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Subscribe to RSSBACHMANN: Politico writes of the rivalry between fellow Minnesotans Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty: “While both are card-carrying Republicans, they are members of different GOP tribes, never at war but not exactly at peace either. Now the congresswoman and the former governor are on a crash course that could shed revealing light on an already distant and awkward relationship—testing the Minnesota Nice ethos.”
CHRISTIE: “It’s too early to say the Iowa GOP mission to draft in-your-face New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to run for president was unsuccessful, two team members said Wednesday,” the Des Moines Register says. “The Iowa businessmen said Christie is savvy enough to understand the implications of scheduling a visit to Iowa in July, just three weeks before the crucial straw poll here.”
Christie “is catching grief for taking a state helicopter to his son's high school baseball game,” the AP writes. “While state police helicopters cost $2,500 an hour to operate, State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes said that giving Christie a lift did not cost taxpayers anything extra because the pilots need to put in flying time anyway to keep their skills sharp.”
The New York Times: “Woe to the politician who claims to be fiscally responsible, in touch with regular folk, and turns out to have some pricey habits. Think Newt Gingrich and Tiffany, John Edwards and haircuts, Sarah Palin and clothes — and now, Chris Christie and helicopters.”
DEMINT: A spokesman for Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) walked back the senator’s comments, earlier yesterday that he was considering a presidential bid. According to CBS, the spokesman Wesley Denton said, “Sen. DeMint is focused on his job to stop the reckless spending in Washington and helping to elect more principled conservatives to join the fight in the Senate.”
The Daily Caller reports that a source close to the senator said DeMint “would pray about it because it will literally take an act of God to get him into the race.”
HUCKABEE: At a lecture at the University of Arkansas’ Clinton School of Public Service, Mike Huckabee said he wouldn’t rule out accepting a spot as a vice presidential nominee, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports. “I haven't closed doors because I found out long ago that that's not a smart thing to do. Then you try to figure out how to open them when they come knocking. I'm not looking for anything, I'm content with what I'm doing. That's what I plan to do,” he said.
HUNTSMAN: National Review Online outlines Jon Huntsman’s critiques of President Obama’s stimulus plan – not that he didn’t support it, but that he thought it should have been bigger, targeted differently, and included tax cuts. And as governor of Utah, he said that the GOP was wrong in its opposition to the program: “I don’t even know the congressional leadership. I’ve not met them. I don’t listen to or read whatever it is they say because it’s inconsequential — completely,” he told the Washington Times in 2009.
PALIN: Sarah Palin’s bus tour will take her to New Hampshire’s Seacoast tonight, where she will participate in a clambake with a number of New Hampshire Republicans, the New Hampshire Union-Leader’s DiStaso reports.
PAWLENTY: Tim Pawlenty is trying to win Iowa the traditional way: one voter at a time, the New York Times notes. “It may not be known for months whether Mr. Pawlenty and other candidates taking a traditional route in the party’s nominating contest — a word-of-mouth campaign that spreads through organization — will ultimately be rewarded or left behind. But there was a growing sense among party activists interviewed here over two days that the presidential campaign needed to be treated with a greater seriousness and urgency.”
ROMNEY: Per the AP, “Mitt Romney is opening his first formal day as a 2012 Republican presidential contender with a direct challenge to the man he wants to replace and is pitching himself as ready to repair the nation's struggling economy. ‘Barack Obama has failed America,’ he says.
The Boston Globe: “Mitt Romney will begin to engage voters more directly and offer more specifics on policy after his formal entry in the race for the GOP presidential nomination today, his advisers say… After a lengthy precampaign buildup that has been light on public events — and even lighter on policy proposals — Romney’s strategists are promising specific plans to curb spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Those plans, they say, will be rolled out in the coming weeks or months.”
The Wall Street Journal writes that Mitt Romney’s formal entrance into the presidential race in New Hampshire today may be overshadowed by near-simultaneous appearances by Sarah Palin, who appears in Boston around the same time Romney will take to the stage in New Hampshire, and then later visits the state herself, and Rudy Giuliani, who will headline a GOP fundraiser in Concord, NH.
