A few things to remember about Chris Christie [View all]

[WilliamPitt]

...from the peerless Charlie Pierce:

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Nevertheless, the storm has been a godsend to Christie. Unlike public school teachers and veterans, the storm was an enemy that actually was worth bullying. He got great credit for "working with" the president, as if he had any choice. What was his alternative? Leave a couple of million constituents foundering in the surf? He got a ridiculous amount of credit for summoning up the grace to thank the president for helping his state climb out from under the wreckage. (And, yes, it is a measure of how far dow the rabbit hole the national Republican party has fallen that, a) Christie gets credit for doing something that has been obvious to every politician since Pericles, and b) that he took heat within his own party for it.) Now, though, with everyone in the Beltway pretending that a new era of bipartisanship has descended upon the place, and that a new governing coalition has sprung up literally overnight, you can almost see the next part coming.

There always is a serious faction of Democrats who have a sweet tooth for tough-daddy Republicans -- and, yes, I'm looking at you, Matthews, and you, O'Donnell, and you, too, Rendell -- and Christie now fits that bill admirably. You don't have to be clairvoyant to predict that people are going to confront what appears to be yet another field full of extremists contending for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, and then you will have Chris Christie, who "took on his own party" over storm relief, and who "worked with a Democratic president" in the aftermath of a horrendous natural calamity. Plus, he is "honest." He "says what's on his mind." And he likes Springsteen! I can write Mike Allen's piece in Politico for him right now.

The fact is that he's still the same guy he always was. Somebody who would pull the wings off flies if he thought it meant 15 minutes on CNN. Someone who almost never picks on anyone his own size. Someone who kicks down, always. Someone who was OK with federal storm relief, but ostentatiously refused federal money for another tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York. He's still the same megalomaniac who stunned the party in Tampa by giving a keynote address at the Republican National Convention in which he barely mentioned the nominee. He's the guy who put the bully in the bully pulpit. And he has not changed, any more than Washington has. Be advised. The aurora's rising behind him.

The rest: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Chris_Christie_Is_The_Same_Chris_Christie