Keeping His Eye on the Job
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s political stock rose considerably yesterday. When Fox News’ Neil Cavuto questioned him about a bid for the presidency, Christie responded, “Not going to happen.”
No way. No sale. If Sarah Palin had refused the same offer, had she remained in her office as governor of Alaska when offered the vice presidency, she might now be a viable candidate for future president of the United States.
Christie is doing a fantastic job, far better than any conservative voters expected when he was still a primary candidate. But the battle, as he knows well, is far from over. The unions are strongly entrenched in this state, with a considerable media army willing to do their bidding.
New Jersey is a Big Government, socialized state, with far too many public sector workers willing to vote the Democrat line to keep their cozy bureaucratic jobs and plush pensions. They’re not just going to go away overnight. Christie will have to slash their budgets and lower business taxes in order to attract private sector companies back to the state.
It’s a tall order. He may not be able to do it in one term. It certainly won’t happen if he lets all this great conservative press go to his head and abandons his responsibility to New Jersey. Fortunately, he vowed emphatically not to do so. He will not grab prematurely for the brass ring the way Palin did. He intends to tough it out.
He cited not only his dedication as governor of the state, but as a family man with roots in the Garden State, a stance that will play well with the many family men and women whose support he needs. He has children here, friends, activities. New Jersey is worth fighting for.
Christie needs help in the Assembly to bring New Jersey back from the brink. Voters are going to have to wake up, stop drinking the communist cool aid, believing that government is the answer to all problems. We need to elect conservative state legislators to back the governor up.
State politics are important. Since 1912, the focus has been on federal leaders. It’s the 17th Amendment that Glenn Beck has complained about – the popular vote of U.S. Senators, as opposed to their selection by their state legislatures. This effectively cut the input of the states out of the governmental process, expanding the federal government’s powers considerably.
Only now are states like New Jersey, Arizona, and Louisiana fighting back against federal encroachment. We can see the results in Arizona, with Obama threatening the state with a punitive lawsuit (for wanting to follow federal law, of all things), and in Louisiana, with the president blocking every remedy to the oil spill threatening Louisiana’s shores.
Liberals appeal to populist sentiment, encouraging a broad, but impossible, participatory democracy that the general public has neither the time nor the background to engage in. When it fails, they assure us that Big Government will handle everything. They point to individual instances of corruption as a failure of representative government, as though a huge, bureaucratic governing body, accountable to no one, would serve the public better.
My grandfather used to attend every town hall meeting and gave them such a verbal drubbing that the town fathers begged my mother to keep him from attending (there was nothing my grandmother could do with him – she was glad to be rid of him for an evening).
The national tea party organizations encourage members to go to the big venues – their state capitols, the national capitol, where they’ll get the most media exposure. But Gov. Christie hasn’t had to go beyond the bounds of his own state and his own job to make an impact.
Politics begin in your own backyard.
No way. No sale. If Sarah Palin had refused the same offer, had she remained in her office as governor of Alaska when offered the vice presidency, she might now be a viable candidate for future president of the United States.
Christie is doing a fantastic job, far better than any conservative voters expected when he was still a primary candidate. But the battle, as he knows well, is far from over. The unions are strongly entrenched in this state, with a considerable media army willing to do their bidding.
New Jersey is a Big Government, socialized state, with far too many public sector workers willing to vote the Democrat line to keep their cozy bureaucratic jobs and plush pensions. They’re not just going to go away overnight. Christie will have to slash their budgets and lower business taxes in order to attract private sector companies back to the state.
It’s a tall order. He may not be able to do it in one term. It certainly won’t happen if he lets all this great conservative press go to his head and abandons his responsibility to New Jersey. Fortunately, he vowed emphatically not to do so. He will not grab prematurely for the brass ring the way Palin did. He intends to tough it out.
He cited not only his dedication as governor of the state, but as a family man with roots in the Garden State, a stance that will play well with the many family men and women whose support he needs. He has children here, friends, activities. New Jersey is worth fighting for.
Christie needs help in the Assembly to bring New Jersey back from the brink. Voters are going to have to wake up, stop drinking the communist cool aid, believing that government is the answer to all problems. We need to elect conservative state legislators to back the governor up.
State politics are important. Since 1912, the focus has been on federal leaders. It’s the 17th Amendment that Glenn Beck has complained about – the popular vote of U.S. Senators, as opposed to their selection by their state legislatures. This effectively cut the input of the states out of the governmental process, expanding the federal government’s powers considerably.
Only now are states like New Jersey, Arizona, and Louisiana fighting back against federal encroachment. We can see the results in Arizona, with Obama threatening the state with a punitive lawsuit (for wanting to follow federal law, of all things), and in Louisiana, with the president blocking every remedy to the oil spill threatening Louisiana’s shores.
Liberals appeal to populist sentiment, encouraging a broad, but impossible, participatory democracy that the general public has neither the time nor the background to engage in. When it fails, they assure us that Big Government will handle everything. They point to individual instances of corruption as a failure of representative government, as though a huge, bureaucratic governing body, accountable to no one, would serve the public better.
My grandfather used to attend every town hall meeting and gave them such a verbal drubbing that the town fathers begged my mother to keep him from attending (there was nothing my grandmother could do with him – she was glad to be rid of him for an evening).
The national tea party organizations encourage members to go to the big venues – their state capitols, the national capitol, where they’ll get the most media exposure. But Gov. Christie hasn’t had to go beyond the bounds of his own state and his own job to make an impact.
Politics begin in your own backyard.
posted by Belle | 7:39 PM
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