He has been annointed by the media as the great bi-partisan hero, a judgment decisively ratified by the voters of New Jersey yesterday. He will reach mythic dimensions as the great moderate hope of the Republican establishment for 2016. He has daintily side-stepped the issue of marriage equality and garnered goodwill essentially by cooperating with the President following a natural disaster. A regular feature in the #Bosmayor twitter feed was a video of him shouting down a teacher. And to think such presumptuousness is thought to a noble characteristic in a Governor of New Jersey. He bragged about it.
I used to think Christie didn’t have a shot at the nomination–and he still might not. But the Republican Establishment has found its weapon of choice to wage war in 2016.The effort to get him nominated and elected will be epic. The GOP establishemt took the tea party down in Alabama and are fired up after the shutdown.
In the long-term I’m not too worried. Advertisers/media are desperately casting about for a viable Republican candidate to make the game/election close. Worst comes to worst, they’ll hype him into competitiveness, then turn on him and Christie will implode. I can’t see him keeping it together on the campaign trail every day — he couldn’t win an easy race for governor without screaming at a constituents. That might be a hit in Jersey City, but not in Jacksonville.
I’m more worried about the widespread effort to pretend that Cory Booker is a Democrat in any meaningful sense of the word.
he doesn’t have the temperament to survive the national media’s scrutiny.
Even if he somehow survived his “moderate” views (not really moderate at all, but the tea partiers are as hoodwinked as the media into thinking he’s moderate), he’d never survive a general election.
He would have another scream-the-teacher-down moment in a general election and it would end any of his chances.
for the national media.
I’m so old I can remember when George W. Bush’s inexperience and ignorance were not a problem, and the national media treated him as though his Presidential decisions would have no worse consequences for America than Al Gore’s would.
Candidate Ronald Reagan was clearly disoriented during his first presidential debate in 1984. We elected him anyway. Today, some celebrate him as a great president.
There are many reasons why Chris Christie should not be President. There are many more reasons why Elizabeth Warren should be our next President. There are, sadly, many Americans who will greet an angry outburst from Mr. Christie as a welcome sign of his “leadership”.
I remain confident that in a matchup between Elizabeth Warren and Chris Christie, we will elect Elizabeth Warren. We will elect her because Americans will welcome her vision, political skills, analytical savvy, and careful attention to detail — especially in contrast to Mr. Christie’s fumbling efforts to be a “moderate” Republican (as if such a creature exists in today’s world).
I think that temperament is unlikely to play a significant role.
I’d want evidence of Alzheimer’s prior to 1994 rather than just throwing that around. You can have a senior moment without Alzheimer’s.
The debate is on youtube, you can watch it yourself. It was part of a pattern, enough so that his frequent “senior moments” were a staple of the late-night comedy shows.
Alzheimer’s is not something that happens at a specific time. Sources like NIH (not exactly a left-wing Reagan-bashing site) report (emphasis mine):
Given the slow progression of the disease, and the obvious reluctance of the family to be forthcoming about it in a sitting president, a publicly-released diagnosis in 1994 almost surely suggests that the early symptoms began some years earlier.
By “early symptoms”, here’s what the same source says (emphasis mine):
Insiders, pundits and critics suggested that Mr. Reagan demonstrated the early signs of Alzheimer’s during his 1984 campaign. In my view, the subsequent diagnosis in 1994 confirmed those reports.
That’s good enough for me. Your mileage may vary.
@Tudor: Didnt take too long for us to agree again! I think Christie will be a far more formidable candidate than Romney. My parents and brother were McCain Democrats in 2000 in the primaries and I have to remind them that Christie is an @sshole every time we talk about him. These are people who hated Romney as Governor and a nominee and are relatively liberal leaning. But they think he works with Democrats and is a moderate like Weld (last Republican they did vote for), appreciate his “straight talk” style.
He could be significantly appealing and out more states in play, particularly as Hillary’s numbers have fallen from the stratosphere. Granted I doubt Christie can get past his base-but if Cruz, Paul, and other righties divide the field he can win via plurality a la McCain and Romney and he will have more positive media coverage than Mittens. The MSM is already turning against Hillary and that will only intensify. Not saying he’s a shoe in, but we shouldn’t underestimate him and the WH and DNC screwed the pooch by giving him a pass.
@Sabutai: totally with you on Booker. Any comparisons between him and Obama let alone a decently liberal Democrat like Deval are offensive on multiple levels.
emerging from GOP primaries without a sea change in party’s attitudes toward electability v. purity. I do see him, as jconway predicts, losing his temper under the hot lights.
His re-election (and I have family and friends in NJ, a couple of whom voted for him) is disappointing. It seems like a triumph of personality over policy; the same voters passed the minimum wage hike he vetoed by an equal 60-40 margin. The NJ Democratic Party behaved disgracefully during this election and, really, throughout his first term.
His bipartisan cred is entirely phony, but a lot of people who don’t follow closely are desperate for anyone not extreme enough to reject help from the President of the United States and FEMA when a major hurricane hits his state. The more he has to defend his actual record, the more problems he’ll have.
But when a Democrat wins, it’s all about policy. Do I have this right?
I too, know plenty of people in NJ, and even a couple liberal Dems voted for Christie b/c of his policies. People admire honesty, and it was Christie’s honesty and direct bluntness when dealing with the Teacher’s Union and the budget deficits that endeared him to more Dems and Independents.
Honesty gives you credibility, something that Obama no longer has due to Obamacare.
