Jan 9th 2014

Four Reasons Why “Bridgegate” Could be Politically Fatal to Christie’s Presidential Ambitions

by Robert Creamer

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist and author of the recent book: "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available on amazon.com.
Yesterday’s revelation of the Governor’s Office was directly involved shutting down George Washington Bridge access lanes to Fort Lee, New Jersey is not just another run of the mill political problem for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. 
 
It could be fatal to Christie’s Presidential ambitions.   There are four reasons to believe that the ham-handed attempt to punish Ft Lee’s mayor by causing traffic gridlock in his city may make his Presidential ambitions to sink faster than a rock in the Hudson River.
 
Reason #1: The episode turns his trademark no-nonsense forcefulness from a refreshing positive into self-serving bullying – a disgusting negative.
 
In politics, every positive trait has its evil twin.  Voters want leaders who are on their side, but they don’t want demagogues that pander to their interests.  
 
It’s a good thing in politics to be passionately committed to strongly-held beliefs.  It’s not a good thing to be an uncompromising ideologue.
 
Voters want their leaders to be self confident and forceful.  They don’t want leaders to be arrogant bullies.   
 
That’s why in politics if you’re trying to convince persuadable voters that they shouldn’t support your opponent, it’s often best to take on their strongest positive traits and morph them into their negative first cousins.   You attack their strength by turning their into their negative incarnations.
 
One of the reasons why this approach often works is that people are already predisposed to believe that the politician in question is prone to the qualities and behaviors in question that could have either a positive or a negative side. 
 
Once Christie sold the public on the notion that he is a no-nonsense, straight-talking guy who doesn’t suffer fools lightly, tells it like it is and gets things done – its not hard to believe he is also the kind of a guy who will act like a bully to get what he wants.
 
And of course this episode conjures up all of the worst stereotypes about New Jersey politics that Christie already needed to overcome in places like Iowa and Wisconsin.  “Bridgegate” and its colorful cast of characters could be a sequel to the current box office hit, “American Hustle.”
 
People in the Midwest and South like straight talk, but they also like “nice” and civil.  Christie’s brash “straight-talk” was going to wear thin pretty quickly outside the Northeast even before the “bridgegate.”  Now the negative side of his personal style will be the first thing they see.
 
Reason #2: “Bridgegate” will be the first impression that many ordinary voters get of Chris Christie. 
 
Outside of New Jersey and the New York media market, most of the swing voters who will decide a General Election – and many Republican primary voters – have only a vague knowledge of Christie.  Normal people, after all, think about politics five minutes a week.  The first priority of a political figure is to break through the clutter – to get on the radar scope – to get noticed.
 
But like your mother told you, you only have one chance to make a good first impression.  This is a bad first impression.
 
Voters cast their ballots based on what they know.  For example, if all you know is that you share the candidate's ethnic name, you are often more likely to support him -- since he's "like you".  But if they learn more, the importance of the name begins to shrink.
 
“Bridgegate” is a big, interesting, symbolically powerful story that will break through with voters who know very little about Christie.  For many voters, it will be their first real impression and he will come to be defined by it.  Political communication is all about symbols.  This will become a symbol for Christie – a story that describes him for voters who don’t know anything else about him.
 
“Oh yeah, he’s they guy who caused a three-day traffic jam to punish a mayor that wouldn’t support him, right?  What a piece of work.”
 
Reason #3: So much for the guy who could, as the New York Times said: “transcend partisan rancor and petty politics in the service of the public good.”
 
You don’t get much more partisan or much more petty than inconveniencing and threatening the public safety of thousands of ordinary citizens in order to punish a Democratic mayor who failed to endorse your re-election for governor.  When one unidentified aide said he felt sorry for the children on school buses who were late to school because of the intentional traffic jam, Christie’s friend and Port Authority official David Wildstein replied that they were the kids of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Buono’s supporters. Yuk.
 
Reason #4: The momentum and inevitability of Christie’s march to the GOP nomination has evaporated.
 
One of the big things Christie had going for him was the bandwagon.   He seemed inevitable, so Republican donors, county chairmen and activists were signing on.  No longer. 
 
Of course part of that inevitability was built upon the premise that he could attract lots of persuadable voters and disaffected Democrats with his straight talking, non-partisan image.  That is gone too.  His attempts to revive that narrative  will always be stalked by the specter of the bridge incident that proves it to be a work of fiction.
 
When he lost re-election many years ago, former Texas Agricultural Commissioner and now progressive radio talk show host and writer Jim Hightower said: “One day you’re a peacock and the next day you’re a feather duster.”
 
