Actually, I hate just about everything the man stands for and everything he does. But there’s one attribute of his that I wish President Obama would emulate.
Christie is the consummate Republican. His policies and actions serve big corporations and his political cronies at the expense of the middle class and economically disadvantaged. He puts politics above service (e.g. Judge Wallace’s firing), cloaks his political financing (Reform Jersey Now), and cares little about women and gays. He rarely listens to his opponents (most of whom are also his constituents), and compromise is not in his vocabulary.
But you have to admire his chutzpah. He has no hidden agenda – you know exactly what his lousy policies are. He has usurped the power of the state legislature to the point of their irrelevance. He panders to the common man – repeating his false “no tax” mantra so many times that people actually believe his lies despite evidence to the contrary.
Now, imagine if President Obama operated the same way. There would be none of this 60 vote supermajority in the Senate that has made that body so ineffective. The stimulus would be large enough to make a real difference. Health care reform would include a single-payer option instead of the gift to the insurance companies that we got. Campaign finance reform would be real. Troops would be coming home from the Middle East. And his two Supreme Court nominees would not take the court even further to the right. Don’t get me wrong – President Obama has done some good. But if he had Christie’s cojones, this country would be a lot better off.
Cross-posted to bluejersey.com.
Cross-posted to bluejersey.com.
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