How did the NJ Dem Party behave disgracefully during Christie’s first term? Did they compromise?
if he pulls a Romney and McCain and runs hard to the right… though it would only make it less likely he could survive a general.
His major selling point right now is he’d be more attractive in the general. I think he’d lose that if he ran hard right in the primary. He’d also be far less effective over the next 3 years in NJ if he tries to go hard right now.
Both McCain and Romney got the nomination, but never really inspired the trust and the passion of the hardcore right wing. I don’t see how Christie, who’s not only hugged but endorsed Obama, could do better in that department.
Obama refused to endorse Buono, which I take to be an implicit endorsement of Christie. Come to think of it, Christie’s basically a Third-Way Democrat with impulse control issues, so it all makes sense.
His endorsement is implied; if she had managed to keep it competitive, maybe Obama would have gone. As it was it was pointless, so why waste his time and make him look bad in the process?
That said, it would be nice if he showed up for every battle. But he just can’t.
she was the Democratic Nominee for Governor of the state of New Jersey, one of the larger states in the country by population.
This election was occurring during a time period where few statewide elections were happening anywhere, so it wasn’t like he was being asked by statewide officers from all 50 states for his endorsement.
Absolutely, he could have endorsed her, had a public event that could have simultaneously been used for a commercial and did a fundraiser for her that would done a lot to close the gap. It need not have taken more than a single day of his schedule — and potentially it could have been squeezed in with a half a day and perhaps with other normal business in nearby NYC.
It also would have nipped the quite possibly true notion that he actually supported Christie because Christie set the extraordinarily low bar of actually being willing to engage with the federal government a little bit when walloped by a devastating hurricane, like all states and Governors should do in those circumstances.
Manny’s argument was fair. In the grand scheme of things, perhaps this wasn’t the worst thing Obama’s ever done, but even a more competitive campaign could have forced the Republicans to spend more heavily and create a good test case to use against him in a Presidential election. Then, there could have always been the small glimmer of hope that he could have lost — if we forced more attention on that race, perhaps something like the incident where he screamed at the teacher for daring to ask him a reasonable question would have got the play that it needed.
Really?
I gave several paragraphs of reasons for why I think so, asking me “really?” probably isn’t going to do a lot to change my mind.
The media’s written what amounts to political slash fiction about Obama and Christie (or did the media call them “O’Christie?”) — and the one man who could have cleared the whole thing up… didn’t.
When it would have been so easy to do so — a few hours effort — it’s fairly striking that it didn’t.
It was a non-endorsement, but sometimes the difference between that and an implicit endorsement are not so great — and can be completely nonexistent in the minds of many voters, including likely thousands of Obama fans in New Jersey who either didn’t get out to the polls or voted Christie, but could have been persuaded.
YOU are writing fiction.
There’s a persuadable voter in New Jersey who would have been swayed by Obama clarifying that he doesn’t support Christie. This same person, though, can’t already make this distinction.
If you actually believe what you say, I have no words. Have a nice day.
My high school friend, apolitical but averse to right-wing Republicanism, voted for Christie. I tried to tell him, “Look, he is a right-wing Republican. Look at the positions he’s taken.” My friend: “I don’t think so, he’s not like those people shutting down DC, he’s tight with Obama.”
What my apolitical brother and my dad (who should know better) said. And the media isn’t helping. They are so desperate to seem balanced that they are making the fatso out to be the next coming of Colin Powell even though he is anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-union, and anti-stimulus. A real Rockefeller Republican would be down with labor, down with women’s rights and gay rights, and down with government spending. I just don’t get it. The fact that the crazies hate him proves that they are entirely dysfunctionally nuts, doesn’t prove he is any more moderate than Dubya was, and that guy might’ve been the most right wing President in history.
I thought BMGers didn’t use derogatory nicknames. Perhaps it’s OK if it’s a Republican?
Dubya was painted in 2000 as a not-so-bad “compassionate conservative.”
My first pass at writing that comment had a :p emoticon at the end of the first sentence, which is I’m guessing where you took offense, but then I decided to delete it because I think they’re a little silly, especially when I made another joke right after by linking to wikipedia’s entry on slash fiction to make my lighter tone that much more obvious (in my head, anyway).
I guess, in this world of the internet being 2d, there’s a very legitimate reason for emoticons; they display emotions and moods that may otherwise go misinterpreted.
Suffice it to say, after the bad blood that went in many directions during the Mayoral election, I’d love for things to be all sunshine and rainbows for a little while at BMG — and thus my first sentence was meant in winking fashion.
The rest of my post I fully stand behind, is well reasoned and far from “fiction.” I have the benefit of having been behind the curtain in campaigns and know the difference between an endorsement, non endorsement and a non endorsement that happens to be very akin to an implicit endorsement of some other campaign (or otherwise meant to impact or made with the knowledge that it would have a fairly large impact in the race in some way). Campaigns I’ve been involved with have been subject to all three.
Regardless of your opinions on what happened or didn’t happen in the race, whatever your preferred descriptor, it hurt the Democratic candidate’s campaign and helped Christie. That’s the bottom line.
—–
Finally, I’ve come across not only many people but many party activists who will take their cue from the President at almost any time — and will absolutely make choices, even for candidates in other races, dependent on whether or not they think they were backing the President’s agenda. This was as true for Republicans with Bush as it is for Democrats and Obama now.
