Posted on 07/30/2013 7:52:16 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The way this feud is progressing, I half-expect Christie to reply, “And you’re the queen.”
Ostensibly Paul means “bacon” in terms of “pork,” i.e. wasteful federal spending. Which I guess means he’ll be referring to Christie as “Porky” before the week’s out.
“This is the king of bacon talking about bacon,” Paul said about Christie. Both are considered potential 2016 contenders for the Republican presidential nomination…
“What does he want to do, shut down military bases in Kentucky?” he said.
Fort Campbell and Fort Knox, both Army bases, are located in Kentucky. New Jersey itself is home to a large joint military base that houses the McGuire Air Force base; Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst; and Fort Dix, an Army base…
“It’s not helping the party for him to pick a war with me. It’s a big mistake. It’s not very smart. And it’s not a good way to grow the party,” Paul said, adding that the Republican Party is “shrinking” in the Northeast. “Why would he want to pick a fight with the one guy who has a chance to grow the party by appealing to the youth and appealing to people who would like to see a more moderate and less aggressive foreign policy?”
Alternate headline: “Member of Paul family suddenly opposed to shutting down military bases.” I’m going to post the video for you once it’s available at CNN.com, but in the meantime focus on the last part of what he said. Is picking a fight with Paul a big mistake for Christie? In some respects, yeah. If Christie’s serious about running in 2016, he’s kissing off some libertarian-leaning Republicans by squabbling with their champion. (Whether he had any chance of winning them even if he was chummy with Paul is another question.) On the subject of the NSA alone, grassroots righties are far more inclined to the Paul position than the Obama/Bush one. Stuff like this is of a piece with Christie’s support for gun control, his willingness to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare, and various other right-wing heresies: At some point the cumulative effect of his antagonism with the right will present an electability problem. Even if he’s best positioned to go out and win indies and centrist Democrats, I think he’s the one guy in the field whose nomination might force a significant chunk of conservatives to stay home.
On the other hand, Paul’s the one guy in the field who might force a significant chunk of hawks to stay home (or cross the aisle). At a bare minimum, punching up with a tea-party star — especially over Sandy relief — helps Christie’s gubernatorial reelection in Jersey. Beyond that, as a Twitter buddy suggested earlier, having the 2016 primary run-up dominated by a “Christie versus Paul” storyline isn’t the worst outcome for the Bacon King. It’ll be easier to marginalize Paul than it will be to marginalize Rubio, Walker, Jindal, or Ryan. Hawks and centrists will be with Christie from the outset, then he’ll go to work on hitting Paul over his dad’s newsletters and the recent “Southern Avenger” business, the old dust-up over what he said about the Civil Rights Act, maybe some of his rhetoric on Lochner, etc etc etc. The message to righties will be that they may prefer Paul on the merits but he simply can’t win the general election. On electability grounds alone, you need to wake up and, er, smell the bacon. (That’s not just Christie’s blueprint against Paul, needless to say. Whoever emerges as moderate/establishment champion will run against him that way.) That’s an easier message to push against Paul than it is against anyone else in the field; conversely, it’s easier for Paul to attack Christie as a RINO than it is anyone else in the field. That’s a big reason why you’re seeing this now and why you’ll see more of it. Apart from the personal and philosophical antipathy, it’s win/win for both.
Update: And here’s the video.
Christie looks like a fat pig. I’m with Paul.
I actually am with Christie on this. Paul was a punk. First of all Christie wants our nation to stay safe. Paul wants to be isolationist. Paul says that Christie brings home the pork. Paul ends up in a state that is a welfare state. I think Paul SERIOUSLY lost this round big time. Paul needs to be prepared before saying things he knows nothing about.
And NJ is a thug, mob, Muslim state.
I note with great interest freepers who are allergic to Cruz. Quite a few of them, surprisingly.
Is gay marriage done in N.J ? A pairing of Nadler & Christie sounds fair....
I’m not a big fan of Paul but he has nothing to do with Kentucky state government which has been run by the rats since the Civil War.
Absolutely. I wouldn’t take either the neocon establishment or traditional Paulestian foreign policy position. Neither is good.
I would say love for Ron Paul is a minority view around here but most freepers seem to like Rand. He’s managed to attract mainstream support his daddy never could. But I worry, I would say the apple doesn’t fall far in most cases when it comes to political families, Ron Paul acolytes have a history of losing elections and taking bad positions on certain issues. Look at that Amash jerk in Michigan.
Is Rand POTUS Timber? If his name was Paul Rand he would not be a Senator right now, he’d have lost badly like most Paulites do. If he wasn’t running against Trey Grayson, whom everyone was right not to trust since he’s now working for a rat superpac and teaching at Harvard, he may have lost anyway. I hope the POTUS race doesn’t come down to the 2 of them but I’d take almost anyone over El Gordo (ie not Jeb Bush or some traitor like Hunstman).
As for military pork, I’m a critic of it. Military bases don’t exist for local politicians to brag about. Politics should never be a consideration where they are concerned, *cough* John Thune *cough*.
There seems to be some recently joined freepers going after Cruz. Suspected establishment trolls.
But I think most of them are longterm freepers in good standing just blinded by birther dogmatics (whichever of the half dozen or so interpretations they have) or else live in a cave and haven’t heard yet that Cruz was born a citizen and would have been even if had been born on Mars. (this will probably be my tagline in the future if he runs)
They started with Rubio (BEFORE amnesty when everyone here liked Rubio) and Jindal a while back. Both of them were born in country to legal resident alien parents and were also citizens at birth.
I’m sick to death of it, as far I’m concerned the grownups are talking now and they can go play outside. We have enough problems trying to get a conservative Presidential candidate in without ridiculous self-sabotage.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.