The Official Chris Christie Appreciation Thread

[Straw Man]

Is he for or against Cap and Trade?

I can't tell

but he seems to like have the funds generated by RGGI to fill gaps in his budget

Gov. Chris Christie to use cap-and-trade funds to balance state budget

Gov. Chris Christie has said he is taking $65 million from the state’s model cap-and-trade program to balance the state’s $29.3 billion budget, but he is getting pushback from Democrats in the state Legislature.

The money comes from quarterly carbon permit auctions held by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an alliance of 10 Eastern states from Maine to Maryland. The governor said he also is planning on taking all of the proceeds from the next three quarterly auctions in 2010.

"Next year, we plan on getting back to RGGI," Christie said in a meeting at The Star-Ledger.

Bob Smith, chairman of the Legislature’s environment and energy committee, and a member of the appropriations committee, has vowed to fight the governor over the RGGI funds and the Clean Energy Fund, which the governor appropriated last month.

"The question that will come back to me and the other policymakers will be how can we justify raiding this fund when there are much better alternatives. We should continue for at least another year with higher income taxes on our wealthier residents," said Smith, who is a vocal advocate for economic stimulus through green jobs.

The RGGI funds, like the $158 million in the Clean Energy Fund, were earmarked for use in a variety of energy efficiency and renewable-energy programs. In 2009, New Jersey’s RGGI proceeds were $67 million; of that, $22 million has been spent or committed for consumer-oriented programs.

In the absence of federal regulation governing greenhouse gas emissions, and the anticipation that rules are likely to be developed, many utilities and corporations around the country have adopted voluntary carbon credit schemes.

RGGI is the first mandatory regulatory program that requires power plant operators to buy permits for the carbon dioxide they emit. Groups of states in the Midwest and West are using RGGI as a model for developing similar auction systems, according to the Climate Registry, a nonprofit trade group.
RGGI has raised $582 million since it was launched in 2008. Most of the RGGI states have invested the majority of their auction proceeds into energy efficiency programs, except for New York.

"We had a blip, and $90 million sitting in a bank account was borrowed by the state for the budget last year," Alexander Grannis, commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said at a climate conference in New York City on Monday.

[Soul Crusher]

He has been taking a lot of flak for that in NJ, rightfully so.  It was in place beforehand and christie needs all the money he can get.

[Straw Man]

He has been taking a lot of flak for that in NJ, rightfully so.  It was in place beforehand and christie needs all the money he can get.

so you're in favor of cap and trade for the purpose of raising money?

[Soul Crusher]

Hell no!  Just that the state legislature would never go along with the real cuts he wants. 

I have made my feelings on cap and trade well known.

[Straw Man]

Hell no!  Just that the state legislature would never go along with the real cuts he wants.  

I have made my feelings on cap and trade well known.

it sounds like Christies only problem wtih RGGI is that Pennsylvania isn't in it

[240 is Back]

What foreign policy experience did bama have? 

I thought he had spent 4 years on the foreign relations committee, meeting world leaders, being briefed on world affairs, touring dozens of countries, and making major decisions based upon highly classified information.

I mean... there were people on thse 2008 ballots with a bit less foreign experience, and you said she was ready to stare down Putin...

[225for70]

I think that Christie is very serious about budget cuts etc...However, the cutting of the Rail project was very bad decision..Especially, in the long run...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/27/914086/-A-monumental-failure-of-leadership

[Skip8282]

I entered "Chris Christ" into the search engine, and i found this pic..

He's a portly fellow! 


Not sure what it is about fudge, but it's unappetizing.  That pic is just like, eh.

[Dos Equis]

I think he might be a good contender, but we really need a lot more info on where he stands on issues.  You know if he has any foreign policy experience?

lol 

[Skip8282]

Here is some interesting things on Christie - but I don't know how reliable the site is:

http://www.ontheissues.org/Chris_Christie.htm

[Dos Equis]

I thought he had spent 4 years on the foreign relations committee, meeting world leaders, being briefed on world affairs, touring dozens of countries, and making major decisions based upon highly classified information.

 

[Dos Equis]

Here is some interesting things on Christie - but I don't know how reliable the site is:

http://www.ontheissues.org/Chris_Christie.htm

That's a good website.