Hell, I had a candidate for the DNC last cycle come to my town committee and say to my face that he wouldn’t vote to put marriage equality on the Democratic platform unless it was what the President wanted, just prior to the President finally coming out for marriage equality. This was someone who supported marriage equality and had for years, but he didn’t “want to go against the President.” My mind nearly exploded.
I also have a relative who normally gets enthusiastic about Democratic candidates because she knows I’m involved, but wouldn’t get strongly behind Liz Warren until the President came out strong for her, because she was “unsure” that Warren would support his agenda – whatever that agenda was, because she’s not a news junkie and is always asking me what the President is up to!
Some people care far about policy and want to analyze the candidates in any race in detail. I imagine both you and I fit that category. Others go with the ‘can I have a beer with them’ metric — ugh.
However, there are a lot of people who decided to put a great deal of trust into someone like Barack Obama and will listen to him about what candidates to support or policy positions to take. It’s not even a bad thing, really, because I’m sure they’re aware that there may be some individual components of any agenda they may not like, but taken on the whole it would do a lot of good — and supporting the whole may make more of that agenda easier to pass.
This is basically the decision that any person who ever decides to work for a politician makes when they take a job, so it’s pretty “believable” in my eyes. :p
Obama officially endorsed Elizabeth Warren, even though he waited many months after her nomination – I guess he wanted to make sure she was inevitable, first.
… that he didn’t explicitly endorse Buono, But that does not mean he implicitly endorsed Christie, and for you to say so is disingenuous and gratuitous Obama bashing.
If you want to bash the president, fine, but please do it for a real reason. There are plenty.
Do you have a few examples of ones who he hasn’t endorsed?
It probably only takes a few seconds. A press release is issued and, poof, it’s done.
Christie’s temperament will not play on the national stage, I agree, but he strikes me as potentially calculating enough to conceal the rough edges. I see him taking a crash course in Minnesota Nice and emerging as a stage-managed, blow-dried, self-effacing political creature–just more authentic than Romney. We have to remember the hunger of the Republican establishment to regain its ascendancy. They are going to be maximally calculating in how they launch their new rock star-wannabe.
Just ask Scott Brown or Mitt Romney — the fact that they kept themselves so heavily scripted may have concealed their temperament to some extent or for some length of time, but it can’t work as a strategy in the glare of the national media… or even Boston media.
Plus, even if Christie wanted to be kept under wraps, who’s going to be the one to tell him to shut up? It’s not happening. Playing nice, moderating himself, smiling and nodding and pretending to listen just aren’t in his DNA. For good or ill, the guy’s an acerbic loudmouth at the best of times — and a complete asshole at the worst.
The national media would drag out the worst of him… it would only be a matter of time.
McCain had a temper problem too and it was portrayed as ‘endearing’ and ‘straight talk’. McCain was also anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-union, and overly hawkish in both campaigns and was still portrayed as ‘maverick’ and ‘moderate’ by the desperate media. Same thing will happen here. In fact they are already selling his temper as an asset.
That quote came from a relatively balanced and usually on point liberal commentator. We cannot simply dismiss him as too fat, too angry, or too conservative. Next to Hillary he will look fresh and authentic and a maverick and the media’s love affair will only continue. Especially since their animosity towards her is already well known.
Is he unstoppable? No. But if he passes the nod without going too far into baseworld he can call ‘states rights’ on social issues, appeasing both theocons and libertarians alike while the media will call that extreme position (cross apply it to civil rights and you can easily see why) ‘maverick/moderate’. He will then say he lowered taxes, balanced budgets, reformed schools, and governed as a fiscal conservative. All ideas that are utterly terrible, but consistently poll well. He is a formidable force and the most personable retail politician since Bill Clinton. We coulda kneecapped him with an expensive re-election fight that dragged him into the gutter, he’d have still won, Rye and I aren’t arguing Buono had a shot, but this was a race that was totally ignored when it shouldn’t have been.
He had that persona in the media before he ran. It stuck for a while in the primary, when the media attention wasn’t quite so high — particularly with the gaze focused on Obama.
Then, when he won the primary, McCain couldn’t avoid the media glare anymore and had a couple get-off-my-lawn moments where his anger issues were pretty evident — and you even started to see some in the media admit the truth.
For Chris Christie, though, it wouldn’t take long at all for that part of him to get out — he is far more bombastic than John McCain could ever hope to be.
Under the rubric of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ the re-assertion of the adults in the GOP establishment might not be such a bad thing: If the tea party is bad (and it is) and the GOP establishment can be counted on to (ultimately) do the right thing the for the country (… dunno…) and oppose the tea party… Then it might be time for all good men and women to unite against the common enemy. At the very least they’ve ‘annointed’ (whatever that means..) someone who is demonstrably sane which is something they haven’t done since, say, Ike. Whatever you think of Christies’ “impulse ” issues and his temper, when Hurricane Sandy lifted push straight past shove he did the right thing. At the moment of exigency he declared what government is and can be. I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s not Dick Cheney selling to the highest bidder or Jack Kemp trying to argue that the private sector could have done it better.
IF the range of possibilities for Jan 2017 spans the gamut from a President Rand Paul and a GOP Congress to a President Elizabeth Warren and a Dem Congress then Chris Christie with a Dem Congress is an acceptable compromise. Obviously, my choice is for a strong Dem POTUS, a strong Dem Speaker and a Senate Majority leader who is likewise a strong Dem. The contrast between this Congress and the last, despite not getting everything we wanted, is actually quite profound if you think about it. I wouldn’t necessarily want Christie as POTUS with a GOP held Congress. I think that would drive Christie left, a position in which he’s decidedly uncomfortable, with predictable results if the the crazies still control the HoR.
