Posted on 07/01/2002 4:06:45 PM PDT by Registered
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| Environmental Protection Administration chief Christine Todd Whitman answers questions during a news conference on air quality near Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Monday, July 1, 2002, near the Tennessee-North Carolina border. (AP Photo/Wade Payne) |
CTW is someone I eagerly supported the first time she ran for governor here in NJ. I met her several times before and after her victory in '93.
What a disaster she turned out to be: a spineless, empty suit!
Criticize the picture all you want. But that's all there is.
ML/NJ
When she first became Governor of NJ, I had a tremendous respect for her. I didn't agree with all her viewpoints, but she worked hard at keeping her campaign promises, and was one of the most "hands-on" Governors NJ had ever met.
If you had a problem with State government, you could contact her office directly, and get a very prompt answer.
(I know personally, from having had a glitch with my pension:somehow the idiots had opened 2 independent files on me after I retired, and she intervened personally on my behalf, though she didn't know me from Adam. )
The media, of course, hated her with a passion, and held her up to scorn at every possible opportunity : re-doubling their efforts to smear her when word leaked out she was being considered for national office.
She responded by becoming overly cautious and overly accomodating. When the very capable, and well-respected Superintendant of State Police was unwise enough to say the majority of drug runners on the NJ Turnpike were "minorities", she fired him on the spot, and hired a Black FBI executive as Superintendant.
This placated the Black Ministers' Council, and, for a little while, it looked as if Christie would become George Bush's running mate...BUT, the unhappy former Superintendant dug into the photo files, and came up with a promotional photo of The Governor pretending to frisk a Black suspect. He released it to the media, and that ended that.
By then, most of her former supporters ( including me ) had abandoned her in disgust for her treatment of the former Superintendant, and her political life in NJ was, for all practical purposes, ended. The EPA post was a payback for her support of President Bush; but of course the environmental people have been out to get her scalp since day one.
Interestingly enough, she is a fairly committed environmentalist, and always has been. She has never been extreme enough for the Enviro-Nazis, but did have a good, solid record of actual achievement; and often persuaded Industry it was in its own interest to take better care of its back yard.
She was very instrumental in the defeat of McCain by Bush during the primaries in New Jersey.
foreverfree
I too was a Whitman supporter...but I really had enough of her after the DMV Inspection debacle.
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