencies on key policy issues enraged the conservative base and he essentially answered them with the back of his hand. But he had plenty of help from the liberal media, particularly in his home state. They not only didn’t want to see him ascend to the White House… they were still royally cheesed off that he was in the governor’s mansion. This display of squawking only proves the point of Christie’s defenders, though they may have already lost the larger war in this case.

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/05/20/shocking-nj-star-ledger-fails-to-endorse-christie-for-president/

This is New Jersey, and they needed to speak in a language that the fat man understands so that hopefully he ends the pain and gets off the national tv.

I generally agree with your perspective. However, I am bemused over the furor over "Bridgegate" which, as political payoffs and revenge go, is pretty small potatos. (Consider for example the still unfolding story of political payoffs and corruption in the nearby New York state legislature). In addition the furor over Christie is a bit odd when considered in the context of his two predecessors as governors of New Jersey. In comparison he is a remarkably sane, competent, and honest man.

Here is the actual editorial instead of the skewed take on it. You will find that it does not focus on any one point, but looks at the totality of the Christe time in office. Here is the sole "Bridgegate" quote.



When you read the editorial, it comes across as ... an editorial. I think the "full blown freak-out" is more what you quoted from hotair.com.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/30/chris-christie-presidency-new-jerseyans-liar-bully#img-1

Governor Chris Christie Set to Announce his run for the Presidency of the US. (My how this New Jersey Governor's star has fallen.)

New Jersey governor Chris Christie: according to his constituents, he’s a ‘bully’ and a ‘liar’, with ‘a tongue forked like a serpent’s’.

Tom McCarthy in New York
@TeeMcSee
Tuesday 30 June 2015 08.27 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 30 June 2015 08.43 EDT

As he prepares to unveil his presidential campaign on Tuesday, Chris Christie is promising American voters that he will tell it to them straight – New Jersey-style.

New Jersey has a straight message for American voters, too: run away.

In a state famous for blunt speech, Christie, who has been governor since 2010, has gained notoriety for scenes, invariably captured on YouTube, in which he tells constituents things they don’t want to hear, sometimes insulting them in the process. The scenes define a political brand that Christie now hopes to take nationwide as he joins the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, with a “tell it like it is” tour scheduled to begin as soon as he completes his announcement on Tuesday at Livingston high school, his alma mater.

The problem for Christie is that New Jersey’s reputation for sharp speech cuts both ways – and it is a big state with, currently, a lot of Christie detractors. The “tell it like it is” campaign, it appears, could turn into an extended razzing of the candidate.

No sooner was the venue for Christie’s presidential speech made public than Christie’s opponents began planning a protest that organizers predicted would draw a thousand people in an attempt to upstage the governor’s big announcement. The state’s public teachers’ union, a Christie nemesis after years of fighting over pensions and dues, said the choice of venue was gratuitously provocative – and typical.

“Once we heard that the governor was planning on making his presidential announcement at Livingston high school, once the word got out, it really felt like he was just rubbing our faces in it,” Anthony Rosamilia, a union official and teacher at the school, told the Guardian. “He’s been beating us over the head for the last five years. So really, it shouldn’t be a surprise that people are up in arms and looking to protest.”

Rosamilia said that teachers objected to more than Christie’s moves to cut their pensions, delay their retirements and make them pay for healthcare. Like other teachers and public officials interviewed for this story, Rosamilia said that Christie had injected poison in the relationship by making it personal. He compared the fight to the similar struggle between public-sector unions and Republican governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

“I know the Scott Walkers and Chris Christies of the world would like to look at us as terrorists and parasites, but we’re not,” said Rosamilia. “We’re your friends, we’re your neighbors – we’re New Jerseyans. And when New Jerseyans get attacked, we fight back. I mean, if anybody should know that, this governor should.”

One of the most famous Christie smackdowns disseminated on YouTube by the governor’s press team was a 2010 town hall confrontation between the governor and Marie Corfield, an elementary school art teacher. Corfield accused Christie of being unnecessarily coarse in his dealing with educators, and handed him some attitude in the form of a sardonic laugh at his reply.
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