But I could live with Christie as POTUS with Pelosi as speaker and Harry Reid (or a better Dem) leading a Majority in the Senate.
I remember thinking as a young man in early 1980 that a Reagan presidency would be disastrous. And so it was. I remember early 1988 thinking that a Bush presidency would be worse. And so it was. I remember actual despair in 2000, deepening into rage through 2004, as the second Bush presidency was incalculably worse than either Reagan or Bush senior. And I remember the fear of McCains transparent insanity and Palins other-worldy dumbassery in 2008. In 2012 there was the certain knowledge that a Romney presidency would be the worst of all and possibly the downfall of the Republic. Dodged a bullet there.
I don’t get that with Christie. I wouldn’t like it, to be sure. I would, no doubt, oppose it. I would support his Democratic opponent. But I would not feel it to be the soul crushing hellscape of twisted, fractured and broken government that loomed just outside of earshot after Katrina and which gleefully pushed the economy over the edge in 2008. I would feel it to be more like what we used to consider normal politics where you win some and you lose some and, at the end of the day, get a good nights sleep in anticipation of doing it again the next day. In short, not the end of the world.
They can be counted on to do the right thing for the 1% and the powerful corporations that are on their side, for sure. Whether or not that lines up with what’s good for the country would depend on how we define what’s good… and decide what country.
I suppose they are saner, but while I’m inclined to agree with you and suggest maybe they’re better than the tea partiers, there’s also the fact to consider that the tea partiers can’t win in all but a handful of corners in this country or the most gerrymandered of districts within saner areas.
So, the calculation in my head ultimately leans a little more in the other direction: let the Republican Civil War happen and hope that strong organizing, an electorate sick of the GOP and changing demographics will ultimately elect more and better Democrats who are willing to deliver real change.
We’ve spent the last six years holding out false hope
Waiting for the GOP adults to get their act together.
is friendly, and I’m not swayed by their distaste for the tea party, which in many cases, reflects a simple aversion to grassroots activism. I think they are actually more dangerous than the tea party because they do disingenuity so well. You could argue that the Tea Party makes the Republican establishment seem more palatable by burnishing its “relative” moderation–which is, of course, an act.
I’m sure they’re annoyed at losing winnable elections, but a Tea Party with just a little less clout is the greatest thing that ever happened to “establishment” conservative Republicans. Under no pre-Tea Party analysis is Chris Christie anything other than a right-wing Republican. Now millions of people buy the idea that he’s “moderate” just because he’s not so fire-breathing as to turn down FEMA money.
… similarly, under no pre-Tea Party analysis is Barack Obama anything other then a centrist Republican.
While they might weaken the GOP, the presence of the Tea Party has not strengthen the Democratic party: if anything the Democratic party is stretched thinner, farther over more ideological territory and is much less effectual over all. And the Democratic party isn’t likely, now, to magically become stronger and better just because the GOP is weaker. If history is any guide at all it’s likely to become worse: Absent a strong push from a truly moderate GOP, whomever the Dems nominate in 2016 is likely to encroach more and more on the previously held territory of the right… They are certainly not going to turn around and magically grow a more Democratic backbone.
The Tea Party thing has been very valuable for the right in pulling the whole debate rightward, particularly within the DC media bubble. Obama may be Bob Dole, but we’re still in a universe where Christie is the “moderate center” and Obama’s considered the second coming of Lenin by a good part of the country. Esquire’s created a “Cruz-Warren scale,” as if there’s a comparison between Elizabeth Warren’s positions, which have strong national support, and Ted Cruz’s nihilism.
But, as others have pointed out, we may be headed for a battle within the Democratic Party as well. In the past few years, there’s been hope in the election of people like Senators Warren and Markey, Sherrod Brown, or Bill de Blasio (whose much larger victory, despite not being an incumbent and running in a city that hadn’t elected a Democrat mayor since 1989, deserves more fanfare than it’s getting). Some Democrats are saying, no, we won’t fight only about how much to cut Social Security, we actually need to increase Social Security. They may not win that battle right away, but I’ve been very encouraged to see Senator Warren waging it and not co-opted so far.
… the past is no indication of the future. ‘Cause I said the very same thing after Iran-Contra and after Katrina and after the economic meltdown of 2008 which can be traced clearly to Republic policies. The Republican Civil War isn’t going to happen if it hasn’t happened already.
I think the time for “an electorate sick of the GOP” is well past as is the notion that ‘more and better Democrats who are willing to deliver real change’ are waiting out there. Barack Obama is the second coming of Bob Dole. In the absence of the real Bob Dole, Obama has occupied the ideological terrain once held by Dole: As the core of the GOP retreated into the Tea Party, the Democrats has not used this as either excuse or license to enact ‘real change’ but instead have merely taken over the ideological muddle ground once occupied by the ‘adults’ in the GOP. I’m not convinced that a wishy washy Democratic party is ever going to be the incubator of better Democrats without a real opponent to spar with. They’ve certainly had ample time to do so, if they ever were going to do so…
If there is a sizable portion of the electorate who are uncomfortable with the Tea Party while not identifying with Democrats then maybe they need a candidate too. If Christie is for them, who am I to say they shouldn’t get it? And if a combative Christie forces the Dem nominee into a sharper focus and, dare I say it, more Democratic stance, so much the better. We win. They do to.
the fact that it *is* happening.
