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Choices.

On a personal level, I’m happy to see Chris Christie take action to get his weight under control.  It’s almost impossible not to like him, if just for his blunt, no-nonsense manner and his sense of humor.  His attitude more than his policies endeared Christie to Republicans in and out of New Jersey, and assuming [...]

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Change.

From a health standpoint, he’s got every reason in the world to drop the weight. From a political standpoint, though? Nonsense, says Harry Enten, and I agree. Christie’s 2016 problem isn’t that he’s “husky,” it’s that he’s a gun-grabbing, Medicaid-expanding, Obama-hugging believer in man-made global warming who, by his own admission, agrees with Andrew Cuomo [...]

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Presidential profile?

After years of criticism over his weight, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie decided over the winter to take action.  After consulting with Jets head coach Rex Ryan on his successful weight-loss surgery, Christie underwent lap-band surgery in February, he told the New York Post in an exclusive: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie secretly underwent lap-band [...]

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"The governor."

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is launching his first television ad buy of his reelection campaign with a 60-second spot focusing on — you guessed it — Gov. Christie’s bipartisan leadership prowess. With the 32-point lead he’s got going over his challenger, Democratic state Sen. Barbara Buono, he isn’t exactly in dire campaign straits, but [...]

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No regrets for this guy.

It’s been six month since one of the most destructive natural since Hurricane Katrina hit the eastern seaboard, and while there’s been a good deal of progress on cleanup and rebuilding, there are still thousands of displaced people and closed businesses waiting for the rebuilding phase to pick up the pace: Tens of thousands of [...]

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"Can I say you're attractive?"

I’m as surprised as you are. Fun Friday evening shinola-stirring from BuzzFeed, especially if you’re a fan of the boss emeritus who remembers this old post. (“Are you sure you are old enough to be on the show? What are you? 28?”) First, the chitchat before Buono’s “Hardball” segment began: “Can I say you’re attractive?” [...]

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What happens in Jersey doesn't stay in Jersey, Guv.

For a time last year there was some serious chatter about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo being a potential Democrat nominee for 2016. Even if Hillary weren’t likely going to be in the hunt, I’m pretty sure that chatter ended once Cuomo took the shocking, overreaching measures of passing the gun grabbing SAFE Act and [...]

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War chest.

In case there was any doubt about Christie’s insane level of popularity in New Jersey or his prospects for reelection this November, just take a look at the man’s fundraising tallies so far. Can’t touch this: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is raising record cash for his re-election bid. … In December, before Democrats had [...]

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Can one be too prepared?

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell did not do himself any favors with conservatives when he signed his big transportation bill into law last month — it certainly looks like it will be a tax increase in practice (one of his economic advisers just resigned in protest because of it), and the agreement to allow a bicameral commission to [...]

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"Fix it."

After last week’s CPAC snub, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was back to hammering his role as an outsider-looking-in to DC’s inexcusable dysfunction at a press conference in his home state this afternoon. Via National Review: If the federal government can’t cut one cent out of a dollar, and not bring the economy and the [...]

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"You need to make the tent as big as you possibly can."

Via the Andrea Tantaros Show, I assume his point here about the urgency of economic renewal will form the core of his CPAC speech so consider this a sneak preview. Interesting little exchange between him and Tantaros: She seizes on his message about opposing political correctness to steer him towards criticizing Christie’s and GOProud’s exclusion [...]

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Snub.

Gov. Chris Christie today brushed off a snub from an influential conservative group that did not invite him to speak at its conference next month, calling the controversy “small stuff.” “I didn’t know that I hadn’t been invited to CPAC until like two days ago when I saw it in the news,” Christie said in [...]

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Uh oh.

I have my issues with him just like you do, but c’mon. Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are conservative enough to speak at CPAC but not Christie? He’s the current vice chair of the RGA and will be chairman next year for the midterms. He’s headed for a landslide reelection victory in a deep blue [...]

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Dude?

Allegedly. [Bulman] said when he told Mr. Christie he is from upstate New York, “he said, ‘I’m not much different from Andrew Cuomo. I probably agree with him on 98% of the issues.’ ” Mr. Bulman said Gov. Christie “sees value in the building trades, which are private sector unions. He complimented us and said [...]

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No can do.

The clock ran down today on ObamaCare’s already-extended deadlines for states to figure out whether they’d be formulating their own state-run health insurance exchanges, resigning the task over to the federal government, or forging some kind of partnership — and three more GOP-led states have reported that they’re officially disinclined to acquiesce the Obama administration’s [...]

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Smooth sailing.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may not be quite so nationally popular right now, and he’ll likely have a job repairing his brand on the road to 2016 if/after he wins gubernatorial reelection, but everything that has grated against the conservative base has apparently totally worked for blue-leaning New Jersey. His state approval ratings and [...]

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"I don't think that's going to play well in the Republican primary.”

I’m intrigued and oddly impressed at how obviously Paul’s maneuvering for 2016. First the trip to Israel, then the bill to nullify any executive actions taken by Obama on guns, now this double-barreled shot at grassroots conservatives’ new bete noire. One of the things about the elder Paul that some people loved and others found [...]

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Majorities.

I remember some consternation in the media a few weeks ago after Boehner split the original $60 billion relief package into two smaller bills that this meant the GOP was going to gut part of it. Absurd. Did anyone seriously believe Boehner et al. would risk more bad press by stripping out the pork after [...]

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Blue on blue.

In other elderly senator news, New Jersey Democrats are rather unceremoniously nudging Sen. Frank Lautenberg out of the 2014 New Jersey Senate race. When Newark Mayor Cory Booker announced in December he would pass on contesting Gov. Chris Christie, he announced he’d run for Senate instead. Lautenberg had not made an announcement that he’d be [...]

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It's never too early.

This poll won’t matter three years from now when we find ourselves caught up in an epic Stan McChyrstal vs. Mike Huckabee battle for the soul of America, but for now it’s a fun time-waster on a painfully slow news day. Two overrated media darlings enter, one overrated media darling leaves: 57% of Democrats would [...]

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Big shot.

Christie, who already had one of the most prominent public profiles in the country, has stepped squarely into the spotlight in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and the Congressional debate over passing a relief package for residents of the affected states. “One thing I hope everyone in America now clearly understands — New Jersey, both [...]

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Not messing around.

And it’s apparently working like a charm. New Jersey is really loving the “I’m so moderate and above-the-fray, I’m perfectly willing to excoriate my own party and I simply adore compromise” tack, with the added bonus that the media cannot seem to get enough of the Republican-on-Republican crime and is helping Christie to expand his [...]

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“There’s this ‘Christmas Tree effect’ where legislators put in their favorite bills and tack them onto something."

John Boehner got some unexpected support today over his off-again, on-again approach to the Hurricane Sandy relief bill.  Boehner has pledged to allow a vote on both bills, which probably saved his speakership, but not until after getting publicly blasted by fellow Republicans Chris Christie and Peter King.  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told [...]

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“As far as I’m concerned, I’m on my own.”

Fun fact: By some estimates, roughly half of the $60 billion aid bill that passed the Senate consists of expenditures unrelated to Sandy relief, i.e. pork. Had the House GOP amended the fiscal cliff bill last night to include $300 billion in spending cuts over 10 years, the amount of pork alone in the Sandy [...]

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