I'm so freakin' likeable.
How the sausage is made.
[New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie], who traditionally backs off from declaring how he’ll act on pending legislation when asked by reporters, made his intentions clear on a pig gestation crate bill when asked last month about it during a visit to Northwest Iowa, according to a pork producer.
“He indicated to us that he was going to veto the bill,” said Bill Tentinger, an Iowa pork producer and former president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association. [...]
The bill would direct the state Department of Agriculture to prohibit “the confinement, in an enclosure, of any sow during gestation in a manner that prevents the sow from turning around freely, lying down, standing up, or fully extending the limbs of the animal.”
Christie is now in trouble with many in New Jersey, the state he currently governs, for two reasons. First, the bill is popular in the state, which is why it's currently sitting on his desk waiting for a signature. Second, advocates of that bill are furious that Christie hasn't been telling them squat about whether he was going to veto the bill but can travel to Iowa as a maybe-possibly presidential contender and tell the folks
there what he was going to do. Especially since it looks like pre-presidential pork producer pandering of the penultimate persuasion.
“I had not heard it before and quite frankly if the governor thought it was more important to tell an Iowa pork farmer what he was going to do with my legislation that passed both houses overwhelmingly, that’s just a total insult,” said Ray Lesniak (D-Union).
This has been your Chris Christie being an asshole moment of the day. Tune in tomorrow, when there'll probably be another. He really doesn't do the "likability" thing very well.