Why It's Ludicrous—Despite What the Pundits Say—to Call Christie a Moderate
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/why-its-ludicrous-despite-what-pundits-say-call-christie-moderate
In the wake of his landslide reelection to the governorship of New Jersey, Chris Christie has got to be feeling good or as hed be more likely to put it, hes got to be feeling damngood. Not only did The Governor, as his campaign portentously called him, manage to secure a second term, but he did it by an almost comically large margin. With men, women, whites, blacks, latinos, asians across the board, Christie matched or surpassed the levels of support a generic Republican would otherwise have received. One wonders, in fact, if anyone in the state of New Jersey knows what Christies Democratic challenger, Barbara Buono, even looks like. Without the aid of Google, I sure wouldnt.
Compare Christies landslide to another Republican running to be governor of his state, Virginias Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and the list of reasons for The Governor to smile grows longer. Unlike Cuccinelli, Christie managed to transcend his partys national image and overcome the stigma of being a Republican in a deep-blue state like New Jersey. And unlike Cuccinelli, no one associates Chris Christie with the now seriously unpopular Tea Party, or sees the New Jersey governor as a chief architect of the Republican Partys so-called War on Women. In a nutshell: Chris Christie, unlike Cuccinelli, doesnt have to waste his time disassociating himself from Ted Cruz.
Now, in the coming days, weeks, and indeed years, a lot of pundits are going to look at Christies feat and conclude that hes some kind of moderate. How else could he win in New Jersey? Nurturing that impression is certainly part of the reason why Christies team decided to run up the score, waging a vigorous reelection campaign despite the fact that Christies triumph was never in doubt. Yet while its true that Christie has at times shown an admirable willingness to buck the most extreme elements of his partys base, itd be going too far much too far to call the man a moderate.
What Christie is extremely good at is implementing what my colleague Blake Zeff previously described as the GOPs blue-state playbook. Its pretty simple, really. To stay alive in these politically hazardous environs, blue-state Republicans make a show of breaking with the rest of their party on issues that may be prominent in terms of media attention, but are actually of secondary or tertiary importance from a policy perspective. So, for example, you get the once omnipresent images of Christie walking side-by-side with President Obama in the wake of Hurricane Sandys devastation; or you get Christies decision to drop a clearly doomed appeal to a judges ruling ushering in gay marriage in his state.