More of this, please:
NJEA President Barbara Keshishian visited his office this week to apologize for a recent email sent to thousands of teachers by a union official that included a mock prayer for the governor’s death. According to [NJ Governor Chris] Christie, the conversation went something like this: He accepted her apology immediately but asked if the email sender would be fired for “doing something that monumentally stupid.” When the union chief questioned why the man should be fired, Mr. Christie promptly ended the meeting.
That’s from the WSJ’s interview with Christie, which will be refreshing reading for conservatives who may be just a little tired of situations where political rhetoric exceeds actions. In this particular case, the issue of the apology is just a vehicle for the real message: to wit, the Governor of NJ is not afraid of the teachers’ unions, so if the latter wants to win their current dispute with the former they’re going to have to fight for once. Given that support for freezing teacher pay in NJ is two-to-one in Christie’s favor, the governor is in good shape here.
Allahpundit is calling Christie “New Jersey’s Reagan;” which is true enough, except that Reagan’s optimism was from a somewhat sunnier time. Christie’s seems to be more more like that of a man who knows that he’s right, and that he’s got nothing to lose:
Still, allowing himself a bit of optimism, he envisions the impact if he succeeds. “What I hope it will do in the end is first and foremost fix New Jersey, and end this myth that you can’t take these people on,” he says. “I just hope it shows people who have similar ideas to mine that they can do it. You just have to stand up and grit your teeth and know your poll numbers are going to go down—and mine have—but you gotta grit it out because the alternative is unacceptable.” He also strongly believes that voters elected him specifically to fight this fight. “They’re fed up. They’ve had enough. In normal circumstances I wouldn’t win,” he says.
True. Then again, ‘normal circumstances’ in NJ for the last decade have been ‘let the Democrats raise taxes and run the place into the ground.’ Electing Christie was a Hail Mary move by the electorate; while his success may embolden conservatives nationally, it’s also really, really important on the local level, too. Which is something that I think that a lot of people online don’t really generally consider, sometimes.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to Moe Lane.
Steve Maley
KnightsofMalta
A governor with guts
frankieb (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 10:15AM EST (link)I just wish we had more of them. We can’t keep spending and raising taxes and spending and …
Books … the most exotic, least expensive vacation: www.DelphiBooks.us
www.DaughterOfTheGreatDepression.blogspot.com
Claire McCaskill goes in so many directions, it’s amazing she hasn’t drawn and quartered herself. www.TruthAboutClaire.com
Moe- There is something else important that Christie is doing
Scope (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 10:32AM EST (link)he is breaking up the long term corruption, bribery and pay-offs brought on by the likes of Corzine. Some very very leftist in-laws, living off their very very juicy NJ state government pensions, were totally worn out with the corrupt politicians running the state.
Pray hard for Gov Christie every day. There was as much a mafia style thugocracy in NJ as there is in Chacago, and they are royally PO’d at Christie.
Scope is RIGHT, Pray for Cristie because those union thugs...
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 10:49AM EST (link)would love nothing more then for something bad to happen to him. The unions are not worthy of power they have and someone needed to STOMP them hard and Cristie is showing the rest of America how it can be and SHOULD be done!
Unified Patriots – How-To:
Activists Taking Action
Jaded- Maybe after he cleans up NJ
Scope (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 11:17AM EST (link)we could borrow him for a few years in Washington cleaning up that swamp.
Is Christie THE best conservative in America today? I think so.-nt
Mike gamecock DeVine (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 2:59PM EST (link)Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
GC- The best part is
Scope (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 3:32PM EST (link)Christie is proving that his male parts are intact and working well.
thats what she said - nt
Mike gamecock DeVine (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 8:01PM EST (link)Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
Clone Christie.
johnt Saturday, April 17th at 10:36AM EST (link)Start a gene bank, free injections for Lindsey Graham, Senators Snowe & Collins & anybody apart from Palin on McCain’s campaign. We have thousands of candidates available for immediate treatment.
Amazing, you mean Christie didn’t apologize to the union gangster for breathing, he treated the slime like she deserved to be treated !!
Amazing!
Boy, this is really going to rev up the liberal Hate Machine. But Christie expects that and appears ready for the only thing liberals are really good at.
“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him”. Tocqueville
johnt- The injections for Snowe Collins and Graham
Scope (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 11:20AM EST (link)won’t work. They have already had lobotomies.
We need 49 more like him.
swami7774 (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 10:41AM EST (link)Especially here in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, where our own “yes we can” guy could get re-elected this year thanks to a 3-way contest.
Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism.
Chris Christie was a diamond in the rough
Scope (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 11:24AM EST (link)Did anyone think that he would be as great as he has been? I didn’t think any Republican, running for office in NJ, had that much guts, smarts and willpower. He has been one of the most pleasant surprises for me.