How widespread it is up for debate, but I don’t think the fact that it’s happening should be.
Furthermore, at least in a handful of corners across the nation the Tea Partiers have enough power to dislodge the corporate elites of their party and have already done so. Democrats have taken advantage of this in numerous cases, up to and including our Senate Majority Leader still being in the Senate at all.
Crazy witch lady getting us a seat in Delaware over a moderate Republican who would have been a shoo-in, because Delaware had a closed-primary system. The ‘legitimate rape’ guy getting one of the least popular Senators in office reelected, who won his primary over a saner — if still conservative — Republican. Then there’s Sharon Angle and her Second Amendment remedies who kept Harry Reid in there, winning her primary over a much saner Republican who would have certainly beat Reid in that race.
The examples in the House are there, too, but a little fewer and further between, thanks to gerrymandering. The crazies getting through the primaries in the House all too often are able to survive general elections, even if occasionally in a sweat, because their districts are designed that way. Case in point: Michelle Bachman.
If we had seats that were formed using nonpartisan standards, the civil war in the Republican Party would be that much more obvious, because it would have cost Boehner the House last time around.
If we nominate HIllary, the election will be a national referendum on Hillary.
What if Hillary doesn’t wish to put herself through that…?
I promise you I don’t hate Hillary, and I’ll certainly vote for her if she nominates … but her 2008 campaign was just awful. I was so glad Obama won. No one will ever convince me she would have been better.
So I’m hoping she learned from that. I’m not convinced.
It was so good, so durable and with so much more space for songs than ever before, that it almost makes it a crying shame that the Compact Disc was invented at all.
All of that is a way of saying that her campaign was pretty much the best primary campaign ever… under the ‘old’ expectations of having a relatively quick primary process in which the candidates fought over a small pool of early states or, if that wasn’t enough, the big states over another couple months before someone finally gave in — usually in the form of running out of $$.
Given past expectations, it was sound strategy implemented well enough to defeat any Democratic primary campaign in the past couple decades before it, and it almost certainly would have done so — even her husband’s.
Unfortunately for Hillary, the President’s campaign knocked the chessboard off the table and played a different game altogether. He practically abandoned the big states, knowing he’d be ‘close enough’ in them without much skin in the game that he wouldn’t lose too many delegates if he lost those states, while winning big in the small states no one ever cared about before.
It worked insofar as he got more delegates, but let’s not pretend as though it means Hillary’s campaign was anything other than a little outdated. It was certainly not “awful.” It was the cassette tape of campaigns — it had a moment of time that was, unfortunately for her, past.
There was no way for Hillary’s campaign to react to the President’s game — there was simply no way to create the infrastructure in states all across the country after Obama’s strategy became even remotely apparent.
So, it’s not like she failed to make a halftime adjustment, ie displaying an inability to learn, she just didn’t have the ‘personnel’ to make that kind of adjustment at all — the only option left to her was to double down on what she planned and hoped it would be good enough, which is exactly what she did: she won nearly every big state and won them by wide margins. Just not the kind of margins that Obama won the caucus states and the primary states that Democrats historically didn’t engage in.
In fact, not only did she take the President all the way to the convention, she actually had more aggregate votes than Obama. (Yes, that’s by a technicality, but if we credit Obama for taking advantage of the rules to gain extra delegate votes, then we should fault him for the rare misstep that cost him delegate votes by skipping a state altogether.)
So, let’s not pretend she ran a Martha Coakley campaign. She didn’t even run a bad campaign. She ran a campaign that was unfortunately designed to win in the 90s, but did it so well that it was a memorably close primary campaign in the 2000s and by far the most competitive primary in my memory.
To me, that means she’s a competent campaigner. We can be fairly certain that, should she run, she’ll take what worked best for Obama — including large swaths of his campaign team, no doubt — into any future election with her. Certainly, she would be a very, very strong candidate for our party to run — and, with the goodwill she’s earned from Obama’s fans on top of her own and her husband’s, I’m not so sure anyone could beat her.
Obviously, it wasn’t good enough and she certainly had some campaign management problems, but I think that there’s a legitimate argument that if she had voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, that she would have won the nomination. She came very close to winning as it was. Obama’s opposition to the war, and his ability to say that he came out against it when it mattered, gave him the ability to attract the more liberal base of the party which made a difference. HRC’s going to get a fight from someone on the “left.” But, ultimately, I think that she’ll be nominated based on her skill and experience, and ability to raise a ton of money. Christie is obviously going to have to beat back a vicious challenge from people on the far right–Rubio, Cruz, Paul, etc.–and that nominating fight may define the future of the Republican party. Tea partiers like Cruz, libertarians like Paul, and old school conservatives in line with Christie will duke it out in a steel cage match, duel to the death. It will be fun to watch, and hopefully they will all kill each other off in the process. I don’t think it will happen but I would love to see Sen. Warren run for president this time around. The thought of someone as hot-headed and bombastic as Chris Christie managing the nation’s foreign policy makes me nauseous. I think ryepower12’s post on HRC, is right on.
A national referendum on Hillary is going to be a hugely winning proposition.
If ACA continues to be rolled out like shit, the midterms are a draw, and Obama fatigue sets in people are going to want a fresh face. Luckily, after Bush and Clinton fatigue in 2008, that fresh face was Obama. Now though, that fresh face will be Chris Christie. In my view, if he wins the Republican nomination he wins the presidency. We have to hope that the far right can coalesce around Cruz or Paul to deny Christie that nomination. And the DNC better stop alternating between ignoring him and kissing his ass and actually do some freakin oppo research into his brothers deals, into the deals he made as Governor, and start hanging that crap around his neck now.
