you don't know what you're missing. good stuff, lots of action.

Why would I be kidding? The topic of this thread was about Christie and the George Washington Bridge. Do you think that Democrats Harping on Bush 8 years after he left office is a viable strategy for the next election? They need to be able to answer why as the "peoples" party the job participation rate continues to decline, jobs keep getting shipped overseas, we still have an H1B program with millions of displaced workers here, why we still are still spending billions a day in hopeless wars which maim and kill our youth for no purpose whatsoever except to line the pockets of defense contractors. Humanitarian reasons? That argument flew out the window many times as we fail to intervene in African genocide that happens on a regular basis.

Not so fast, we are slowly making our way back into Magadeshu. Didn't we swear off going back in there?

Hi, Handsome! :{>: Always happy to have a chance to chat with you, over politics or anything. :) You know I never take this stuff personally (Our family is such a blend of Democrats and Republicans that nobody could or holiday dinners would be yearly disasters!)

Even prior to Bridgegazi, I didn't think he had a chance to be the candidate because while political bullying goes over well with the NY/NJ crowd, it doesn't play well in the rest of the nation (see Giuliani and his primary attempts). It's why Charles Schumer won't go farther than a Senator (if you want an example of a bully who's a Democrat). In addition, while Christie's alleged bipartisanship (which is really a media creation, but that's another story) plays well in the media (natch), it won't play well in the primaries. Primary voters don't want a bipartisan; they want someone on the extreme end of their party views. Christie is not really all that moderate, but primary voters won't see that; they'll see what the media spins, and that's a moderate.

Plus, prior to this mess, there was a whole bushel basketful of scandals that he kept under the rug that I don't think he'd have been able to keep under the rug in a national election. There are politicians who can, but they usually are ultra-wealthy or are capable of inspiring extraordinary loyalty in the people that work for them (the Bushes and the Clintons manage that, to give an example from each side of the aisle).

And being a bully isn't a bad thing if you want to win in New York/New Jersey politics (again, see Schumer, who beat D'Amato back in 2000 by getting right into the gutter with him), but not if you want to go farther.

I'll see if I can find the piece I read yesterday about previous Christie things that were swept under the rug. In the meantime, here's an eloquent essay from David Simon (creator of The Wire, which I finally got around to watching this year, ten years after it debuted and it's awesome) about the scandal:
http://davidsimon.com/the-highways-j...broken-heroes/

You should watch Treme

Heh- at the rate I'm going, I'll get to it in 2022. I have heard it's really good. On the bright side, I'll be able to watch a whole season at a time. I tried to watch Game of Thrones when it first aired and couldn't do it, but then tried again when HBO had all of season one on demand and blew through the whole season in two days. For some reason, I do better getting hooked on shows if I can see at least a whole first season at once.

count me in as one who thinks christie has no shot in the primaries.

mitt got hammered for saying it's an etch a sketch, where you portray yourself one way to get the nomination, and then another to get in office. it's too bad that honesty (in that particular instance) isn't the best policy. it's absolutely true. you have to pander to your base, so you can get your base to support you to get the nom.
in other words, until the republican party finds a better base, they're going to find taking the white house a very, very tough proposition. whichever candidate best kisses the koch bro's asses, and caters to the far right 'small govt in name only' people the most convincingly will get the nomination. and then they have to move far enough to center to not aggravate that same group, while trying to get everyone else to forget everything they said in the primaries, without appearing as a hypocrite.
very tall order. everyone harkens to reagan, but i don't even think the repubs would vote for him these days.

the republican party continues to slowly commit suicide, with less and less people calling themselves republicans. they've gone too kooky.

it is amazing considering how bad the economy has been under the current watch........

and instead of taking the opportunity to do something jobs-wise, you have, what, 41-42 votes to repeal o'care from the repubs, nand exactly zero jobs bills. instead of trying to find ways to help with jobs/economy, the repubs go after health care-to what end? or they attack reproductive rights, while fighting anything geared towards helping actual people. stupid.

nothing had a chance in hell, because the only goal reps had was to stymie dems. not help the citizenry, the economy....just block the dems. good job, well done!

And now the Feds are looking into how Christie spent the Sandy relief money:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014...aker-says?lite

I remember there was some rumbling at the time that it was inappropriate for Christie to appear in commercials promoting New Jersey's recovery from Sandy, as it would be very easy for a viewer to confuse that with a campaign commercial- in other words, it gave him free air time for his re-election campaign. And interesting that the company that won the bid (with a commercial that included the governor) cost $2 million more than the next highest bidder (with a commercial that did not) would have.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates Book.

http://gawker.com/mayor-says-christi...rov-1504086470

If this is true, I think we can start a countdown to resignation.

15 Yards for piling on. One would think that she would have raised this issue in realtime given the fact that it was a disaster and her city received only 1% of the funds she asked for.

David Grening ‏@DRFGrening: Gov. Christie just put his Super Bowl tickets on Stubhub.

LOLGOP ‏@LOLGOP: If you're Rand Paul's advisors, find some way to keep the smile off his face for a few days.

LOLGOP ‏@LOLGOP: If Christie really knew and gave that press conference, he's the best Nixon ever.

:D:tro:

Let's see the proof. I hope he has it. Hearing from his lawyer doesn't blow up my skirt when all the guy wants to do is cut a deal to avoid jail time. Seeing is believing.

LOLGOP ‏@LOLGOP: Christie just spoke at Howard Sterns' birthday. He asked the press not to make assumptions about his story until he finishes making it up.