[Straw Man]

That's a good website.

what's so good about this site

I don't see any info on many subjects, such as drugs or immigration, in spite of the fact that there is plenty of information about his views on these two topics (and I just picked those two as an example)

[Soul Crusher]

How Chris Christie Did His Homework
New York Times ^ | February 24, 2011 | MATT BAI

________________________ ________________________ _________



Like a stand-up comedian working out-of-the-way clubs, Chris Christie travels the townships and boroughs of New Jersey­, places like Hackettstown and Raritan and Scotch Plains, sharpening his riffs about the state’s public employees, whom he largely blames for plunging New Jersey into a fiscal death spiral. In one well-worn routine, for instance, the governor reminds his audiences that, until he passed a recent law that changed the system, most teachers in the state didn’t pay a dime for their health care coverage, the cost of which was borne by taxpayers.

And so, Christie goes on, forced to cut more than $1 billion in local aid in order to balance the budget, he asked the teachers not only to accept a pay freeze for a year but also to begin contributing 1.5 percent of their salaries toward health care. The dominant teachers’ union in the state responded by spending millions of dollars in television and radio ads to attack him.

...

While Christie has flatly ruled out a presidential run in 2012, there is enough conjecture about the possibility that I felt moved to ask him a few weeks ago if he found it exhausting to have to constantly answer the same question. “Listen, if you’re going to say you’re exhausted by that, you’re really taking yourself too seriously,” Christie told me, then broke into his imitation of a politician who is taking himself too seriously. “ ‘Oh, Matt, please, stop asking me about whether I should be president of the United States! The leader of the free world! Please stop! I’m exhausted by the question!’ I mean, come on. If I get to that point, just slap me around, because that’s really presumptuous. What it is to me is astonishing, not exhausting.”


(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Christie: Expect states across the nation to follow Wisconsin on public-sector costs

February 23, 2011 by Ed Morrissey



 Why? Not because it’s some sort of national Republican conspiracy, Chris Christie explained on the Today show this morning. Christie points out that newly-elected Democratic governors like Jerry Brown in California and Andrew Cuomo in New York are having to face the reality of enormous budget shortfalls created by ridiculous pension obligations and spineless politicians who couldn’t say no to unions when it counted.  Christie misses an opportunity to explain why confronting public-sector costs has become mainly (but not exclusively) a GOP effort, however.  The reason why Republicans have been more aggressive in dealing with the problem is because more Republicans got elected to lead the states in 2010, both as executives and in control of legislatures, by voters who finally realize that their states are teetering on the abyss of bankruptcy and failure:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The NBC interviewer tries to pass off the pension bomb as a problem created by Wall Street and the economic collapse, but Christie deflates that argument rather quickly.  When state pensions start paying six figures to former workers, in many cases in systems completely financed by taxpayers rather than the workers themselves, the problem didn’t just start in 2008.

In one state where voters failed to put Republicans in charge, Democratic plans to pass off the problem to the federal government literally had House GOP leadership laughing (via Newsalert):

The No. 4 House Republican in Congress Tuesday shot down Gov. Quinn’s trial balloon of possibly seeking federal help to ease the state’s crushing $86 billion pension shortfall.

Quinn floated the idea in the fine print of his 2012 budget proposal last week, but U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) began laughing Tuesday when asked about the chances of a federal pension bailout for Illinois and other states with retirement systems that are financially underwater.

“There is no appetite in the House for a federal guarantee for a state pension obligation. None. It’s a non-starter,” said Roskam, the U.S. House’s chief deputy whip and highest-ranking Republican in Illinois’ congressional delegation.

“Given the types of choices Congress is under right now and the budget-cutting pressure that moved $100 billion in cuts, there’s no way this House will take on any more obligations, particularly bailing states out of decisions they’ve made,” the Wheaton Republican told the Sun-Times.

That’s one reason why voters entrusted a record number of state-legislature seats to the GOP in 2010.  Republicans campaigned on the necessity of confronting these hard economic choices, while Democrats like Pat Quinn want nothing but more federal bailouts to avoid the responsibility of fiscal prioritization.

By the way, be sure to watch the Christie interview to its conclusion.  After the obligatory discussion of presidential aspirations, in which Christie shoots down the rumor that he was forming a federal PAC to test the waters, the interviewer tries to get Christie to disclose how much weight he’s lost in his efforts to trim down.  He refuses to give specifics, but says he’s a lot like … New Jersey.  Stick around through the 4:30 mark to find out how.


http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/23/christie-expect-states-across-the-nation-to-follow-wisconsin-on-public-sector-costs

[Soul Crusher]

news local Christie: I Could Win the W.H.
'You’re barking up the wrong tree. I already know I could win.' That's not the issue," Christie says
By MAGGIE HABERMAN
Updated 7:15 AM EST, Wed, Mar 2, 2011 | Print



 Chris Christie said he knows he could win the White House if he ran for president next year.

