The Goat Pen

Only three people died as the result of Christiegate? Four people died because of Hillary's Benghazi. You'll have to do 25% better than that.

Did Christie know about it and lie? We don't know for sure yet. But assuming for the sake of argument that he did, Hillary and her minions lied their tails off about Benghazi for weeks. Including under oath to Congress, which is called perjury. You're going to have to to better than that.

And above all, I use Hillary's absurd excuse for Benghazu and apply it to Christie:

<waving both arms around shouting into the microphone> THE LANES WERE CLOSED! WE DON'T KNOW WHETHER IT WAS BY CHRISTIE OR WHETHER IT WAS CAUSED BY SOME NEW JERSEYANS OUT LOOKING TO MESS WITH MOTORISTS! AT THIS POINT WHAT DOES IT MATTER?

To borrow the phrase used by journalists to tamp down Brnghazi, this is a "phony scandal."

10ac wrote:Christie lied, batteries died.

heh and exactly.

He adds: "I can understand something like cigarettes and people believe that there's too much smoking, so we put a tax on cigarettes, so people smoke less, and we say that's a good thing. OK. But are we saying we were working too much before? Is that the new argument? I mean make up your mind. We've been complaining for six years now that there's not enough work being done. . . . Even before the recession there was too little work in the economy. Now all of a sudden we wake up and say we're glad that people are working less? We're pursuing our dreams?"


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... on_LEADTop

The lane closures are apparently not being investigated by the Feds. They are looking into whether Sandy funds were misused. The lane closures are being looked at by the legislature (and they should of course). Christies initial two hour question and response was very strong but it painted him in a corner. Anything at all comes out and he's in trouble.

Politically, I don't think he'll be able to come back from this anyway (at least for President or the nomination). There were rumors about him being a bully before (especially to locally elected Republicans), this just plays into it. Nationally, Repubs will support him while he's being attacked, but not when it comes to primary voting. And even more important, his big selling point was being able to cross party lines and be the only strong threat to beating Hillary Clinton. That bipartisan support is now vanished. This may put Scott Walker into play more.

I think it depends on what the final story is. If there is solid evidence that Christie ordered the closures and/or lied about it, then that will definitely hurt his chances. But I don't think it will kill his chances. The American voter was aware of Bill Clinton's womanizing, draft dodging and lying before his first election, and he won anyway. He had sufficient charisma to overcome enough pre-election baggage that would have sunk most other candidates. Voters can be amazingly forgiving if they want to be. With Chrisie, I doubt they will want to be.

What Christie has going for him is:
1.) The media is trying to destroy him because he is the biggest threat to Hillary. This makes R conservatives like him because of the old principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." R conservatives would thoroughly dislike him if the MSM just left him alone.
2.) Christie has probably already been selected to be the nominee by the GOP Establishment. He is likely the candidate they consider most reliable to advance their corporatist agenda. That means he will have a huge fund-raising advantage and can use it to bury all other primary candidates with negative ads just like Romney did.
3.) Nobody is shocked to hear stories that he he is a bully and might have misused his power and lied about it. He's the Governor of New Jersey, for crying out loud. That's how they roll. I've always said he is a cross between Ronald Reagan and Tony Soprano. But a lot of people liked Tony Soprano. I'd be surprised if he didn't have a few people sleeping with the fishes.

Respectfully disagree. He's lost all the support among Independents already and they were the key to his popularity. Independents right now want someone who can work across party lines and that's what they thought Christi was. They didn't think he was the typical New Jersey politician, who they were tired of. Now whether it is discovered that he was directly in control or not doesn't matter. They believe he was and that hurts them.

And this isn't about the media (this is such a mantra, it works with the hardcore, but not with the independents). Even his early supporter (Guiliani) has backed off on his support.

Obama gnob-gobblers calling someone a bully....now that right there's funny!

u may not like it, but it's working.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/08/opini ... il0=y&_r=2

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/07/o ... with-snow/

2 years before the elections barack obama and bill clinton had about a 3 % name recogniton rate

hillary seems to be a given but then again we said that in 2006

people start throwing their names in when next year or this year?

crashcourse wrote:2 years before the elections barack obama and bill clinton had about a 3 % name recogniton rate

hillary seems to be a given but then again we said that in 2006

people start throwing their names in when next year or this year?

Different world. Re: Clinton, in 1990, there was no internet and Roger Aisles wasn't at Fox. Obscure Governors abounded and there were no cellphone cameras for people to catch them sneaking out of their girlfriend's apartments at 3 a.m. and instagram it around the globe. They could sneak up on the political establishment.

Now, there are bloggers and reporters at the weekly shopping news who keep track of everyone from the Fontana City School Board members to the Summers County Dog Catcher (yes, they still have dog catchers in WV). It is almost impossible for someone with national aspirations to stay unknown.

You have to get out early to get the big $$$ people to back you.

