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.
I guess Jonah would have given space to NAMBLA Republicans too
When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them.
The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another.
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan: with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668. Ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.
He has a right to his opinion as you have to yours. Get it?
And you agree with him, I suppose? Otherwise, why post his lib DC bubble GOP-E nonsense?
Jonah should also understand that what little piece of conservativism that’s left in the GOP will cease to exist if homosexuals are given their demands. But, since Jonah is one of the enlightened talking heads who makes a living playing what if drills without having to acccept the consequences of the outcome, I doubt that he cares what the great unwashed consevatives of this nation think or how they react.
Nanny Bloomberg was first elected as a republican, then he was reelected as a democrat, which he originally was. He was a second time reelected as an independent
CPAC is the conservative element of the R party. It isn’t saying Christie should not be a Repub but he isn’t representative of the conservative part of the R party. CPAC is about conservatism and we should expect CPAC to focus on conservatives and conservative points of view. This should not be controversial in the least. This should not be a criticism of either CPAC or Christie.
Dem party members are often bizarre, hard left anti-American, and idiotic—but I never hear the slightest criticism of their failure to include varied viewpoints or failure to respect the law and their oaths of office.
By the way, Christie may have been a sufficient force to reduce Romney’s votes so that he lost a presidential election. Should that be forgotten? Should a high approval rating in a blue state mean that similar candidates should be foisted on voters in red states? He will probably win reelection in NJ. Fine for NJ but how does that help conservatives or free people anywhere? As best I can tell, he is a local phenomenon. He is dangerously close to being another Colin Powell, a man who severely weakens the party he publically claims to support but which he is strategic and deliberate in damaging. He is not someone you want in your tent, no matter how many voters you want to welcome.
I think there is some confusion here in the R party about how to be inclusive, how to create a winning and popular brand image, and how to welcome varied points of view while not insulting one’s conservative, long-time, base supporters.
I don't see Townhall.com as the author. *rme*
I wonder if there is ANYTHING Christie could say or do or espouse that would be over the line for Jonah.
This is about the most stupidest reason not to read a magazine *rme*
Obama hugging, gun banning, East coast RINO...
Yeah... No. I wouldn’t invite him to hold a door open at CPAC much less let him give a speech.
bump
What the GOP-e has done is to hunt up and corral wealthy former Democrat donors. They have misrepresented themselves as being the legitimate core of the party. The donors give them the money in the mistaken notion that they are real Republicans.
The result is we end up with a Romney and not a real Republican candidate for President, and a series of folks who run for senate who get plenty of money but who can't win.
Hey, Jonah.
You wrote Liberal Fascism, essentially making the case that today’s leftists are yesterday’s Nazis, so you know where both Christie and the gays want to take this country: to a decadent state that is run by the iron fist of hardcore socialism.
If your beliefs and values are rooted in truth and proven to be the best system of prosperity and liberty for a couple of hundred years, it is always wise to select as your representatives those who truly represent those beliefs and values.
It is always UNwise to allow your enemies to represent you.
You should post this on his Townhall blog.
Well then, let them speak at RINOPAC!
We end up with Democrat-Lite, which will lose every single time.
Neither Chris Christie nor the “Girly Boys” at NRO are good for the conservative cause any more. The Republican Party may be headed in way of Christie and the Girly Boys but true conservatism is not. I don’t care to listen to Christie and stopped reading the weenies at NRO a long time ago.
Why? NR ditched Derb for telling the truth about urban blacks. They pretty much advocate giving in to liberals at every possible opportunity. For a conservative magazine they’re pitiful.
” Townhall is going “Squishy”, perhaps even “Poofter”.
I don’t see Townhall.com as the author. *rme* “
True.
The more I see of Christie the more repulsive he becomes.
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