The New Jersey governor and GOP rock star made the comments in an interview with the National Review last week while he was in Washington D.C., which was published Tuesday night.

"I have people calling me and saying to me, 'Let me explain to you how you could win.' And I’m like, 'You’re barking up the wrong tree. I already know I could win.' That's not the issue."

It's the furthest out there Christie has gone about his thinking about the 2012 race, which many conservative pundits have been pleading with him to join, citing the weakness of the field. In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, he acknowledged he sees the opportunity, but didn't say that he also clearly sees a road to the White House over a field of more than a dozen potential GOP rivals.


He added, "The issue is not me sitting here and saying, 'Geez, it might be too hard. I don’t think I can win.' I see the opportunity both at the primary level and at the general election level. I see the opportunity. But I’ve got to believe I’m ready to be president, and I don’t. And I think that that’s the basis you have to make that decision."

“I think when you have people who make the decision just based upon seeing the opportunity you have a much greater likelihood that you’re going to have a president who is not ready. And then we all suffer from that. Even if you’re a conservative, if your conservative president is not ready, you’re not going to be good anyway because you’re going to get rolled all over the place in that town.”

Christie also said that he sees "how much better I get at this job every day," adding he doesn't think he'd be a good candidate if he doesn't feel it from the heart.

"Like I said before, I am who I am and people have to trust, they don’t have to but they should trust, my instincts on this," he said. "I know me better than anyone else knows me. If I felt like I was ready, I’d go, but I’m not. But I’m also not going to go if I don’t think I’m ready.

As for being governor, "there has never been a day where I’ve felt like I’m over my head, I don’t know what to do, I’m lost," he said. "I don’t know whether I’d feel the same way if I walked into the Oval Office a year and a half from now. So, unless you get yourself to the point where you really believe you have a shot to be successful, then I don’t think you have any business running for it."

The National Review's Rich Lowry posted the full text of Christie's 2012 comments online on Tuesday night.

[Dos Equis]

“I think when you have people who make the decision just based upon seeing the opportunity you have a much greater likelihood that you’re going to have a president who is not ready. And then we all suffer from that.

 

[Soul Crusher]

[Dos Equis]

He said he's not ready, but he might get drafted.  Kinda of funny that "none of these" finished fourth.

Newsmax/IBOPE Zogby Poll: Christie Leads GOP Pack
Tuesday, 29 Mar 2011 07:47 PM
By David A. Patten

An exclusive Newsmax/IBOPE Zogby International poll shows New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie so dominates the GOP field for 2012 that he garners more than twice as many votes as his nearest Republican competitor.

The new poll reflects growing momentum for Christie, despite his repeated insistence that he’s not ready to be president and has no intention of running.

Christie’s strong showing is likely to further encourage those Republicans who are actively engaged in mustering support for a campaign to draft him to run. Supporters launched a DraftChristie2012 website last October.

The Newsmax/IBOPE Zogby survey shows Christie to be the choice of 23.6 percent of likely GOP primary voters. That dwarfs the 10.3 percent for second-place finisher Sarah Palin.

“Conservative voters like Chris Christie,” pollster John Zogby tells Newsmax, “because he offers an actual governing model that’s consistent with his and their philosophy.

“Essentially, he has been fearless in terms of tackling unions, tackling budget cuts, and so on,” Zogby says. “But they also know that he’s an affable personality, that he does not come off as this angry radical, but as a credible fellow.

“And at the same time,” says Zogby, “he’s portly, he’s real, he’s not out of central casting. And in many ways, for Republicans, he’s the un-Obama.”

Zogby says the results are consistent with other polls that show Christie dominating the field when he’s among the choices pollsters offer voters.

A Gallup poll released earlier this week, which did not include Christie as an option, showed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee leading the GOP pack.

