Even low-rent thug Chris Christie has more political cred than the Obama administration -- but then, who doesn't?

“The most important thing in public life, in a job like governor, is for the people you’re representing to know exactly where you stand. People who disagree with me on things at least have a sense of comfort in knowing where I’m coming from.”

--NJ Gov. Chris Christie, quoted in today's NYT

by Ken

My position on Chris Christie hasn't changed since last year's New Jersey gubernatorial election, when he couldn't even muster a majority against widely despised incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine. The guy is a sleazy goon, who should by now be in prison following his first few trials, preparing for the next few, for his serial malfeasances as Rovean political-hack U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, the kind who served as an answer to the question posed by Paul Krugman among others: We know pretty well what those loyal GOP U.S.A.s who were shitcanned did to earn the wrath of Karl Rove (not devote themselves heart and soul to destroying political enemies), but what in God's name did the others have to do to keep their jobs? And of course we only know about the Christie U.S.A. scandals that have bubbled up through the muck of the political cesspool he presided over in Newark.

Now comes this report by the NYT's Richard Pérez-Peña, which includes this not entirely undeserved tribute:

Mr. Christie has turned out to be a far more deft politician than his detractors — and even some supporters — had expected, making few compromises as he pursues a broad agenda for remaking New Jersey’s free-spending political culture. So far, polls suggest, the public is giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“The most important thing in public life, in a job like governor, is for the people you’re representing to know exactly where you stand,” Mr. Christie said in an interview on Friday. “People who disagree with me on things at least have a sense of comfort in knowing where I’m coming from.”

Now, I think of Pérez-Peña as a good reporter by NYT standards, but those standards dictate that as a reporter you must never allow context to color what's in front of your eyes, guaranteeing that much of the paper's reporting manages to be "true" without being "the truth." And so it wasn't surprising that colleagues on the ground in New Jersey, and elsewhere around the country, were quick to call a foul on the beatification of the governor.

One financially focused colleague in the Garden State points out that all Christie is really doing is "implementing failed supply side/'trickle down' nonsense in the state," that his famously "austere" budget is full of "fees" that are really taxes, that his great triumph in clamping down on the permitted rate of property-tax increase merely whittles down a limit already in place, and that neither the old nor the new limit deals with any of the state's real problems, that "he is also taking a page right out of the Bush era playbook with a push for privatization of many services -- but it isn't going to save the much money," and is a potential for corruption catastrophe.

Another colleague thinks the property-tax cap looks like a replay of the stunt former Republican Gov. Christie Todd Whitman pulled when, for cheap short-term political gain in the early '90s, she lowered the state's income tax, insisting -- despite Democratic predictions to the contrary -- that it wouldn't lead to prperty-tax increases, thereby setting the stage for their explosive growth.

Yet another colleague suggests: "Christie's following a successful model: if you break public unions, cut revenues to education, attack public employees and pensions and cripple the property tax to help reduce government to the size of your bathtub, you can create . . . California."

And yet, and yet . . .

There's no question that the new governor has had more political success at the outset of his administration than anyone would have expected, especially when you consider that the killing economic problems besetting the states, which had a lot to do with former Governor Corzine's unreelectability, have only gotten worse since November. And I don't think the governor is wrong when he attributes his political successes to date to being (relatively) straight with his constituents, and acting decisively in accordance with his beliefs.

Do I have to underline the contrast with what's going on now in the White House? Where confusion about core principles is only surpassed by wishy-woshiness about implementing them.

In the matter of what those principles actually are, I've been meaning -- ever since I presented our friend Ian Welsh's brilliant analysis ("So THAT's Why we're in Afghanistan! It's 'military Keynesianism'") that the administration is stuck fighting in Afghanistan in good part because "war spending is one of the only reliable forms of stimulus he has" -- to pass on a piece Ian recirculated recently as "Obama's Personality," written originally in December 2006 [all emphasis added]:

I Believe Obama

One of my rules of analysis is that I believe people when they tell me who they are. That doesn't mean I believe everything they say - I never believed Bush was a moderate, for example, because I believed what he told me when he refused to correct obviously false budget numbers. His budget plan spent the surplus twice, and I believed that's what he would do. And, needless to say, I was right (well sort of, he spent even more than that, but you get the point.)

People tell you who they are all the time; all you have to do is listen, separate out the noise intended to distract you, and then believe them. Bush's record of failure at everything he did, for exmaple, was clear. His slurring of words and inability to talk coherently was clear. His code-speaking to the Christian right was clear. All these things were there to see in 2000.

So, let's talk about someone else. Obama. I've been listening to Obama and I've been hearing what he has to say. He's been pretty hostile to the netroots, contemptuous and dismissive, and I've heard that and I believe it. Obama is telling me he has no respect for the sort of people who make up the netroots. I think he's sincere - I don't think it's "just" a tactical move. He genuinely dislikes people getting worked up over issues. It makes him uncomfortable. He wants everything and everyone to be "nice". I believe him when his words and actions tell me that, just as when he backed down from McCain when McCain unfairly attacked him, I believed what that told me about his spine and about the fact that he prefers peace to conflict, even when he's in the right. I believe him when he says he admires John McCain and that he admires Joe Lieberman and I understand what that says about him (because, of course, if you actually follow McCain and Lieberman you know they aren't even close to men of their word. And Obama knows that.)

Obama has told me who he is, and I have listened. If he gets into power he will compromise/compromise/compromise, because he believes in it - not as a means, but as an end. He will shy away from big fights, because he doesn't like fighting. He may "believe" in universal healthcare, but he believes in compromise more. And I'm betting I know which belief will win out.

I'm sure many will disagree, but when people tell me who they are I listen. Obama has spoken, I've listened, and since I don't believe that compromise is an end rather than just a means, he's not the person I think should be president.

Again, this was written in 2006. Nevertheless, I really don't have anything to add!

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