I am somewhat hopeful the Jersey bosses stayed out of it since they knew shit will hit the fan and would prefer that happen on Christie’s watch. But we shouldn’t wait for him to self immolate when we could be pouring some kerosene on the fire ourselves.
In another few months, people will scarcely remember there was an issue at all, so long as they get their insurance.
That said, the beauty of Hillary running as the former Secretary of State is she is inoculated from domestic policies in a way that a Vice President or even other members of the cabinet wouldn’t be. That’s why you see the Republicans trying so hard on Benghazi, even though it’s done them no real good yet so far.
I’m just not anywhere near as worried about Christie as you are — he really just doesn’t scare me and I’m not so sure he’ll even run.
I am willing to agreeably disagree on this one, I’d rather not get sideswiped and blindsided though. Everyone in Cambridge couldn’t fathom how a terrible President like Bush could get re-elected and then it happened anyway. The majority of people don’t care about politics until it affects them personally, and personality always trumps policy. I’ve met people in WI and OH when I’ve canvassed who’ve gone back and forth between candidates based on who they liked. It’s really not uncommon. Canvass in Racine or the Milwaukee suburbs and Carter-Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama voters are not as uncommon as you think.
Evidence shows us that the media hates Hillary, the love Obama, and if people are mad at the incumbent party’s President they will take it out on the party and pick the fresh face. McCain is even less connected to Bush’s policies than Hillary is to Obama, and also run a tough primary against Bush, and still got saddled with that albatross. I don’t expect Obama to be in Bush territory when he gets out of office, but he won’t be anywhere near Clinton territory either. He is at 42% currently, and if he is under 50 when he is leaving that historically bodes poorly for the Democrats. Have a charismatic and likable guy, having vanquished his party’s extremists to win the nomination, up against a pol who’s net favorability and unfavorability has fluctated wildly more than any other public figure in history, who has been a Washington insider for over 20 years in a change election, and who is an integral part of the outgoing administration, and it really doesn’t look like she’s as strong as she seems. My overall point is, don’t treat her as a shoe in or him as a ticking time bomb just yet.
Despite his overwhelming re-election, he actually is losing to HRC 48-44% in a New Jersey poll. GOP tends to go with electability though the whose turn concept factors in as well. I say the nomination goes to Jeb Bush if he wants it, but otherwise Christie looks good for it. I definitely do not assume there will be enough Obama fatigue to want to change parties.
Elizabeth Warren is all about what are and will be the central issues of our economy and the election — wealth and its distribution, availability of post-high school education at tolerable levels, the true nature of the GOP war on the 99% and what to do about it.
Sonny Jurgenson was a great quarterback (some, including yours truly, will argue that he was the greatest passer of all time). He never won a superbowl. During the peak of his career, he was playing for teams (the Eagles and Redskins) that had no shot at actually winning the Superbowl. By the time the Redskins had a competitive team, he was too old to handle the Miami Dolphins in the Superbowl.
Hillary Clinton, like Sonny Jurgenson, might have been a great President had she been able to run for office during the prime of her career. In 2016, at 69, I think she will be well past her sell-by date. Not because of her age, but because the mix of political issues that have created her political identity will be largely irrelevant by 2016.
Ms. Clinton is a politician of the 1980s and 1990s. Elizabeth Warren is a candidate of today and tomorrow.
…and honestly I still see Clinton more as presidential material than Warren.
Warren needs to get more foreign policy experience. I think on national security and foreign policy Hillary is ready day 1, I am just unsure if her domestic policies will be innovative or inspired. Obama looked to be a Roosevelt for the internet generation, and ended up being a third and fourth Clinton term. A fifth and sixth Clinton term with the actual Clintons in charge is not something I’m chomping at the bits for. She remains a huge enigma to me, if the former Wellesley social democrat with significant cajones from fighting the far right for 25 years and LBJ steely eyed pragmatism takes charge I will be downright excited. If it’s the Iraq War backing, triangulating and equivocating calculating Hillary devoid of Bills charms than I will be less enthused.
Clinton-Warren might allay my concerns.
In fact it’s a large part of what appeals to me about HRC. Bill presided over the longest sustained period of relative peace and prosperity we’ve had I think so I would love to replicate that. I think a Clinton-Warren ticket has its advantages, though I’d like to see Warren as Majority Leader too.
A lot of that was out of his control due to the bubble around a new technology. Just as few economists give Coolidge credit for the auto fueled growth of Roaring 20s-few give Clinton credit for the go go 90s. A lot
of his policies, particularly NAFTA, deregulating the finance industry and repealing Glass-Steagall, reducing corporate and capital gains taxes-are key contributors to our current malaise and income inequality. The whole point of the New Deal and the bipartisan Liberal Consensus (FDR-Ford) was to create an economy that secured broad middle class prosperity even when growth stalled. The Atari and New Democrats work when we had prosperity, but its failed for Obama since it assumes growth is permanent and sustainable when its not.
He also capitulated on universal health care and gay rights. I like the guy, I like his wife, and either would’ve been more competent than the incumbent.
