Posted on 03/01/2013 4:58:38 AM PST by Kaslin
What can you do with a man like Chris Christie?
The answer, according to many with the conservative movement: Throw him overboard. And while we're at it, let's toss the gays over the side too.
The popular governor of New Jersey has certainly angered many conservatives, including this humble scribe. During the crucial final days of the presidential election, Christie didn't merely embrace President Obama, he all but endorsed him.
Then, during the congressional fight over the disaster-relief bill for victims of superstorm Sandy -- a bill with more pork in it than a Jimmy Dean factory -- Christie denounced Republicans who wanted to move the legislation a few micrometers closer to kosher. Christie, who built a reputation as a fiscal conservative, not only didn't care that the relief bill contained, among many other porcine baubles, millions for Alaskan fisheries (which are roughly 4,000 miles out of Sandy's path), he acted as if Capitol Hill Republicans should be ashamed for even mentioning it.
Oh, and he parroted the gun-control line and flip-flopped on accepting a federal bribe to accept Obamacare funding to expand Medicaid.
Now, in fairness, Christie has his reasons for doing all of these things. Some are pretty defensible, others far less so.
But whatever the strengths of his positions, no one attending this month's Conservative Political Action Conference will hear them.
The sociology of CPAC is hard to describe to people outside the conservative movement. In a sense, it's the Comic-Con of conservatism, overflowing with stalls and barkers like a Middle Eastern bazaar. It also serves as a de facto political convention for the ideological base of the Republican Party.
And that's why CPAC's decision to not invite Christie was probably a mistake. I've enjoyed my visits to CPAC. (Heck, I was named its conservative journalist of the year in 2011.)
The problem is that CPAC is the first bottleneck in the Republican presidential pipeline, and at precisely the moment the party should be making every effort to be -- or at least seem! -- as open as possible to differing points of view, it's chosen to exclude the most popular governor in the country. (He has a 74 percent approval rating in deep-blue New Jersey.) Why? Because, a source familiar with CPAC's internal deliberations told National Review Online, Christie has a "limited future" in the Republican Party due to his position on gun control.
C'mon, really? The man is going to be re-elected as a Republican. That's a little future right there. Also, CPAC is chockablock with speakers who have a limited future -- or even a limited past -- in the Republican Party.
But most important, since when is CPAC an organ of the Republican Party? Christie's future in the GOP is up to Republican voters. I happen to hew closer to CPAC's apparently official position on gun control than to Christie's. But I'd love to hear him talk about school reform and his battle with public-sector unions. I'd love to see him debate someone on gun control or on how to cut government spending in a climate where people like Christie are so quick to demagogue crisis-exploiting spending.
Heck, I'd like to hear debates on pretty much any and every issue dividing factions on the right, including gay rights. But CPAC has declared that gay groups can't even set up a booth this year. It's one thing to hold firm to your principles on traditional marriage; it's quite another to say that dissenting gay groups -- that is, conservative gay groups -- can't officially hand out fliers on the premises (as they were allowed to in the past).
Some will no doubt see this as CPAC bravely holding the line. But it reads to many in the public as a knee-jerk and insecure retreat at precisely the moment conservatives should be sending the opposite message. Maybe the near third of young Republicans who support gay marriage are wrong, but CPAC won't convince them -- never mind other young voters -- of that by fueling the storyline that conservatives are scared of gays.
It's not CPAC's fault that the borders of conservatism are shrinking, but it would be nice if at this moment it acted less like a border guard keeping all but the exquisitely credentialed out and more like a tourist board, explaining why it's such a great place to visit -- and live.
Gays in the closet, fine.
Gays kissing in public and clamoring for “gay marriage” and pushing their agendas on me and my business and my house, FUGGEDABOUDIT!!!
Get out of my face with that, ok?
As for Christie, the moslem loving, gun banning, gay marriage “conservative”, I want nothing to do with him.
screw that b.s.
We know we lost 2006 simply because the public perceived that the Republicans were overrun with homosexuals. They, the public, don't vote for homosexuals in the Republican party ~ at least not knowingly
So, how many times can you lose 2006 before you figure it out.
Now if the gay folks want to give us money, and write fawning articles about our candidates, or even vote ~ all of that's fine. We do not want to have them identified as chief spokespersons for our candidates, nor do we want them to be our RNC chairmen or women or whatevers.
They keep their distance we'll be writing tax laws that protect the rich guys ~ but they gotta' stay back.
There should be no disagreement on this matter.
CPAC is wise to hold the line against any militant group with a radical social agenda that is repugnant to the majority of its membership
That is what voluntary member organizations are for
for groups that hang their hats and make political decisions on single issues, and disgree with CPAC, there is always the big plantation of the democrat party.
Buh Bye.
I don’t have a problem with gays. I have a problem with agenda driven gays.
Christie is just a liberal idiot
Strange how you never see pundits opine about how the Dems should be more inclusive of pro-life people and gun owners.
Being more "inclusive" of gays will yield a minimal number of additional Republican voters, at the cost of MANY people walking away from the Republicans.
>> I have a problem with agenda driven gays.
An agenda driven by commie scumbags with an indeterminate percentage of homosexual involvement.
So this is a complaint that CPAC won’t provide a forum for a liberal governor and isn’t providing a big tent for leftists promoting abnormal lifestyles which produces the obligatory name calling (homophobia). Jonah Goldberg walks like a liberal and quacks like a liberal. I’d say he’s a liberal probably with the slight caveat that he’d like to have more deductions on his tax return.
Jonah Goldberg. Probably a Christie Republican.
Cuck Fristie.
The author mixes two different subjects together : Christie and gays, so I am not going to bother w those two on this thread.
My problem with CPAC is they invited one candidate who lost a major election, one who lost the same primary, and another who just made believe she was running for that same office just to get attention. So why are they relevent?
Is conservism just about losing?
Now inviting Cruz is good. he won Texas and he is fresh and new. Scott Walker is a really good choice. Try presenting a picture of success not failure.
“Allowing the gays to open up at CPAC resulted in what seemed to be gay dominance.”
A bar manager told me once, “If you have one black in the band, okay. But if you have two or three, it’s a cultural signal. Your upscale, yuppie bar will become a black bar in days. They will intimidate and drive away the high-value, high-return whites. You’ll end up with drugs, fisticuffs and gunfights. I’ve lost two bars that way. Forced out of business.
I think that letting in an opposing agenda does that in politics too. Let’s face it. Homosexual is an orientation. Gay means communist. (Progressive, liberal…all the same thing.)
Shut up, Jonah.
Hezekiah King of Judah
18 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years....He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. 4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles....
5 Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. 7 And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. 8 From watchtower to fortified city, he defeated the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory.
2 Kings
Yeah, people like Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz and Allen West. /s
Bump
Christie: wrong on gays, wrong on guns. Huntsman wasn't invited either....
The problem is that CPAC is the first bottleneck in the Republican presidential pipeline, and at precisely the moment the party should be making every effort to be — or at least seem! — as open as possible to differing points of view, it’s chosen to exclude the most popular governor in the country. (He has a 74 percent approval rating in deep-blue New Jersey.) Why? Because, a source familiar with CPAC’s internal deliberations told National Review Online, Christie has a “limited future” in the Republican Party due to his position on gun control.
As it should be.
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