Chris Christie quietly implodes: Why his big “accomplishments” have fallen to pieces

[DonViejo]

Chris Christie quietly implodes: Why his big “accomplishments” have fallen to pieces

Distracted by Bridgegate, the national press has missed the unraveling of the entire Chris Christie myth

ELIAS ISQUITH

The federal investigations into Bridgegate and the alleged shakedown of Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer haven’t yet been released to the public, but Chris Christie’s own self-exonerating Potemkin inquiry has. So it would be understandable if one concluded the governor had made it through the worst challenge of his political career more or less unscathed. Christie certainly appears to believe this, having recently proclaimed that, if he runs for president in 2016, Bridgegate will by that point be seen as “footnote.” Indeed, he very much sounds like a man who still plans on running for president.

But here’s the funny thing: After a series of post-Bridgegate failures, embarrassments and potential scandals (yes, there are more), Christie’s chances at winning the White House are worse than ever. Not only is he now associated with suspicions of petty corruption but, perhaps more importantly, his greatest accomplishments besides getting elected as a Republican, twice, in New Jersey — improving the state’s finances and reforming its public workers’ pension — are falling to pieces. Surveying the damage, Tom Moran, leader of the Star-Ledger’s editorial board (which endorsed Christie’s reelection in 2013), put it rather simply, saying Christie’s presidential hopes had been “finally snuffed out, once and for all.”

Here’s a quick recap of the many bits of bad news for Christie that Moran believes constitute, in sum, a decisive blow: In part because the New Jersey economy has performed so poorly during Christie’s tenure (it’s ranked 48th in the country in private-sector job creation, tied with the economic powerhouse known as Mississippi), the state’s finances, which Christie used to brag about fixing, are in utter disarray. Its debt, for example, has been downgraded by Wall Street rating agencies six times under his leadership — three times in 2014 alone. Christie now faces a budget gap for this and the coming fiscal year that is nearly $3 billion; and because the state constitution mandates that the government balance the budget by June 30, Christie has now been forced to find the money by reneging on a key part of his landmark pension reform agreement, taking funds that were supposed to go toward public workers’ pensions and using them to fill the budget gaps instead.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/05/31/chris_christie_quietly_implodes_why_his_big_accomplishments_have_fallen_to_pieces/

[CTyankee]

1. The bigger they come, the harder they fall....

I am so glad to see that POS fall hard...I am enjoying the fall, every delicious minute of it. I want to see that guy politically dead, wreckage, disgraced, publicly shamed, shunned, humiliated and then forgotten...

[A Simple Game]

4. The sad part is he's falling on the people of New Jersey and it's hurting them. n/t

[CTyankee]

10. ye, he sure did. that bastard...

[abakan]

5. Me too...

I have had many a good laugh as this progressed. He is one of those bullies I hate. Good to see you.

[davidpdx]

15. Yeah but someone is going to have to come in and fix the mess he left

ala George W. Bush (granted there won't be two wars on the credit card). I don't envy the person who decides to run after him.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. My God. A local corrupt mayor said the same thing.

He rallied the community into a crooked scheme that required a massive amount of law breaking. When everyone began to realize how much he infringed on constitutional rights in order to deliver what they wanted, they started backing away from him. In his exasperation, he said just what Christie said. Why were his greatest accomplishments falling apart?

[hollysmom]

3. I just blame the media again.

I was throwing things at my television when he ran stronger than the storm ads - still have not received any help in my law suit after Sandy, knew he was lying in the ads he ran claiming always balancing the budget despite never balancing the budget, just claiming it every year at the start before the debt grew every year by the end, he fudged the figures and everyone knew it, etc.

I still never heard a single ad for Buono - not one. didn't anyone else notice that?

[Hoppy]

6. That's the problem....

There are decisions to be made and the correct decisions will benefit the people of N.J. but hurt his chances in '16.

I am really pissed at Tom Moran of the Star-Ledger. He endorsed the Hamburgler, even while recognizing tubby is a piece of shit.

[DallasNE]

7. How Many Jobs Would That Tunnel Project He Canceled Have Created

Along with the businesses that would have cropped up along the route. It was mostly financed by federal dollars so it never did make sense on a financial basis to cancel it. Breaking contracts probably cost a pretty penny as well. Why that wasn't a central part of his re-election campaign has always baffled me.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. ^^ THIS ^^

I have maintained that his bravado (found to be full of exaggerations, distortions, and outright lies) when abruptly canceling what was sorely needed in N. Jersey with the traffic nightmares (and now a rebuild of the Tappan Zee Bridge), was essentially glossed over, with the RW-owned M$M applauding his thumbing his nose at a federal infrastructure project designed to replace century-old rails. And people wonder why we can't seem to do "high-speed rail" on the busiest corridor of the east coast...

[George II]

8. Stealing from pension funds to balance the budget, but he just gave his immediate staff....

...an increase that totals $330,000, more than 20%!!!!

[SunSeeker]

14. He's giving the combat pay, LOL. nt

[Wounded Bear]

11. Not sure I believe it....

After all, being a shitty, corrupt governor is a badge of honor for Repubs.

[nikto]

12. When your entire career...

Consists of lying to the public, while giving away everything of value to insiders,
failure can be the only result.


Christie and his opportunistic ilk are always fated to fail.

[blkmusclmachine]

13. Send a donut to Cristie.

[Ikonoklast]

16. And both the federal and state investigations are still going forward.

The federal investigation over stealing Sandy money will kill his hopes, Christie will be in court for years to come.