Friday, September 10, 2010

Chris Christie for President! - Wow, I heard about this video of the New Jersey Governor, but he's so direct and articulate in his response, it feels like it must have been scripted.

Extra - From Wizbang.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Christie's also the guy who f'd up the application that directly cost New Jersey $400 million in federal education grants.

Christie refused to use the correct application data that was supplied to him by the NJ teachers' union, and which would have given NJ a more competitive application. He's more interested in trying to raise his national conservative standing by "standing tall" against unionized labor than he is at doing some of the very basic things that are any Governor's job.

It's also worth noting that Christie's lacking a "direct and articulate response" to the questioner's followup point that acceding to a pay freeze would not have protected any teacher from being subsequently laid off. Christie: "That is not the truth at all... [any school boards that did so] would have been subjected to the same amount of public criticism."

Gosh. Likely public criticism against school board members. Imagine a union refusing to waive a binding contract... and in the wake of such an ironclad guarantee! The greedy skunks!

Bram said...

Anonymous, are you from NJ? Because you have no idea what you are talking about.

Bret Schundler screwed up the app. Personally, I have the idea of Federal Aid being used to twist State arms,

What the teacher wants is a guarantee that the local school boards won't have control over their employees.

I know lots of teachers in NJ. The Union is an extortion racket and will seek to destroy the career of any member who questions their decisions.

another Eric Lindholm said...

He bragged that he listened "respectfully" to the question, when in fact he was turning his back on the woman to take his jacket off, then looking anywhere but at her while fidgeting, working the water bottle, etc. He adopted a hostile body language immediately, then bullied the questioner when she responded in kind.

He knows his talking points well and does a great job of avoiding "um" and other speech mannerisms. But he can't afford to be so thin-skinned if he has any national aspirations. A teacher's union is going to be inflammatory and petty, of course -- anyone knows that. It's still his job to work with them without framing differences of opinion as personal attacks.

Also, 1 billion - 820 million != 280 million.

Somehow, 49 other Governors got it right. said...

Bram's "You have no idea what you're talking about" = Chris Christie's "That is not the truth at all." Emphatic tough talk that's uncooperatively fact-light.

NJ.com:
"It's still unclear how the error was made. The New Jersey Teachers Association produced a version as of May 27 of the bungled answer — from a draft including compromises later jettisoned — that included information for the correct budget years. The NJEA said the paper proved the administration had changed it in the process of re-writing the application to take out the compromises with the state's largest teachers union, which has been Christie's most vocal combatant during his first year as governor. The application was submitted June 1."

Bret Schundler sent in the application that Christie wanted sent. Take away what Christie hopes will be a career-advancing showdown, and just like magic, you would have taken away the costly clerical error. But unions are evil and it was the other guy's fault and the feds should have given Christie a do-over.

Ah, that conservative core principle of responsibility. Hooray for the party of competent grownups.

If Chris Christie ever rises beyond his current state gig, we can consider this screwup an early $400 million campaign contribution to his national ambitions.

Bram said...

So you were there with Christie and Schundler were preparing the application? Why didn't you fix it?

50 unionized states, 49 complete applications said...

What an inept, empty reply. And yet, my groin is stirred by his belligerence. Bram for President!

Bram said...

Thank you! I promise to focus my belligerence upon the elimination of the Federal Department of Education - along with much of the rest of the federal bureaucracy.

Then maybe the states will worry about using their own tax revenues to best educate their children with minimal waste - instead of begging the feds for cash.

Anonymous said...

But... but... as a strong leader once said, "No Child Left Behind is working... in exchange for federal dollars, we expect results."

Anonymous said...

Is that you - Ghost of Rino's Past?

Anonymous said...

Is that you, Krushchev - denouncing Stalin only after he's safely dead?