As for President Obama, 4 years before his election, he was a keynote (prime time!) speaker at the DNC, a United States Senator and a NY Times best-selling author. He was able to sneak into the spotlight because of:

a) the idea of a serious presidential campaign by a black person who didn't come from the traditional black political experience or with the imprimatur of the Jesse Jacksons and Tavis Smileys was inconceivable at the time, and

b) a poor start to Hilary's campaign. Her team was running a coronation instead of a campaign and got blindsided early. By the time they got their act together, it was too late. Had she started running seriously 60 days earlier, she'd have won the nomination with BHO as her VP. There's no way that will happen ever again. Someone said a long time ago that the Clintons will make every possible political mistake - but they will only make that mistake once.

Those who win the nominations of the 2 parties in 2016 will have been on people's radars for the past 6-8 years, even if they weren't presumptive favorites.

10ac wrote:http://freebeacon.com/the-hillary-papers/

Who gets to be President of the United States of America without being ambitious, strong and ruthless? That's in the job description.

In fact, the more I read it:

- The records paint a complex portrait of Hillary Clinton, revealing her to be a loyal friend, devoted mother, and a cutthroat strategist who relished revenge against her adversaries and complained in private that nobody in the White House was “tough and mean enough.”

- She said her husband had made a mistake by fooling around with the “narcissistic loony toon” Lewinsky, but was driven to it in part by his political adversaries, the loneliness of the presidency, and her own failures as a wife.

- Hillary Clinton’s blunt assessments were not confined to Monica Lewinsky. In a Dec. 3, 1993, diary entry, Blair recounted a conversation with the first lady about “Packwood”—a reference to then-Sen. Bob Packwood, an influential Republican on health care embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal.

“HC tired of all those whiney women, and she needs him on health care,” wrote Blair. “I told her I’d been bonding w. creeps; she said that was the story of her whole past year. Fabio incident—sweeping her up, sending her roses.”

Seems like anything but a raging feminist on the warpath.

Hillary ruthless....good.

Christie bully......bad. The capacity of the lib/left to swallow sophistry is unbounded.

Just like your capacity to swallow cock...

Toemeesleather wrote:Hillary ruthless....good.

Christie bully......bad. The capacity of the lib/left to swallow sophistry is unbounded.

Hillary ruthless, good for Democrats, bad to Republicans

Christie Bully..... Good for Republicans, bad to Democrats and Independents.

Why? Because he was presenting himself as a person that can reach across state lines. Without that, it'll just be a turnout election. This favors the Dems on a national election (unless you can kick them off the rolls)

Yea, you really need to reach out(read spy on/sic IRS on them) to others, Brock has really proved that...lmao.


Brock, congenital liar....errr, incorrect promiser, is the best thing going for repubs right now.

You must still be looking at those same national polls that Romney used when it comes to the 2016 election.

Owlman wrote:

Toemeesleather wrote:Hillary ruthless....good.

Christie bully......bad. The capacity of the lib/left to swallow sophistry is unbounded.

Hillary ruthless, good for Democrats, bad to Republicans

Christie Bully..... Good for Republicans, bad to Democrats and Independents.

Why? Because he was presenting himself as a person that can reach across state lines. Without that, it'll just be a turnout election. This favors the Dems on a national election (unless you can kick them off the rolls)

That'll work for state legislatures and the House, but the numbers are too big for the GOP to disenfranchise enough people to win the White House.

Alabama, Alaska and Arizona generated about 2 million total votes for Romney. Obama got almost 2 million votes just in the city of Los Angeles. Texas generated 4 million votes for Romney. New York City and Boston generated more than that for Obama.

The GOP gets the real estate on the map, but the population centers (where all of the diversity lay) are Democratic fortresses.

And when you look at the numbers, the GOP had a solid 60-40 edge in whites over the age of 30, but got their asses handed to them by a 2 to 1 majority in every other demographic except whites under 30, which was pretty much a draw. When you look at 2016 and beyond, factoring in the number of whites who voted for Romney simply because Obama was black, you have to figure Hilary (or whoever the Dems nominate) will chip off a couple or 3 million of them (assuming we nominate a white person).

Also, there is NO ONE on the GOP side who is saying ANYTHING that will attract blacks, Latinos or Asians (or even younger whites) away from the Democrats on a grand scale, so even if you get a slightly smaller turnout among them because there's no "pizazz" candidate like BHO, that number will assuredly be smaller than the number of whites - especially white women - who come back to the Democrats.

I could see 2016 being a Democratic Landslide (62/38), even without winning Texas.

Just can't see it being that big (unless the GOP nominates Ted Cruz). I still think it'll be an establishment Republican candidate with some tea-party credentials such as Scott Walker. I expect it to be 53 to 55 percent for Clinton. Christi, I think is out of it. He already isn't trusted by the tea-party and many Repubs are angry at him for 2 different things. One, embracing the President after Hurricane Sandy (which any Gov. should have if he puts his state first). The bigger issue is that he gives the keynote for Romney and barely mentions Romney. He was more interested in boosting his own profile than the Republican candidate for President.