Chris Christie at work...
I'm impressed with Chris Christie. Here's a guy with negative numbers in his home state, who's a blowhard bully and is as telegenic as a canker sore. Yet somehow he has the national media's rapt attention. Certainly some of that can be ascribed to his being in New Jersey, which is right next to one of America's media capitols.
But Governor O'Malley of Maryland and our new Guv, Malloy, are also near the seats of power and influence. They have balanced their budgets with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases that spread the pain around much more equitably and don't eviscerate public spending on public goods. They do it without puffing up like a blowfish and thundering for the cameras. (I'm reminded of that scene in Crimes and Misdemeanors when Woody Allen's character intercuts shots of Mussolini with Alan Alda's character pontificating about how great he is.)
There are literally dozens of governors around the country who are dealing with budget crises without vilifying public servants or stripping away collective bargaining rights. This includes potential presidential candidate Mitch Daniels and wingnut extraordinaire Rick Scott. Even the reliably nutty like Perry of the Republic of Texas have opted away from what Christie, Kasich and Walker are doing. (They sound like the law firm of the damned.) Oh, yeah, here it is.
Every governor in the country is facing a budget crisis. The economy is weak and revenues are down. Every governor is coping with this. But Walker and Christie have resorted to blaming people who have almost literally nothing to do with the economic meltdown.
Much has been made - and rightly so - about the fact that of all the Sunday talk shows, only one has a labor leader on it, and that was after a lot of pressure. The punditry has largely assumed that Walker and Christie's "brave" stand against public service unions makes them popular or at least principled. The numbers don't support that, but what would David Gregory know about what unions mean?
Walker has already been exposed as a guy who is primarily concerned about union busting and only marginally - if at all - concerned about fiscal orthodoxy. Yet Christie continues to get glowing press coverage.
Christie won, because the incumbent governor of New Jersey was tied tightly to Wall Street and was not very popular. He doesn't have a mandate to do anything. But he runs around like a wee Mussolini, strutting and sticking his jaw out and treating his political opponents like shit. And for this he is lionized?
I honestly don't know what to make of our public discourse anymore...
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