But I think we have seen the limits of Clintonism under Obama. I you think he was a successful President then back Hillary. If, like me, you find him fatally indecisive and a mediocrity and not the man you froze your ass off in Iowa for, a Warren or Finegold candidacy is the only thing keeping you interested in 2016.
I’ll be clear, she will have my support as our nominee. But, I also feel a vigorous and progressive challenger at worst moves Hillary to the left and makes her a stronger candidate. And at best it gives us a President Warren.
America’s excessive wealth concentration and its pervasive and negative consequences will be THE issue in the 2016 election.
I am quite certain that Elizabeth Warren is and will continue to be a leader in the fight against the class warfare that has been waged against the 99% for all too long. I have had to make too many excuses — to myself and others — about Hillary Clinton’s role in this class war (not to mention a host of other issues, including another physical war).
I am equally certain that I know what vision will drive a President Warren’s administration. I have NO such clarity about a President (Hillary) Clinton.
I eagerly anticipate enthusiastically helping nominate and then elect Elizabeth Warren as our next President.
I think you are right Tom she is the best person to be President in 2016. I agree with Christopher that she is more likely to stay in the Senate and does not make a great presidential candidate as of yet. We will just have to see. I will say it now Christie v Hillary will lead to President Christie and that just ain’t pretty.
…that Clinton v. Christie results in Christie. As I pointed out upthread, she currently beats him IN NEW JERSEY POLLS. It will be competitive, but his tendency to bully will I think be his achilles heal especially running against a woman.
I think all the data backs up the idea that he was an extremely successful President. Unemployment and inflation were both low, and Clinton policies prompted the growth to which you refer. Can I think of a couple of things I wish had gone or he had done differently? Sure, but nobody is perfect and I won’t argue with success. Clinton overall seemed more willing to fight than Obama has and I think his wife will as well. He was anything but a mediocrity and remains IMO the best President of my lifetime.
Warren quite frankly I don’t see as presidential material. She is strong in her area and she was in the right place at the right time when we elected her to the Senate. However, she is a partial term Senator with a lot of holes in the type of resume necessary for the presidency. HRC is the completely package and I think only Biden even comes close on that front.
I share your assessment of President Bill Clinton.
Electing Hillary Clinton as president does NOT mean that her administration would be anything like her husband’s. Hillary Clinton is not Lurleen Wallace.
When I evaluate Hillary Clinton on her own merits, I see a failed attempt to accomplish universal health care (a failure marked by political ineptness blended with an overlarge portion of hubris) with both houses held by Democratic majorities. This was followed by a mediocre to bad Senate career.
Ms. Clinton was a primary candidate in 2008, only eight years after her first primary campaign in New York. Elizabeth Warren has already accomplished FAR more in her brief tenure than Hillary Clinton accomplished in her entire term.
Significantly, for me, Hillary Clinton was on the wrong side of a significant number of issues:
– She supported the Patriot Act.
– She supported the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.
– She supported the 2002 Iraq War Resolution
– She led efforts to increase the size of the military rather than withdraw from Iraq
– She collaborated with Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh in a thankfully-failed attempt to impose federal censorship of internet content, disguised as “protecting children” (shades of Martha Coakley).
Ms. Clinton found her “progressive” voice only when it became clear she needed to do so in order to prevail in her 2008 presidential campaign.
I supported Hillary Clinton throughout this period, yet found myself reluctant to commit to her presidential hopes. The question I asked myself that ultimately led to my decision to support Barrack Obamba was “Would I support Hillary Clinton if she were not married to Bill Clinton”.
My answer was a resounding “no”.
When I compare Elizabeth Warren to the nascent Senate career of Hillary Clinton, I come to a very different conclusion than you. We are three years away from the 2016 campaign. At this time in 2005, Hillary Clinton had already been on the wrong side of multiple issues (see above). Elizabeth Warren, in contrast, has been on the right side of each of several issues that have come up. Hillary Clinton began her political career with a failed attempt to accomplish universal health care. Elizabeth Warren began her political career with a heroic and ultimately successful effort to establish a federal Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
I see Elizabeth Warren as a stronger candidate for President today, and I see her gaining strength and momentum during the next three years.
I was pushing back on the notion that whom she is married to is a negative. However, her tenure as First Lady (which she obviously wouldn’t have if she weren’t married to a President) is part of the preparation in her case. Not every First Lady can automatically claim this, but since she was so policy oriented she had insight into being President that I’m not sure even being Vice President can match. I see her work on health care as a positive despite ultimately failing – blame Congress, including many Dems, (not to mention Harry and Louise) for that one. Being a Senator for a term plus and Secretary of State would make her a strong contender though I’m not sure she would have gotten there without her having been First Lady. I also don’t see many of the above specifics you cite quite as negatively as you do. I supported the vote on Afghanistan and understand the Patriot Act and Iraq votes in the context of the circumstances under which they were cast. She’s been a bit hawkish on security issues, but I’ve always seen her as progressive.
Both Clintons, and to a lesser extent President Obama, have embraced triangulation. They push the left as far as they can, because where else can we go? They’ll accommodate Republicans to save their own skin.
President Obama has occasionally fallen into this, but he has (I believe) more of a moral compass than the Clintons do. Actually moral compass is too strong — call it a governance compass. He tries to avoid doing real damage.
Historically, Bill Clinton brought us back from the woods. But he has never stopped being willing to throw the left under the bus.
THAT is the issue, and why we (and yes, the country) need a better candidate than Hillary.
…I’ve thought for some time that HRC would be more willing to fight than BHO, resulting in more progressive outcomes in practice.
