Another day, another incident where Republican governor Chris Christie shows off his personality, this time by telling a heckler to
"sit down and shut up" at a campaign event.
David Axelrod gives his take:
“This has always been the fatal flaw of Chris Christie’s presidential campaign,” Axelrod said after seeing the video. “I’ve been through a few presidential races, and I’ve got to tell you, every day is filled with aggravations and provocations, and if that’s the way he’s going to react, he has no future in this.”
He continued, “I think he thinks that this kind of ‘Sopranos’ approach to politics marks him as a strong leader. I think it marks him as an angry man.”
Sean Sullivan adds:
Christie's off-the-cuff, call-it-like-I-see-it, I'm-not-afraid-to-tell-anyone-off-or-get-angry style is the defining feature of his persona. It's a big reason why he became so popular in New Jersey and caught on nationally. You're not going to find a blunter statewide politician.
But it's also an emerging liability because it could feed attacks that he is a strong-arming bully. The reason why the "Bridgegate" scandal was so devastating for Christie, even though he has not been directly tied to it, is that it enabled the bully label to stick.
Paul Waldman hits the nail on the head:
But you know where you don't get too many chances to show what a tough guy you are? Iowa. Campaigning for the caucuses is an interminable process of trooping from living room to senior center to VFW hall, meeting people in small groups, looking them in the eye and asking them for their votes. Christie is a pretty good retail politician, so it isn't that he can't perform in those settings. But being tough just isn't part of that show, and if the biggest part of Christie's appeal is that he can talk like an extra from Goodfellas when somebody challenges him, he isn't going to get very far.
More on the day's top stories below the fold.
Leslie Savan:
It was yesterday, October 29, in the shore town of Belmar, New Jersey, where Governor Chris Christie had come to commemorate the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. Former Asbury Park city councilman James Keady, holding a sign that read, “Stay in NJ. Finish the job,” interrupted the governor to ask about his miserable record on Sandy relief.
[...]
OK, let’s give Christie a break: he’s had a rough few days. Kaci Hickox, the nurse he had quarantined against her will, had been kicking his butt public-relations-wise (she’s now out bike-riding in defiance of Governor Paul LePage in Maine); Wisconsin governor Scott Walker had groused that his re-election campaign needed only Christie’s RGA money, and not his presence on the stump); and on Tuesday a Monmouth University poll was released that found 66 percent of Garden State residents are “somewhat dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with the Sandy relief efforts.
Still, Christie’s outburst in Belmar was even less “presidential,” to put it politely, than his long line of earlier tantrums. So far, only the nice moments of that day have made it to the governor’s YouTube channel.
Eugene Robinson examines the lack of a Republican agenda beyond "no":
No matter how well Republicans do at the polls Tuesday — and my hunch is they won’t do as well as they hope — the GOP won’t be able to claim any kind of mandate. That’s because they have refused to articulate any vision for governing. [...] The dominant Republican message is an exhortation to vote against someone who’s not on any ballot: President Obama.
There’s nothing new or dishonorable about running against the policies of an unpopular president. But Republicans aren’t actually running against Obama’s policies in any meaningful way. Instead, they are conducting a campaign of atmospherics. Be afraid, they tell voters. Be unhappy. Be angry.
And
The New York Times also has its take on the Republican agenda:
It’s not just that they are committed to time-wasting, obstructionist promises like repeal of health care reform, which everyone knows President Obama would veto. The bigger problem is that the party’s leaders have continually proved unable to resist pressure from the radical right, which may very well grow in the next session of Congress.
Tea Party loyalists like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas already have far too much sway over the Republican caucus, but if they become the majority, things could become worse. The Republican Senate candidate in Iowa, Joni Ernst, wants to ban abortions and same-sex marriage and impeach the president. In Georgia, David Perdue, the Republican candidate, said his biggest task is to “prosecute the failed record” of the Obama administration. Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, a three-term incumbent in a tough race for re-election, promised voters that a Republican majority “means a stop to the Obama agenda.”
A Republican majority wouldn’t really be able to reverse Mr. Obama’s most significant accomplishments, but in the act of trying, it could do a great deal of damage. Mr. McConnell has already made it clear how he would proceed: He intends to attach his demands to required spending bills, forcing the president to choose between accepting Republican policies and vetoing spending bills, which could lead to shutting down all or part of the government.
On the healthcare front,
Senators Tom Harkin, Ron Wyden, Sander M. Levin, George Miller and Henry A. Waxman highlight how the ACA is working, despite some bumps in the road:
As the New England Journal of Medicine recently determined, an estimated 10 million Americans gained health insurance between September 2013 and this past April, and most of them received financial help to make their coverage affordable.
Despite this progress, the law’s opponents continue to try to undermine it. They seem unwilling to recognize the implications of their actions. Repealing the Affordable Care Act would take us back to the days when health care was reserved for the healthy and wealthy. [...]
Before health-care reform, the need for affordable insurance was universally documented across all states. Americans who could not afford insurance had to choose between putting food on the table and purchasing needed medicines. Many went without medical treatment, faced bankruptcy or even risked premature death. These problems affected families regardless of where they lived.
The Affordable Care Act makes financial help available to working Americans in every state. That is the law we intended. That is the law we enacted. That is the law that is covering millions of people through marketplaces. And that is the law that should continue to be in force.
On the topic of voting rights,
Ari Berman explains how voting restrictions could impact the midterm elections:
Despite the scant evidence of voter fraud, 40,000 new voter registration applications have yet to be processed in the state, according to the New Georgia Project. Civil rights groups sued Kemp and voter registration boards in five heavily populated urban counties, but on Wednesday a Fulton County judge dismissed the lawsuit. It was the latest court decision restricting voting rights this election year.
[...] Those 40,000 missing voters could very well be the difference in a hotly contested Senate race between Republican David Perdue and Democrat Michelle Nunn and a close gubernatorial contest between Republican incumbent Nathan Deal and Democratic challenger Jason Carter.
On a final note,
Jason Sullivan examines President Obama's strategy in the states:
Obama is actually trying to do something interesting on the trail. He is making a case that is antithetical to the crude, fear-based politics of 2014 by arguing not just for voting but for believing that voting matters. This is not abstraction. Midterm elections have significantly lower turnout rates than presidential elections, which tends to favor Republicans. Additionally, plenty of people who voted for the president and for other Democrats in 2008 and 2012 are now put off by the process, legitimately frustrated not just with obstructionist Republicans but with compromising and politically cautious Democrats.