Is Romney the 2012 version of McCain? Politico: "Mitt Romney couldn’t be more different than John McCain. But as he begins his long-anticipated presidential campaign in New Hampshire Thursday, the similarities there are hard to miss. Like McCain, who defeated him there four years ago, the former Massachusetts governor has a gold-plated organization stocked with New Hampshire primary veterans, enjoys universal name identification and owns a bank full of political goodwill stored up through repeated visits and TLC lavished on all manner of state representatives, county commissioners and sheriffs."
"There’s one big difference, however. Unlike the Arizona senator, Romney isn’t suffering through a summer spiral downward. Just the opposite: he’s on a torrid fund-raising pace, is driving a consistent economic message and, perhaps most important, he’s hitting all his marks as some of his most formidable challengers struggle to penetrate a news cycle focused on potential candidates as much as those who are actually running."
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So giving the Governor a ride did not cost anything? So all the hullabaloo about Palosi taking a plane to CA was all politics?
Hopefully the pundits can encourage DeMint to run, like they are encouraging Christie. The more nuts the better.
Christie has a long list of broken campaign promises that I've listed below:
Governor Christie's broken promises continue to shift the burden to middle class residents
New Jersey Democratic State Committee Chairman John Wisniewski offered the following comments regarding the completion of Governor Christie's first year in office:
"The Governor likes to talk about the importance of truth, but the truth is the Governor has broken many of the promises he made as a candidate and each one has shifted the burden further onto middle class residents in New Jersey, said Wisniewski."
•Promise: Keep Property Tax Rebates
Chris Christie promised to keep Property Tax Rebates – Here is what they said during the campaign as a candidate: The last thing Chris will do is to follow Corzine's lead in eliminating property tax rebates for 1.2 million New Jerseyans
Broken:Christie didn't fund property tax rebates in the budget causing a 23% property tax increase for homeowners that won't receive their rebate this year.
•Promise: Won't Bond without Voter Approval
Christie said he wouldn't bond without voter approval
•Broken:Christie's TTF plan contains $4 billion in bonding, he has bonded for schools and Bloomberg reported a bond sale had to be halted after Christie said healthcare may bankrupt the state
.Promise: Protect Worker Pensions
Christie said he would protect worker pensions – Here is what he said as a candidate: Let me be clear — nothing could be further from the truth. It is a 100 percent lie. Your pension will be protected when I am elected governor…what they are saying…is absolutely, 100 percent untrue
Broken:Christie didn't make the required $3 billion pension payment last year and hasn't said whether he will make any payment this year as he attacks the system as unsustainable, while making it even more unsustainable.
•Promise: Won't raise taxes
Christie said he wouldn't raise taxes, in fact he keeps repeating he hasn't
Broken:You can expect to hear Gov. Chris Christie claim that he balanced this year's budget without raising taxes, but it's not true. The working poor in New Jersey took a hit this year when the governor scaled back the earned income tax credit. They face higher taxes today… That is in addition to property tax hikes due to municipal aid and school aid cuts and other increased costs for NJ residents.
•Promise: Honesty and Openness in Government
Christie promised to "increase honesty and openness in government"
Broken:Christie raised money Reform Jersey Now, the secretive slush fund started by his close associates.Christie and the GOP is using another secretive 501c4 to fund their legislative redistricting efforts.Christie has blocked and delayed OPRA requests at every turn including his travel, Women's Health, the Hanson Gaming Commission and Race to the Top.
•Promise: One Shot Revenues
Christie promised not to use "one shot" revenues in his budget.
Broken:Christie's budget raided $158 million from the clean energy fund and $454 million overall from other programs.Christie tried to raid $10 million from the reforestation funds, which was supposed to compensate towns for forests destroyed by gov projects, such as road widening
•Promise: Permanent Funding for Open Space
Christie will identify a permanent funding source for open-space preservation
Broken:Governor Christie's latest plans call for a cut in open-space funding with no permanent source identified.
•Promise: Roll Back Sales Tax
Christie promised to roll back the sales tax to 6%
Broken:Mr. Christie now also disavows a promise, made in a primary-season debate, to roll back a sales tax increase.