Christie may not be a feather duster quite yet, but the odds have increased that his oversized presence in American politics will appear in history books as little more than a small footnote.
 
              .



Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

Mar 18th 2024
EXTRACT: "....the UK’s current economic woes – falling exports, slowing growth, low productivity, high taxes, and strained public finances – underscore the urgency of confronting Brexit’s catastrophic consequences."
Mar 18th 2024
EXTRACTS: Most significant of all, Russia’s Black Sea fleet has suffered significant losses over the past two years. As a result of these Ukrainian successes, the Kremlin decided to relocate the Black Sea fleet from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk on the Russian mainland. Compare that with the situation prior to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 when Russia had a secure lease on the naval base of Sevastopol until 2042." --- "Ukrainian efforts have clearly demonstrated, however, that the Kremlin’s, and Putin’s personal, commitment may not be enough to secure Russia’s hold forever. Kyiv’s western partners would do well to remember that among the spreading gloom over the trajectory of the war."
Mar 8th 2024
EXTRACT: "As the saying goes, 'It’s the economy, stupid.' Trump’s proposed economic-policy agenda is now the greatest threat to economies and markets around the world."
Mar 8th 2024
EXTRACT: "Russia, of course, brought all these problems on itself. It most certainly is not winning the war, either militarily or on the economic front. Ukraine is recovering from the initial shock, and if robust foreign assistance continues, it will have an upper hand in the war of attrition."
Mar 8th 2024
EXTRACT: "...... with good timing and good luck, enabled Trump to defeat [in 2016] political icon Hillary Clinton in a race that appeared tailor-made for her. But contrary to what Trump might claim, his victory was extremely narrow. In fact, he lost the popular vote by 2.8 million votes – a larger margin than any other US president in history. Since then, Trump has proved toxic at the ballot box. " -----"The old wisdom that 'demographics is destiny' – coined by the French philosopher Auguste Comte – may well be more relevant to the outcome than it has been to any previous presidential election. "----- "Between the 2016 and 2024 elections, some 20 million older voters will have died, and about 32 million younger Americans will have reached voting age. Many young voters disdain both parties, and Republicans are actively recruiting (mostly white men) on college campuses. But the issues that are dearest to Gen Z’s heart – such as reproductive rights, democracy, and the environment – will keep most of them voting Democratic."
Mar 8th 2024
EXTRACTS: "How can America’s fundamentalist Christians be so enthusiastic about so thoroughly un-Christian a politician?" ---- "If you see and think outside the hermeneutic code of Christian fundamentalism, you might be forgiven for viewing Trump as a ruthless, wholly self-interested man intent on maximizing power, wealth, and carnal pleasure. What your spiritual blindness prevents you from seeing is how the Holy Spirit uses him – channeling the 'secret power of lawlessness,' as the Book of 2 Thessalonians describes it – to restrain the advent of ultimate evil, or to produce something immeasurably greater: the eschaton (end of history), when the messiah comes again."
Mar 1st 2024
EXTRACT: "The lesson is that laws and regulatory structures are critical to state activities that produce local-level benefits. If citizens are to push for reforms and interventions that increase efficiency, promote inclusion, and enable entrepreneurship, innovation, and long-term growth, they need to recognize this. The kind of effective civil society Nilekani envisions thus requires civic engagement, empowerment, and education, including an understanding of the rights and responsibilities implied by citizenship."
Feb 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "Despite the widespread belief that the global economy is headed for a soft landing, recent trends offer little cause for optimism."
Feb 9th 2024
EXTRACT: " Consider, for example, the ongoing revolution in robotics and automation, which will soon lead to the development of robots with human-like features that can learn and multitask the way we do. Or consider what AI will do for biotech, medicine, and ultimately human health and lifespans. No less intriguing are the developments in quantum computing, which will eventually merge with AI to produce advanced cryptography and cybersecurity applications."
Feb 9th 2024
EXTRACTS: "The implication is clear. If Hamas is toppled, and there is no legitimate Palestinian political authority capable of filling the vacuum it leaves behind, Israel will probably find itself in a new kind of hell." ----- "As long as the PLO fails to co-opt Hamas into the political process, it will be impossible to establish a legitimate Palestinian government in post-conflict Gaza, let alone achieve the dream of Palestinian statehood. This is bad news for both Israelis and Palestinians. But it serves Netanyahu and his coalition of extremists just fine."
Jan 28th 2024
