Filed under: U.S. Politics
More news from the fertile hills of New Jersey! From out of the maelstrom of snow and sleet, a political thorn has stuck in the side of Governor Christie. As has been somewhat exhaustively covered, Democratic activists as well as citizens throughout New Jersey (as well as Ed Rollins) are upset that Christie was absent from the state for the worst duration of the colossal blizzards that descended on the Northeast last week. Upon returning from his previously schedule family trip to Disney World, the Governor was unrepentant.
“I would have been doing the same thing here as I would have been there,” Christie said. “I would have been in a room someplace. I would not have been out, like, driving a plow.”
“This is just partisanship… I made a promise to my children… that I was going to take them to Disney World,” said Christie. “I was not going to look at my children and say we’re not going.”
In my personal opinion, Christie’s presence or lack thereof is probably of minimal importance to the function of state services during a blizzard. The absence of Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno deepens the wound, but her excuse of spending time with her ailing father seems (albeit subjectively) more sympathetic than even Christie’s. It should be said, however, that these two are the top two state executives in New Jersey, and as such, it paints an abhorrent picture from a political standpoint to have neither of them present in a time of such urgency. Christie himself recently filed for FEMA relief funds (which will be forgiven because of the crisis, but is nonetheless incongruous with much of his anti-federal and anti-spending rhetoric), which forces him to tacitly admit that he was absent during a “state of emergency.” Speaking in terms of raw politics, his decisions and subsequent response to criticism have been extremely poor.
Furthermore, it would be pertinent to know at what point both Christie and Guadagno’s plans to depart were specified. The two should have made arrangements with one another to ensure that at least one of the two people with the word “governor” in their title was in state, and that’s true any time one of them wants to take a vacation. Seeing as Guadagno’s trip is reportedly predicated on her father’s ill health, hers should likely have taken precedence. Christie’s promise to his children may be personally binding, but to tell them that the trip will have to be postponed until Guadagno returns doesn’t seem like the stark betrayal of trust that he’s been selling it as, nor can that be (strident as it may sound) his primary mentality when charged with leadership of an entire state.
But, to keep some sanity about us, let’s remember; poltiically tone-deaf or not, Christie’s right. He wasn’t going to be driving a plow or shoveling snow, and it somewhat strains the credulity to think that things were markedly worse by this particular absence. And yes, a large amount of the criticism likely has more to do with partisanship than anything else. For Chris Christie to lash out against partisanship, though, is a bit of a chuckler.
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The Crater 