Would YOU Touch Chris Christie With A Ten Foot Pole?

"Expanding Nationwide in 2016?" It doesn't look that way any longer

Today, New Jersey's embattled corrupt governor, Chris Christie, isn't in icy New Jersey. He's in sunny Florida… raising money for one of the few governors even worse than himself: Rick Scott. But even Scott is steering clear. In fact no Florida GOP elected officials want to be seen-- let alone photographed with Christie, who was the Republican presidential frontrunner when this fundraising trip was put together. Now he's been forced too do all his fundraising behind closed doors, meeting furtively with the GOP high rollers too lame and clueless to steer clear.

Marc Caputo welcomed Christie to the Sunshine State yesterday in his widely read Miami Heraldcolumn. Caputo spoke with Republican lobbyist/fundraiser Brian Ballard about Christie's visit. Aside from raising enormous amounts of money for right-wing candidates and incumbents, Ballard is a 6-figure personal donor to the GOP and it's candidates-- but not to Chris Christie. "The guy, as a person, is horrific," said Ballard, the Romney campaign's former finance chairman.

Some of Florida's biggest money men will attend the state's various fundraisers for Gov. Rick Scott headlined this weekend by NJ Gov. Chris Christie, with one notable exception: Brian Ballard.

…Like other Romney insiders, Ballard deeply resents Christie for the way the governor sidled up to, and gushed about, President Barack Obama in the 2012 campaign's final days just after Tropical Storm Sandy ruined parts of the Northeast's coastline.

"Charlie Crist got a lot of grief for what was called a hug of Obama. But what Christie did to Obama isn't suitable to say in a family newspaper," Ballard said. "I firmly believe he helped swing that election in Obama's favor just to help himself. I busted my ass for two years raising money and supporting Romney and this guy Christie just wiped his hands of us when we were no longer useful to him."

Ballard said "90 percent" of other major Romney fundraisers outside of the New Jersey-New York metro area "wouldn't touch Christie with a 10-foot pole right now."

Ballard's certainly not the only one in Romney World who despise Christie. There's a reason someone from the Romney campaign leaked the confidential vice-presidential vetting jacket of Christie-- and only Christie-- to reporters. Many in the Romney campaign began to dislike him ever since Christie's egocentric Republican National Convention speech where he barely mentioned the GOP nominee.

…Ballard's contempt is but one sign that, should Christie run for president in 2016, swing-state Florida will be a hostile place for the candidate in the primary. This is Rubio country. It's also Jeb country (though I still don't think he'll run). And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's people are essentially running Scott's gubernatorial campaign this year.

Ballard said he never planned to attend any of the events headlined by Christie, but the recent flap over "Bridgegate" made his low opinion of Christie even lower.

"Christie probably didn't know his staff was shutting down the George Washington Bridge for political paybacks or whatever," Ballard said. "But the fact is, he had people around him who thought it was ok. And that speaks to his character."

Ballard's wrong about Christie not knowing his staff shut down the George Washington Bridge. Christie not only knew he ordered it. Have you been watching the incredible nightly coverage of the Christie scandal from Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow? You should be.




UPDATE: Things Just Got Much Worse For Christie

Above, I mentioned watching the story unfold on Rachel Maddow's show and Chris Hayes' show. I forgot New Jersey boy Steve Kornacki. This morning, another shoe dropped.

"Two senior members of Gov. Chris Christie's administration warned a New Jersey mayor earlier this year that her town would be starved of hurricane relief money unless she approved a lucrative redevelopment plan favored by the governor, according to the mayor and emails and personal notes she shared with MSNBC."

…"In this account-- supported by email, public records and Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer's own diary entries-- Christie's inner circle was willing to cut off devastated constituents, muscle a friendly mayor and arrange public funds to finance a study for a project the governor supported. In a news conference last week, Christie rejected the notion that his administration engages in retribution or seeks political payback. Zimmer's account paints a different portrait."

…“I was emotional about governor Christie,” she wrote in a diary entry she provided that is dated May 17, 2013. “I thought he was honest. I thought he was moral. I thought he was something very different. This week I found out he’s cut from the same corrupt cloth that I have been fighting for the last four years.”

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone told UP Saturday that Zimmer’s accusations suggest an “abuse of power” by the Christie administration. “This is something that the U.S. attorney should be looking at, and has to be further investigated,” he said.

It isn't only normal people who disapprove of this kind of thuggery and corruption. There are even significant numbers of Republican voters who won't tolerate this. When Christie gets back from Florida Monday, he's going to have to work hard to save his tattered career. This is time for prison stuff. And once conservatives figure out they can tar Obama with Christie's use of Sandy funds for his own political and financial slush fund… well, maybe even fellow Republican thug Darrell Issa will open an investigation.