EXTRACTS: "According to estimates by the United Nations, China’s working-age population peaked in 2015 and will decline by nearly 220 million by 2049. Basic economics tells us that maintaining steady GDP growth with fewer workers requires extracting more value-added from each one, meaning that productivity growth is vital. But with China now drawing more support from low-productivity state-owned enterprises, and with the higher-productivity private sector remaining under intense regulatory pressure, the prospects for an acceleration of productivity growth appear dim."
Jan 28th 2024
EXTRACT: "When Chamberlain negotiated the notorious Munich agreement with Hitler in September 1938, The Times did not oppose the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany without Czech consent. Instead, Britain’s most prestigious establishment broadsheet declared that: “The volume of applause for Mr Chamberlain, which continues to grow throughout the globe, registers a popular judgement that neither politicians nor historians are likely to reverse.” "
Jan 4th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Another Trump presidency, however, represents the greatest threat to global stability, because the fate of liberal democracy would be entrusted to a leader who attacks its fundamental principles." ------"While European countries have relied too heavily on US security guarantees, America has been the greatest beneficiary of the post-war political and economic order. By persuading much of the world to embrace the principles of liberal democracy (at least rhetorically), the US expanded its global influence and established itself as the world’s “shining city on a hill.” Given China and Russia’s growing assertiveness, it is not an exaggeration to say that the rules-based international order might not survive a second Trump term."
Dec 28th 2023
EXTRACT: "For the most vulnerable countries, we must create conditions that enable them to finance their climate-change mitigation" ........ "The results are already there: in two years, following the initiative we took in Paris in the spring of 2021, we have released over $100 billion in special drawing rights (SDRs, the International Monetary Fund’s reserve asset) for vulnerable countries.By activating this “dormant asset,” we are extending 20-year loans at near-zero interest rates to finance climate action and pandemic preparedness in the poorest countries. We have begun to change debt rules to suspend payments for such countries, should a climate shock occur. And we have changed the mandate of multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, so that they take more risks and mobilize more private money."
Dec 27th 2023
EXTRACT: "....if AI causes truly catastrophic increases in inequality – say, if the top 1% were to receive all pretax income – there might be limits to what tax reforms could accomplish. Consider a country where the top 1% earns 20% of pretax income – roughly the current world average. If, owing to AI, this group eventually received all pretax income, it would need to be taxed at a rate of 80%, with the revenue redistributed as tax credits to the 99%, just to achieve today’s pretax income distribution; funding the government and achieving today’s post-tax income distribution would require an even higher rate. Given that such high rates could discourage work, we would likely have to settle for partial inequality insurance, analogous to having a deductible on a conventional insurance policy to reduce moral hazard."
Dec 21st 2023
EXTRACT: "Shocks are here to stay, and our task is not to predict the next one – although someone always does – but to sharpen our focus on resilience. Staying the course of politically mandated policies while minimizing the inevitable dislocations is easier said than done. But that is no excuse to fall for the myth of being victimized by the unprecedented."
Dec 21st 2023
EXTRACTS: "A new world is indeed emerging. It will be characterized not only by more interdependencies, but also by more insecurity, danger, and war. Stability in international relations will become a foreign concept from a bygone age – one that we did not fully appreciate until it was gone."
Dec 14th 2023
EXTRACT: "Yet one must never forget that Putin is first and foremost an intelligence officer whose dominant trait is suspicion."
Dec 2nd 2023
EXTRACTS: "In a recent commentary for the Financial Times, Martin Wolf trots out the specter of a 'public-debt disaster,' that recurrent staple of bond-market chatter. The essence of his argument is that since debt-to-GDP ratios are high, and eminent authorities are alarmed, 'fiscal crises' in the form of debt defaults or inflation “loom. And that means something must be done.' ----- "If, as Wolf fears, 'real interest rates might be permanently higher than they used to be,' the culprit is monetary policy, and the real risk is not rich-country public-debt defaults or inflation. It is recession, bankruptcies, and unemployment, along with inflation." ---- "Wolf surely knows that the proper remedy is for rich-country central banks to bring interest rates back down. Yet he doesn’t want to say it. He seems to be caught up, possibly against his better judgment, in bond vigilantes’ evergreen campaign against the remnants of the welfare state."
Nov 27th 2023
EXTRACT: "The first Russia, comprising those living in Russia’s two biggest cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg, can pretend there is no war at all." ---- "Then there is the other Russia, the one you find in small towns and villages scattered across the country’s massive territory. Here, the Ukraine war is a source of patriotic pride,"