By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
President Obama called for “collective action” (shiver) to transform the country during today’s inaugural address.
But some things never change. Like Bill Clinton and his roving eyes… particularly when Kelly Clarkson is on the podium.
Cross Posted at Dan Cirucci’s Blogspot
Okay.
Let’s get this out of the way.
People are asking us to opine on the Christie/Obama bear hug so we’re just gonna have to go down this road.
To begin: Just as Chris Christie was the first governor to come out and support Romney and just as Chris Christie worked damned hard for Romney, this blog was among the first to support Chris Christie for governor nearly four years ago and we’ve spent countless hours helping to advance Christie and his agenda and his cause.
And we make no apologies for it. We’re damned proud of it.
We love Chris Christie.
But loving Christie is not like loving any other politician. He’s real, he’s three-dimensional, he’s smart and he can be unpredictable, if not exasperating. Though his quips and answers are often entertaining and may sometimes seem simple, they’re not. They reflect the mind of a man who is relentlessly pragmatic and admirably goal-oriented. This is a man who does not follow — in fact, who defies — any rigid idealogical path. He cannot be pegged or contained or compartmentalized.
So, when Christie saw Superstorm Sandy coming, he had one thought in mind: Get out ahead of it; get ready and use every means at our disposal to help the people of New Jersey — to warn them, to fortify them, to serve them and to protect them.
Having been involved in public relations for more than four decades, we can tell you that by the rules of crisis communication that we teach, Christie instinctively did what he was supposed to do. He became not only the chief spokesperson in this crisis but the unquestioned leader of the response to it.
And he has worked damned hard, without a break for two weeks now often putting in 14 and 20 hour days. Some nights he got little more than five hours sleep.
This sort of thing is all consuming.
And you can quickly lose perspective.
Cross-Posted from Dan Cirucci’s Blogspot
So, you wanna know the “why” of it all, huh?
Why or why did this happen?
For what it’s worth, here are my top six reasons:
1) Needless GOP bloodshed. The long Republican primary battle was unecessarily contentious and no one epitomized the irrationality of this more than Rick Santorum who continued to take shots at Mitt Romney well past closing time. And Newt Gingrich wasn’t much better. All of this simply set the stage for . . .
2) Obama’s early negative blitz. The Obama team wisely decided to define Romney before he had a chance to define himself. So, they gambled and took a huge chunk of dough early on and invested it in a relentlessly negative ad campaign painting a picture of Romney as a selfish, disconnected corporate titan who cared only about the rich: self-centered, mean, uncaring and greedy. People say they hate negative ads, but people remember negative ads. Since Romney held back and didn’t immediately answer the ads and forcefully counterpunch, this pre-emptive Obama effort worked.
Nate Silver and Save Jersey can’t both be right, folks.
Everyone’s pretty sure Dick Morris is wrong. Not because I don’t like his outcome! I’m just a realist, and this country has changed a lot since 1980 (we’re much more diverse, and there’s a lot more people living subsisting on the public dime); Barack Obama is also a significantly stronger incumbent than Jimmy Carter.
I’ve nevertheless predicting a Romney victory for reasons explained here.
We’ll know the answer soon enough. About 36 hours from now? Or sooner if Dick Morris is indeed correct…
What do YOU think? Let’s hear it… and if you’re feeling lucky, give the best argument for your electoral theory in the comments section below…
Save Jersey's Final Electoral Projection (No Leaners): Romney 320, Obama 218
One day to go, Save Jerseyans.
Building off of our final 11/2/12 projection (without toss ups included), I’ve decided to take a shot in the dark and eliminate leaners/toss ups from our final Save Jersey electoral projection. This is my political nerd version of living dangerously…
The same basic methodological rules apply as before. Of particular note, I’m still refusing to put any stock in absurd polls with turnout models that will never be realized. Case in point? Last night’s CNN poll (akin to a recent Q poll in VA) wherein Mitt Romney manages to (1) win Independents by 22-points but (2) still finds himself tied with the President, 49-49, owing to a… D+11 turnout model? When Dems managed just D+7 in ’08?
Yeah, right!
Thirteen states, one post, 320 electoral votes projected for Mitt Romney…
Nevada
Projected Winner: Obama
Think Arizona, but significantly more Hispanic and with a strong union-backed machine based in and around Las Vegas. All hope still isn’t lost. Obama’s leads are persistent but close and yes, a bit skewed. Lots of NRA members outside of Clark County. There’s also not-so-bad data in certain bellwethers like Washoe County. I’m primarily throwing this one to O because Romney is on the air more than he’s on the ground. He seems to think it’s not his best shot of the Obama so-called “firewall” states. So why should I?
North Carolina
Projected Winner: Romney
Obama is far less attentive to North Carolina than Mitt’s been to Nevada. The President hasn’t been there in some time… a North Carolina convention helped him not at all, and the gay marriage amendment provided a stark demonstration of GOP strength in the wake of 2010. He effectively abandoned the state after initial early voting totals showed OFA upside down versus 2008. Now it’s Romney in a walk.
One of the most advertised and yet under-analyzed themes of this presidential campaign is President Obama’s slogan “Forward”.
It’s been said that Karl Marx used a similar phrase to generate support for his worker’s movement in the 1800’s that resulted in the formation of the Communist Party. Whether Obama and his campaign managers sought to mirror Marx, consciously or unconsciously, is unknown.
However, what we do know is that President Obama is urging voters to support his re-election because “we’ve come too far to turn back now.”
The question is “too far to what?” In what direction are we traveling and what is our ultimate destination? Perhaps more importantly, does the driver have any idea how to operate the vehicle?
One of the things that people like best about Gov. Chris Christie is his candor.
Sure, sometimes he crosses the line and comes across as both rude and condescending, but most people still find his frank talk refreshing… especially in today’s politically correct world filled with nothing more than sound bites and poll-tested positions.
And it’s not just New Jerseyans that approve of Gov. Christie’s shoot-straight-from-the-hip attitude. Across America, he is arguably the most popular – and yes, polarizing – of the country’s 50 state chief executives.
However, as much as I applaud Gov. Christie’s transparency and his stellar record in office, I cringed at the way he publicly embraced President Obama during his tour of the storm-ravaged Jersey Shore. And I was equally appalled at his incredibly poor choice of words that seemed to throw Governor Romney under the proverbial bus.
Who Would You Support in the 2014 GOP U.S. Senate Primary?
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