[Click to enlarge.]by KenNow that the nomination of Chris Christie as the 2016 Republican candidate for president is all but official, even as the sure-to-be-virulent "hell no" of the party's farthest-right wing is acknowledged, a spell of craziness. So, for example, we have the normally cool-headed Froma Harrop imagining arguing the Large One coming to ground in the White House and arguing, "A President Christie Would Spell Tea Party's Doom."
Can you hear the smashing of tea party china? Christie is everything the right-wingers can't stand. If he becomes the face of the Republican Party, it's all over for them. To the right, Christie is an existential threat.
Huh? I think this rests on the assumption that Big Chris's huge popularity in New Jersey has been based on accomplishing something other than making large numbers of Jerseyites feel better for no especially good reason, except in the case of his Superstorm Sandy response, when his visibility sounded just the note that people under that kind of stress like to see in a leader.Now this much I can buy:
The tea party's ruling emotion is a desire to smite those who won't bow to its high-def vision of righteousness. So Christie's promise to work with others -- including the radicals' designated enemies -- would amount to playing with the devil, would it not?
But does it really mean that he can preempt the Teabaggers by working with more moderate Republicans and even Democrats? From my Christie-watching, I see his mode of "working with others" as the now-traditional Republican one: He's happy to accept the support of anyone who agrees with him. For cripes' sake, so was Ronald Reagan.Does anyone really believe that a President Christie could maintain 65 percent approval ratings if he accomplished nothing more as president than he has as governor of New Jersey? And I don't see much reason to think the would accomplish even that much.I admit it's intriguing to imagine how far-right Republicans would react to a Big Chris presidency. But are we anywhere near seeing such a thing happening? Can a Republican really be nominated over the veto of the Far Right? The party's extreme wing went along, grumbling mightily, with the Young Johnny McCranky and Willard Romney nominations -- and look how well that worked out. And that was with McCranky and Willard doing everything they could think of to win the hearts and minds of the loonies.Teabagging, it should be remembered, thrives rather than wilting under adversity; victimhood is these people's native state. It's governing that's the real challenge for them, as witness the mess they've made with their share of control of the House of Representatives, where all they've achieved is not governing. Which probably doesn't torment them, seeing as how they really don't believe in government to begin with.In case anyone needs to be reminded of how improbable it is that Big Chris can thread his way through the nominating process, let's pretend for a moment that it's not enough that the Teabaggers hate Big Chris. As Ryan Cooper pointed out in a washingtonpost.com "Plum Line" blogpost, "Chris Christie and the Tea Party bind," there's somebody else the Teabaggers hate.
Christie may face the same challenge that has dogged the Republican Party since 2009: The GOP base’s fear and loathing of President Obama.Christie is in a Tea Party bind. This country has elected Obama twice now. But the GOP base may well remain unremittingly hostile to Obama's entire agenda and legacy. Republican primary voters may continue to insist on total repeal of Obamacare and possibly total resistance to the implementation immigration reform (which has a real shot at passing by 2016). If the GOP nominee is going to have a chance of winning the 2016 election, he or she may have to make peace with significant parts of Obama's legacy. But can someone who does that win a GOP primary? . . .The irony is that Christie's major strength as a Republican who has won in a blue state is also his biggest weakness among the base. If one's political movement is predicated on hatred of the president and his policies, anyone who gets liberal or moderate votes is automatically an ideological traitor. And this will hold for any plausible Republican candidate by definition.
Not quite the way I would couch it, but we wind up in pretty much the same place.#For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."