•Promise: Eliminate Political Patronage
Political Patronage – I will save taxpayer dollars and end political cronyism by eliminating political patronage jobs.Christie appointed Fmr. Congressman Mike Ferguson as Comissioner of the NJ Sports and Exposition Authority.
•Promise: Repeal Toll Increases
Chris Christie promised to repeal toll increases
Broken:Christie's TTF plan relies on revenues from the toll increase that were dedicated for the ARC tunnel.
Latest:
Cut education spending so drastically, that the NJ State Supreme Court ordered him to restore $500 million in cuts for violation the State Education Funding Act.
Walked away from the single largest public works project in America leaving NJ with a $237 million debt to the feds for monies they laid out for the project.
Running for governor in 2009, Christie vowed to become "New Jersey's No. 1 clean-energy advocate." That was a hollow promise. As governor, Mr. Christie proceeded to cut all the money for the Office of Climate and Energy. He raided $158 million from the clean energy fund, meant for alternative energy investments, and spent it on general programs. He withdrew the state from an important lawsuit against electric utilities to reduce emissions.
Last Thursday, he abandoned the 10-state initiative in the Northeast that uses a cap-and-trade system to lower carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. The program has been remarkably successful, a model of vision and fortitude. Lacking that, Mr. Christie has given in to the corporate and Tea Party interests that revile all forms of cap and trade, letting down the other nine states trying to fight climate change.
He's a personable, tough talking governor who follows the GOP talking points to the letter. If they're against climate change, so is he, etc. Hope he goes to Iowa, stays there and perhaps the people of Iowa would elect him governor of that state. We don't want him in NJ.
Wow, that is some long list of broken promises that Governor Christie has made.
Great post.
By the way, you did not mention how he lost N J $400 mil;lion in funding from the federal government for Race to the Top, because he is an arrogant self-centered maniac!
If the state police are OK with it fine. If it was a genuine training need fine. It was very tacky and unflattering though.
I live near right near the airport Hastert flew into when he was speaker of the house. No one mentioned the private airplane that the secret service requested he fly. I was insulted and disgusted by the Republicans for politicizing a security requirement they themselves voted for under Bush 43 after 9/11 for the 3rd in line to the presidency.
Amazing how the GOP likes to forget that it was George W. Bush who first ordered that the Speaker of the House have military transport after 9/11. I guess it's okay for a Republican Speaker of the House to have military transport but not okay for a Democrat Speaker to have it.
Right on Patrick.
Well, isn't this a VALID excuse for all goverment leaders to use/abuse state or government aircraft?
I mean, don't ALL pilots need to keep their skills sharp? And if they do, we might as well sit in the back of the helicopter/jet as these pilots work on thier skills...AND they might as well go SOMEWHERE while they work on their skills, so lets have them go in my direction...
Gotta Love Politicians don't ya?
Never ending hypocrisy from the right. NEVER EVER ENDS! Which was worse, the money Christie cost state taxpayers, (the same ones he is trying to rip off for his rich buddies) or the fiscal frugality that he claims everyone else must adhere to. The funniest part is that he couldn't even walk the 300 yards or so to the field. Nope, though it is doubtful that he could have dragged that heft that far. But, Christie, the walk would do you MUCH good.
Pablo, I was thinking the same thing. What a lame explanation: it didn't cost anything because the pilots needed the practice. Riiiiight. That's like saying: "And strippers gotta eat too."
The governor flies on practice flights, is he a flight instructor? If you fire up a chopper for any reason it costs plenty and the maintenance, cost plenty too it is about an of maintenance for an hour of flight.
President, Gov Christy couldn't walk 100ft he had to have a limo to take him up to the gate? Fit for President? Christy just proposed Medicaid Cuts for Poor People Making $6,000Yr. That takes real Courage! The Republicans are begging the King Of Kicking & Trampling On the Middle Class, Old People, Disabled, & The Poor as their Champion! Paul Ryan Said he had Principles, consistent with Christy that and $.05 will buy you a ticket out of Congress.
The costs incurred by the taxpayers of New Jersey must have been more than for just a pilot flying an empty chopper. The extra costs in fuel alone for hauling a massive cargo like Christie around had to have been enormous!