As goes New Jersey....
rsjt Saturday, April 17th at 11:26AM EST (link)If he can succeed in New Jersey it can work anywhere. Could it be possible that enough rank and file union members know changes are necessary and even silently support them? And if they know that in NJ than real reform can sweep the nation. It’s time for reform minded leaders to step up. You know who you are.
PS— best sub-title ever!
rsjt, I was in contact with a guy who is a teamster
janis (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 11:41AM EST (link)who said that he had been very active on a website named “DumpHoffa.org.” He made the point very insistently that not all union people are like the SEIU, and that many, many teamsters (he’s a trucker) don’t trust the unions at all.
As for rank and file union members in other unions, they have to know that the money that is being poured into the pension funds will not benefit them unless they are retired already. We cannot continue to fund these pension and expensive healthcare plans for union members off the taxpayers dime. At some point in the very near future, those dimes are going to dry up completely.
My brother-in-law, the life-long Teamster...
RedBeard Saturday, April 17th at 10:39PM EST (link)…hated the union passionately. He referred to his membership card as his “graft card.” Felt like a prisoner, being forced to remain a “good” member in order to have a job.
Standard-bearer for grouchy curmudgeonry since, oh, 1975 or so.
the governor of Maine has no guts
dpddj Saturday, April 17th at 1:02PM EST (link)or spine for that matter to stand up to out of control spending. Oh, wait,that’s because he IS a big part of the problem. He recently touted the disasterous Dirigo health plan he instituted here as a model for Obamacare. And Dirigo is exactly that – a disaster- and so will BOCare.
OK Moe, he's yours for the next 6 years. I have just one question...
Next93 (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 1:52PM EST (link)Does he have a brother?
Obama was The One in 2008.
He’ll be a BIGGER one in 2012.
Or a sister, uncle, father, nephew, niece... nt
Tom Anderson (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 4:57PM EST (link)“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
- Edmund Burke
I'll flip you for him..No, I mean I'll flip YOU for him.
tngal (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 11:38PM EST (link)This man is a saint! Its understandable employees, in this case teachers , were promised things , but his state is now in dire straights and so is the country. Romney is going to do it, McCain, Again?? Pleeeeze.
In an earlier post, I asked for a one term president who would spend his time undoing what the O had done. Don’t implement new crap, just get rid of the garbage we got. And Christie is it. So suck it up Moe, and make the sacrifice for the good of the country . We’ll fight you for him if we have to. Tell you what, I’ll let you have Gore and Alexander and I’ll throw in Bill Frist for good measure. Even though he’s out of politics, he’s a surgeon and could come in handy later on in life.
uh. um my bad
tngal (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 11:39PM EST (link)should be Romney is not going to do it. Not like Christie is anyway!
Don't make me consume your soul, tngal.
Moe Lane (Diary) Saturday, April 17th at 11:46PM EST (link)Personally, I’m praying that he does something visible, yet ultimately trivial, that will disappoint national Republicans enough to keep him from being absconded with. LA probably lucked out that Jindal’s speech last year wasn’t a fireball…
The Kim Kardashian of blogging.
Check out my blog at http://moelane.com/.
http://moelane.com/filthy-lucre-filthy-lucre/
http://twitter.com/moelane
My (combined) wish list.
enjoy him while you can, moe
tngal (Diary) Sunday, April 18th at 12:06AM EST (link)This man is destined for greatness, and you can’t stop him. So phhhrrtttt…
My plan is fermenting. It involves, not letting him win a second time in your state as gov, throwing in a third party candidate to split the vote. Then grabbing him quickly to run on a national level while his moral is low. Brown was fun but he’s not what we need as pres he too conciliatory .Rubio is cute, and sweet but we need a b*lls against the wall candidate who has no problem making enemies. –what we need is your governor. Soooo….cough him up already.
Technically, 'my' governor is O'Malley.
Moe Lane (Diary) Sunday, April 18th at 11:09AM EST (link)At least, right now.
I moved down from NJ back in 2001, when the state was still functional if you squinted hard enough and ignored the circling vultures. Which a lot of us were doing.
It’s funny to read some of the commentary (not here: elsewhere) on this guy. There’s a contingent of folks out there still bitter about him winning the primary over Lonegan, and they’re taking it out on Christie by yelling about everything, in eye-numbing detail.
The Kim Kardashian of blogging.
Check out my blog at http://moelane.com/.
http://moelane.com/filthy-lucre-filthy-lucre/
http://twitter.com/moelane
My (combined) wish list.
An effective perspective...
mdyou (Diary) Sunday, April 18th at 10:30AM EST (link)Rush nailed this the other day. It’s time to stop worrying about the ‘outrage’ of the minority receiving these special favors, and vocalize the outrage of the majority who provide the boondoggle money.
Oops, what's this?
GardenStatePatriot Tuesday, April 20th at 9:14PM EST (link)Looks like he’s not what he;s cracked up to be.
http://taxpayerminute.com/budget.pdf