Here in lovely Charleston, South Carolina on my daily commute these last few weeks I’m seeing anti-Christie ads. They ask why he’s appointed LIBERAL (their caps) judges to the New Jersey State Supreme Court.
A (very) quick search reveals they appear to have gone up in New Hampshire, too. Someone’s trying to get ahead of the game.
It gives the URL http://www.christiebadonjudges.com/ (WARNING: Video plays automatically!). Paid for by the Judicial Crisis Network, the video accuses the liberal judges of the NJ supreme court of causing Fitch to downgrade New Jersey’s credit and other nefarious acts. It also explicitly ties Christie to Obama through his saying nice things about Sonia Sotomayor.
At this rate, in a couple years we’re going to reach the point where campaigning for the next presidential election starts a couple days before the last one finishes. It’s really getting ridiculous. (Sorry, did I say “getting”? I meant “gotten” . . .)
Well actually the midterms are pretty important.
The ad is sponsored by the Judicial Crisis Network: they are running $75,000 in anti-Christie ads. They were formed in 2004 under the moniker Judicial Confirmation Network: then they worked to support GWBush’s nominees. Now under their new name they oppose Obama et al.
It’s all dark money: it’s unknown who their ultimate donors are, though some of the funds are laundered via the Wellspring Committee a $37 million group that also doesn’t disclose its donors. The Judicial Crisis Network gave less than $1000 directly to a single Republican candidate with the past 4 years, though they have spent over $1.5 million overall.
Conservatives used to say that they supported disclosure of campaign contributions, in order to give credence to their opposition to campaign finance caps. Their pro-transparency stance vanished overnight after the Supreme Court overturned campaign finance limits on donations.
I’m not sure how much it matters. When I read that Christie appointed liberal judges, my instincts weren’t to question who was making the argument, but to find out if the argument was true.
I mean, we’re all anonymous here and we seem to do just fine.
Anyway, some aspects of campaigning have gotten started early but others are still as they’ve been since the advent of the modern primary system. This is all just preparing ground, it’s not the real deal yet. Messages are getting tested, candidates are testing the waters.
Nothing will ever be as early as Michigan actually holding an important election for precinct delegates in August 1986 that forced the involvement of the likely candidates at that point:
These are attack ads we’re talking about. They are of the poisoning the well variety, heard while driving so you can’t realistically google the accuracy.
If one cares enough, I’d hope they’ll find out. I don’t really care what kind of judges Christie appoints, because I just assume they’ll be like him.
But if people won’t research an issue, they won’t research a source. So either way, there’s no point.
Right now here in Florida, I’m seeing all kinds of negative ads about Rick Scott and Charlie Crist. I don’t know who any of these groups are and I can’t be bothered to find out, but none of them are telling me anything I haven’t already heard. Then again, these are both people who have served as governor before, so I’d hope that Floridians would already have a pretty good sense of who these guys are.
And those are people for whom you can vote in less than 2 months.
It’s just interesting to me that in both NH and SC a group is trying to get out in front of any Christie campaign a year before he’s even likely to formally announce. Is he really that much of a threat to take the nomination?
What gets me is, why would anyone waste any effort on anti-Christie attack ads? The lawyers are closing in on him; it’s less a question of whether a scandal will bring him down, than which one.
One is a reactionary who drains the souls of infants he kisses on the campaign trail. The other is a closeted homosexual who comes from the same orange planet as John Boehner and will tell voters whatever they want to hear just as soon as someone tells him what that is.
They both have their good sides too. Rick Scott has cut taxes and spending and regulations and created jobs. He hasn’t done it stupid style the way Sam Brownback did. The only reason he’s doing as well as he is is his economic performance. No one likes him or trusts him.
Charlie Crist is a rare bird in politics: a public servant with no real opinions on anything hot button, rather he cares about doing the job he’s been entrusted with well. I actually think he would have made a terrible Senator, because legislators should be political. They should have views, and an agenda, and want to pursue it. A governor, by contrast, can be very successful just doing a good job running the government.
I think we’ll do well with either man as governor. I’m still undecided, but I won’t have to hold my nose for either of them.
He’s still one of the most plausible candidates they have, not far removed from being, in their eyes, the only one who can beat Hillary. Let that one scandal get cleared up or forgotten or dismissed as a partisan attack, and they have their Great White Hope back. It’s worth some pre-emptive measures at the time they can be most effective, which is now.
That the “spastic goat rodeo” of Tea Party types hasn’t gotten going yet? I’m not sure of your point – politically and culturally, most Dems should find it rather admirable that Christie is considered a “front-runner” (meaningless term this far out, I know).
Probably, you were referring to the fact that someone so supposedly tainted by scandal would be their best hope at this point. Okay, it’s true that’s rather sad. On the good side, it shows that there are a lot of Pub voters who would prefer someone politically and culturally sane. On the bad side, it shows that the pool of recognizable Pub politicians in this category is very small, so a few scandals aren’t enough to persuade voters to make it even smaller (reduce it to zero??).
(I think Marco Rubio might soon take over this role, though.)
Well, that too, but mainly I was questioning the basis for his adherence to his party, hoping he’d explore the dichotomy between what he *claims *to admire and support and what he *actually *admires and supports.