I don’t think there’s any real evidence of her fighting a difficult fight all the way through, except her nomination fight.
She’s done good things, yes, some of them difficult. But she has never committed to a progressive issue and fought for it for a long time when there was strong opposition to it.
I think she is more of a partisan Democratic fighter than President Obama is. I think she recognized a President is a head of his or her party and leads that party to victory. I think she had more experience wheeling and dealing in Congress and getting legislation passed. So in those regards she’d have done better than BHO. A good analogy there is that BHO came into the White House with a lot of the bad attitudes about Washington and misconceptions about Presidential power as Jimmy Carter. Both were elected after the failed incumbencies of scandal ridden Presidents, both were elected as outsiders sent to clean up the mess, both were perceived as above the fray managers who could be more bipartisan who were honest and untainted by Washington. Both ended up being way over their heads.
Clinton would not be. A bigger issue is a lot of her legislative accomplishments did not serve progressive ends, she is reflexively more hawkish than others, and while I think she would’ve been under less allusions that the GOP would be willing to work with her I am not sure if she would’ve been more successful domestically, and on foreign policy we might have not gone after bin Laden, gone into Libya bigger, gone into Syria, and David Petraues might’ve had a larger role.
She has the raw political talents to be the next LBJ, I am just not sure if she shares the same progressive ends he did.
I largely agree with that.
So why support her? I will if it comes down to it, but until she has the nomination locked up, I want a more progressive alternative.
And no, I don’t mean Elizabeth Warren. I like her, but she’s held one office for 10 months.
She is by far the best prepared non-incumbent for the office we’ve seen in a long time. I supported Kerry in the 2004 primary for the same reason. He seemed better prepared than even the incumbent in that race.
I agree with you that HRC cast in the mold of John Kerry. Both were “prepared”, in the sense you mean.
I’m not sure I see Secretary of State as a particularly important qualification for President, and I don’t see HRC’s performance in the role as adding to her credibility. It didn’t detract, but I just don’t think it helped. Meanwhile, her experience as Senator hurt her more than it helped her with yours truly.
Thanks largely to the GOP hate machine and the media that enthusiastically embraced it, I think HRC’s primary takeaway from being First Lady was as the suffering-but-loyal-wife. That’s if we ignore her mishandling of the Health Care initiative — a mishandling that set back vital health care reform by more than a decade. In my view, neither aspect of her time as First Lady strengthens her contemplated candidacy today.
Back to the John Kerry parallel — I think HRC will do approximately as well in the final election as John Kerry did in 2004.
For those who think Elizabeth Warren lacks experience, I remind you that she will begin her campaign with two more years than she has today.
Of all the potential candidates on the radar today, Elizabeth Warren is far and away my top pick.
In a rare thoughtful article from them
though probably wrong, IMHO.
…because it brings in the foreign policy experience which Warren at least for now lacks. Biden’s chairing of and long service on Foreign Relations brings him to that level. Ditto for Kerry in 2004 who can now put Secretary on his resume as well though I don’t see him going for the top again. In the early days Secretary of State was more indicative than the Vice-Presidency of being next in line. Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, JQ Adams being among our earliest though no SoS has become President since Buchanan.
Whether rightly or wrongly, the economy will still determine the next election. If the recovery is still sluggish, which it will be, and Obamacare still unpopular, which it will be, HRC’s status as a member of the administration will hurt rather than help her. And she will have been out of the loop on domestic policies for awhile. I just can’t picture someone who has been at the top echelons of power for 30 years being able to run as a populist outsider. Christie can.
And he is the only Republican who could win over moderates, independents, and Perot populists. I’d argue, by taking on the big money interests, staunchly defending American jobs from outsourcing, fighting the banks, and wanting more stimulus for job creation-Warren can tack a populist course while moving further to the left. The Wall Street money will go to Christie anyway, so the Democrats have nothing to lose running closer to our values, and I would argue, in a way that wins over more independents and swing voters. We can point to Sherrod Browns victory in OH where he outpolled Obama as proof that protecting American jobs and taking on big money are winning issues.
How do you know that the economy will still be sluggish or Obamacare still unpopular in 2016? If anything I would predict the opposite fate for Obamacare. She knows how to stay on top of issues, but outsidership tends not to impress me.
On the economy it’s because I doubt we will pass any stimulus or spending programs geared towards getting the middle class back on its feet. There has been no movement on income inequality and with wages stagnant I don’t see consumer spending recovering as much. As for Obamacare, it will be aggregately unpopular between those who despise any changes to healthcare, those that wanted more but are disappointed, and those annoyed at all the hoops one must jump through to make it a worthwhile product.
Gerry mandering and the fallout from the ACA rollout will prevent a Dem takeover of the House, we keep the Senate but the crazies stop immigration reform, gun control, and any second term legacy issue for Obama. Wouldn’t be surprised if the GOP and enough Dem Senators nuke the Iranian nuke deal when it comes onto the floor for ratification. He’s an unpopular lame duck and he will drag on the Dem nominee. The only way to counter this now is to make a serious effort at a competitive House race and I don’t see Obama with the stomach or cajones for that fight-though he oughta wake up and have it.
When Romney was running in 2008 and 2012 we were able to do lots of useful opposition research on the Mittster and bring plenty of his questionable actions into scrutiny. The flip-flopper label that dogged him to the end was applied by Massachusetts activists. As for Christie, we can at least urge NJ activists to begin excavating whatever there is, with several years to look.