Others rounding out the field in the survey:
Newt Gingrich — 7.9 percent
Mitt Romney — 7 percent
Ron Paul — 7 percent
Michele Bachmann — 6.9 percent
Mike Huckabee — 6.8 percent
Tim Pawlenty — 5.9 percent
Donald Trump — 5.1 percent
Mitch Daniels — 2.6 percent
Haley Barbour — 1.5 percent

One of the survey’s most interesting findings: “None of these” placed fourth with 7.8 percent. And “not sure” placed fifth with 7.6 percent.

According to Zogby, that signals the 2012 GOP race is wide open.

“This is a year for Republicans when I think being a fresh face may count for more than anything else – much the same way as it happened for Democrats three years ago,” he tells Newsmax. “It’s fluid, very fluid.”

Zogby said Christie, who shocked pundits by defeating then-incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in November 2009, is actually benefiting from not being a candidate.

“He cannot be a candidate right now,” Zogby tells Newsmax. “It’s too soon. He has unfinished work. The voters in his constituency in New Jersey would be angry and horrified. So the scenario for him would be to respond to an irresistible draft.”

Without a draft movement, Zogby says, it is difficult to see how Christie could get into the race.

The Newsmax/IBOPE Zogby international poll was conducted March 25 through March 28. Data on the GOP field was based on 1,030 online surveys of likely GOP primary voters. It has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.1 percent.

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/chris-christie-zogby-poll/2011/03/29/id/391083

[Soul Crusher]

If Christie runs - Bama should not even bother showing up.   

[Dos Equis]

Chris Christie Faces Slim Support For Hypothetical Presidential Run Back Home: Poll
Posted: 04/14/11

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is often mentioned as a presidential contender, but fewer than one in four voters in his home state would back him as a candidate, a poll released on Thursday said.

Two-thirds of registered voters "oppose Chris Christie for president in 2012," according to the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.

Fewer than half of Republicans and a quarter of independents support Christie as a candidate, the poll found.

"This does not mean a future try would be opposed, just that New Jerseyans aren't joining the national media's storyline that Christie could take the nomination in 2012 if he wanted it," said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll and professor of political science at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Christie, a former prosecutor, has been seen as a rising Republican party star since taking office last year and pushing a lean-government, low-tax agenda. But he has said he did not think he was ready to be president and did not plan to run in 2012.

New Jersey voters are unconvinced the buzz surrounding the governor's political future is good for the state, the poll found.

Nearly two-thirds of those polled said having a governor on the national stage makes no difference or hurts the state's image, while a third of voters said it was a good thing for New Jersey.

The poll of 773 registered voters was conducted from March 28 to April 4 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/14/chris-christie-poll_n_849095.html

[Dos Equis]

  Christie would definitely shake up the race. 

Zogby New Poll Stunner: Christie, Cain Lead GOP Pack
Friday, 20 May 2011
By David A. Patten and Ashley Martella

A new IBOPE Zogby poll shows Atlanta businessman Herman Cain vaulting into the No. 1 front-runner position among active candidates as the choice to win the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

Cain, a longtime Pillsbury executive who later became chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, was the preferred choice of 14 percent of the likely Republican primary voters polled.

His showing placed second only to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who got 17 percent. Christie, however, has insisted repeatedly that he will not be running for president in 2012. Ron Paul placed third with 10 percent, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who had 9 percent.

Pollster John Zogby sees unrest among Republican voters with the establishment candidates and, in this Newsmax.TV video, he discusses his latest GOP presidential poll showing the big-names trailing perceived long-shots and even someone who says he is not running.

Pollster John Zogby told Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview that the sudden rise of Cain shows the degree of restlessness among GOP faithful, given their current options.

“He’s not well known. He’s very plain speaking,” Zogby said. “But when someone enters the forum, as he did during that debate, and rises to the top, it’s kind of like Donald Trump, it’s kind of like Chris Christie: “We don’t like the field, this is a guy that we can believe in.’”

Cain was considered the winner of the recent Fox News debate held in South Carolina. His memorable applause line came when a panelist pointed out that he lacked experience holding public office. Cain pointed out that almost everyone elected to national office in Washington, D.C., had prior public service experience.

“How’s that working out for you?” he asked rhetorically.

Asked if he was surprised by Romney’s fourth place showing in the poll, Zogby said there are indications Romney may have “a troubled candidacy.”

“If you look at New Hampshire for example, which Romney did not win in 2008, which is his next door state, he lost that to [Arizona GOP Sen.] John McCain,” Zogby told Newsmax.

