Taking The Guess Work Out Of Who's The Worst Governors

Earlier today, Morning Consult released it's latest survey on how the citizens of the 50 states view their own governors. Sam Brownback (R-KS) has both the highest disapproval ranking (71%) and the lowest approval ranking (23%). That guy is dogshit. Well... this disapproval of Brownback and his policies by Kansas voters is hardly new. When he was up for reelection 2 years ago he was just as hated and polls tended to show him losing. The last poll I found showed him losing the election 39-43%. 24% of Republicans said they were going to vote for Paul Davis, Minority Leader of the state House of Representatives. In the end, a week later, Brownback beat Davis 433,196 (49.82%) to 401,100 (46.13%). Kansas has 105 counties. Davis won 7 of them-- 5 more than President Obama had won in 2012. (In fact, although Obama only got 38% of the vote in Kansas, more Democrats voted for him than bothered to show up to for against Brownback-- 427,918 for Obama and about 26,000 fewer for Davis.

Right behind Brownback in Connecticut's widely-hated corporate Dem, Dan Malloy, with a 70% disapproval and a 26% approval. There are 10 governors with disapprovals numbers higher than approvals, 8 Republicans who have had an opportunity to prove themselves unsuitable for public office and 2 corrupt corporate Democrats who working families have comet realize are basically just Republicans with "D"s next to their names on the ballot, Malloy and Rhode Island crooked Wall Street shill Gina Raimondo. Here's the list (+ one governor who's tied between those who approve and those who disapprove, Mike Pence)

The survey was taken before federal prosecutors finally said aloud in court what most people have long suspected, that Christie "knew" about the lane closings in real time and then lied about it to cover up... well, what he was covering up will be the subject of future litigation, but I would say it's 99.9% safe to assume he was covering up the fact that he ordered the closure of the George Washington Bridge. In any case, even before, the newest revelations, 68% of New Jersey voters said they disapproved of Christie and just 29% approved (presumably New Jersey's deplorables who appreciate how he's made himself an appendage of Trump). Morning Consult pointed out that "Christie’s negatives rose by 8 percentage points since the beginning of the year, and he lost 6 points in approval ratings." Yesterday Newsweek asked the question many Americans, including many in New Jersey, have been asking for two years: why hasn't Christie been charged? Why isn't he in prison?

When the lane closure scheme became public, federal investigators got wind of it, eventually making the case that went on trial Monday.

Christie himself hired a $650-an-hour Manhattan law firm-- a taxpayer expense that eventually totaled $8 million-- to investigate the scheme. That investigation exonerated him in 2014. The legislative committee also concluded its work in late 2014 without accusing Christie of involvement.

But the legislative investigation was hampered by the concurrent federal investigation, which limited the ability of the state Assembly to call in witnesses. After Monday’s bombshell opening remarks, a number of New Jersey assemblymen suggested that they would reopen the investigation after the trial ends.

“It’s possible-- we don't know-- that the governor may be one of the unindicted co-conspirators," says Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who chaired the legislative investigation. "The government made it very clear. They did not hedge: They said the governor knew about the lane closures while they were happening. That is damning. That puts him at the nexus of the conspiracy.

“As for why he remains potentially an unindicted co-conspirator: The governor may have learned from his days as a U.S. attorney how to insulate himself by keeping the records, the paper trail, at a minimum. Whether or not that status changes will depend a lot on what is said, argued and entered into evidence at this trial,” he says.

...When the federal government formally charged only his aides, Christie described the action has having “exonerated” him.

But a former federal prosecutor who spoke to Newsweek about the case and discussed why Christie was not indicted declined to use the word “exonerate.” He speculates that the feds never charged the governor because federal investigators had been unable to come up with a paper trail with which to convince a jury.

“In theory, they seem to be saying that Christie was generally aware that havoc was being wreaked, but he wouldn’t have known the particulars of what went on,” says the attorney, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss the case. “As a general rule, federal prosecutors say federal conspiracies are very broad, and you don't need to know all the details to be guilty of involvement. But I assume the prosecution believes the governor didn't know all the details, that he had a general knowledge, but not enough to hold him criminally responsible and to persuade a jury to hold him personally responsible.”

Monday’s opening remarks made clear that the federal case will be based on Christie’s knowledge of and acquiescence to the scheme. Lawyers for the defendants were already expected to argue that the accused acted under authority of the governor. Furthermore, the prosecution will be bringing unindicted alleged co-conspirators who are expected to further elaborate on what the governor knew and when.

Ultimately, it appears the federal prosecutor will make the case that the defendants are part of a corrupt system, and that “the fish is rotten from the head down,” one attorney says.

...In the end, the show that opened Monday in Newark reveals the abysmal state of American political culture, from presidential politics on down, characterized by the practice of laying total waste to one’s opponents, seemingly without the slightest regard for duty to public service and the common good. Bridgegate is just another tactic out of a playbook that has run from Congress’s government shutdowns to Trump lying about his opponent and his own record. Christie might never be held legally responsible for Bridgegate, but his reputation and very likely his political future are on trial now.

Next year will be New Jersey's next gubernatorial election and Christie is term-limited. Maybe he'll be part of the Trump administration by then. Most of his potential replacements aren't much better than he is: the crooked boss-backed hack who runs the state Senate for George Norcross, Stephen Sweeney, some Goldman Sachs crook named Philip Murphy (in case people have forgotten how much they hated Corzine) and the sleazy assemblyman and chair of the state's Democratic Party, John Wisniewski, who ostentatiously backed Bernie while also backing crooked Machine candidates down-ballot. Bright spot would be if Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop, a real reformer, runs.