No, really: It’s over for Christie in 2016

[DonViejo]

The bridge scandal lets national media dredge up every instance of pettiness, rage and payback. There are plenty

JOAN WALSH

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow floated an intriguing counter-theory Thursday night for why Gov. Chris Christie’s top aides closed four lanes to the George Washington Bridge to strangle Fort Lee in traffic in September 2013. She had to go back to August 2013, when Christie exploded in a paroxysm of pettiness in an ongoing clash with state senate Democrats about his Supreme Court picks. In one of his trademark press tantrums, he refused to reappoint a Republican judge because she would face tough sledding in the Senate, snarling at Senate Democrats, led by Fort Lee Sen. Loretta Weinberg, as “animals.”

That was the evening of Aug. 12. The morning of Aug. 13, Bridget Anne Kelly sent the eight-word torpedo that would take out Fort Lee’s main artery to the bridge (and her career): “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Bridge official and Christie ally David Wildstein answered “Got it,” as though the concept of “traffic problems in Fort Lee” were as familiar to him as the need for more snow plows or EZPass lanes. Maddow suggested that the real trigger for the punishment was not Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich’s failure to endorse Christie’s re-election, but the Fort Lee’s state senator’s ongoing feud with Christie, which had exploded the night before. He once told reporters to “take a bat” to the 78-year-old grandmother (figuratively, of course), and the Supreme Court battle sent Christie to a new level of rage.

Maddow’s theory is fascinating, though it isn’t airtight. There’s no mention of Weinberg in the 22 pages of email released — although hundreds more remain to be examined — and it doesn’t explain why Kelly, Wildstein and Christie campaign manager Bill Stepian were so focused on insults to Sokolich, slurred as “the little Serbian” and “an idiot” in their correspondence. Still, it ought to send reporters down a new trail, if they weren’t there already.

Watching it in real time Thursday night, I was struck by the story behind Maddow’s story: the ugly tale of Christie’s state Supreme Court bullying, which began when he refused to re-appoint the court’s only African American judge, John Wallace Jr., the first time any governor had used that power in the 63 years since it was established. It made clear to me the radioactive toxicity of the bridge scandal for Christie, even if no evidence emerges to tie him directly to the Fort Lee revenge plot: it forces local and national reporters to revisit every instance of Christie’s pettiness, wrath and payback. And there are many.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/01/10/no_really_it%E2%80%99s_over_for_christie_in_2016/

[monmouth3]

1. I'm glad Rachel's piece last night is getting legs. This really needs to go viral.n/t

[VanillaRhapsody]

2. I think the insults to the mayor are a pattern...

they probably have insulting things they call any number of people they perceive as the "enemy". It's just how their minds work. Those who don't support them are considered vermin...this is how bullies and the little minions they always have around them communicate. Christie calling the Dems in NJ "animals" was nothing more than Freudian projection.

Probably the "little Serb" remark was just the one for him....I bet there are many more insults just like it.

[Dawson Leery]

3. k/r

[Proud Public Servant]

4. Maybe. But remember:

1) The GOP candidate will be chosen by the GOP, not the rest of us.

2) No matter how insurgent their far-right wing, the post-Regan GOP has always choosen the establishment candidate (Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney).

3) In the current batshit-crazy GOP, there aren't a lot of credible establishment figures left. Jeb, maybe. Maybe a dark horse like Rob Portman emerges, or maybe the establishment rallies arround Paul Ryan. But I wouldn't count him out just yet; he's their boy.

[Thinkingabout]

5. Christie's presidential run will have more problems with the radical RW and TP bunch

Than will emerge with the bridge deal. Look at Jon Huntsman, had the smarts to be president but because he was ambassador to China under Obama it disqualified him from being president. Christie welcomed Obama after Sandy, disqualifies him.

[Cha]

6. Thanks for Walsh, DV.. she does not like

Christy. Neither do I.