Romney’s biggest problem, said the pollster, was his support for a healthcare reform scheme in Massachusetts with significant similarities to the ObamaCare health plan.

Zogby’s other points in the exclusive Newsmax.TV interview:

    * Ron Paul, he said, is “a 10 percenter,” solid and “very intense” support, that is limited. While it’s hard to see him winning the nomination, Zogby said, his supporters are very passionate about his candidacy.

    * By confronting the unions in New Jersey, Christie is giving Republicans “to some degree is an alternative governing model, not just an alternative governing model.”

    * He sees a scenario where Christie could still be convinced to enter the race. In this instance, this could be a case where no candidate seems to be breaking from the pack by the fall of this year, by 2011, and party establishment comes to visit Chris Christie and says, ‘You’re the guy who leads the polls, you’re the only guy who has a chance to beat Barack Obama.”

    * Although Republicans often follow a “gold-watch” pattern of awarding the nomination to the most established Republican leader, he believes that trend may not hold this cycle. That could work against Romney, he said.

    * One interesting finding in the IBOPE Zogby Poll: Although only 9 percent of the 1,377 GOP primary voters favored Romney, by a wide margin he is considered the candidate most likely to get the nomination. Thirty-one percent think Romney will be the nominee. The next closest contender: former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, at 8 percent.

The poll was conducted before former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and businessman Donald Trump, opted out of the race for the GOP nomination. It also occurred before former House Speaker Newt Gingrich described GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s entitlement reform proposal as “right-wing social engineering.”

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/HermanCain-JohnZogby-ZogbyPoll/2011/05/20/id/397184

[Soul Crusher]

He's not running. Heard him on local news again.

[Dos Equis]

He's not running. Heard him on local news again.

Yeah.  Too bad he's not quite ready. 

But you never know.  If the party is floundering at the end of the year, he might get pushed into running. 

[Dos Equis]

Iowa Republicans Urge Christie to Run in 2012
Friday, 27 May 2011 07:02 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - As Republicans seek the best candidate to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012, some Iowa Republican donors are wooing a reluctant Chris Christie, saying the New Jersey governor's blunt style makes him the man for the job.

Next Tuesday, about half a dozen businessmen from Iowa -- which holds the first nominating contest in the U.S. presidential race -- will make the case to Christie over dinner at the governor's mansion for his entering the contest.

"Christie appeals to a broad section of America who are really tired of elected officials not telling them the truth, not telling them in a blunt and direct way what's going on," said Iowa entrepreneur Bruce Rastetter, who will take part in the dinner.

Rastetter said he likes Christie's "blunt, direct, no-nonsense approach" and said he will urge the governor to "come to Iowa, spend some time, and see if Iowans don't embrace his style of leadership like we believe they would."

Rastetter and the others taking part in the dinner are important financial backers of Republican candidates in Iowa.

Christie has been a rising star in the Republican Party since taking office last year with a low-tax, lean-government agenda, and erasing a record $11 billion budget deficit while limiting annual increases in the state's high property taxes.

YouTube videos of his blunt, folksy, straight-talking interactions with voters in which he is often self-deprecating have helped spread his appeal beyond his own state.

But Christie has said repeatedly that he is not running.

"I'm not ready to be president," Christie said last week.

'REPUBLICAN ROCK STAR'

"He's a Republican rock star around the nation because he is articulate, tough on unions and talks about issues most Republicans agree on," Ben Dworkin, director of Rider University's Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, said of Christie.

Local setbacks could impact his national standing. Polls show his popularity waning in New Jersey, ratings agencies have downgraded the state's credit rating, and the state's highest court just ordered Christie to spend more money on education.

"The blustering that comes across really well in the national media ... isn't playing as well here anymore," said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

"We're seeing more and more in our polling people using words like 'bully"' to describe Christie, said Redlawsk, whose poll last month found fewer than one in four New Jersey voters would back Christie as a presidential candidate.

His national profile has grown after a fight with teachers unions that he called enemies of change and his canceling a costly rail tunnel project despite the federal government's promised contribution.

The Christie speculation underscores the dissatisfaction among some Republicans with the nascent field of 2012 hopefuls including Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Herman Cain.

Texas Governor Rick Perry said Friday he will consider running for the Republican nomination.

Michele Bachmann, a U.S. congresswoman from Minnesota, and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin also are eyeing the race.

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Iowa-ChrisChristie-2012RepublicanElection/2011/05/27/id/398098