Let me say on the record that I don’t really care about New Jersey. I know very little about it. But, I know this much: I don’t want to live there and I don’t want the rest of the United States to resemble New Jersey.
For me New Jersey is the Joe Piscopo character asking anyone and everyone “Are you from Jersey? I’m from Jersey.”
Also, I’ve never seen the TV show “Jersey Shore,” but still I don’t like it. And know that I don’t want the rest of the country to resemble it, either.
It’s the state that elected Jon Corzine governor. You know?
So I’m a Jersey hater- which is OK because I suppose if Jersey knew me they’d hate me right back.
So we’re even.
But that’s one reason why I’ve never understood conservatives’ fascination with Governor Chris Christie.
I mean, heck: He’s from Jersey.
In general, I’m not a fan of Republican politicians, like Chris Christie, who win elections in those liberal east coast states, like New Jersey. One day, I’m sure someone will prove me wrong, as an exception, but in general politicians who win state-wide elections in places like New Jersey and Massachusetts are the political equivalent of fishing lures.
Yeah, they’re very pretty in the water, they wiggle a lot to attract attention, they flash and gleam, but once you bite, you’re hooked. By the time you try to protest they have you scaled and gutted.
Conservatives know this about guys like Chris Christie, Mitt Romney and Scott Brown, to take recent examples.
Yet they still can’t resist the draw to fawn on the pretenders.
It’s a kind of a “conservative guilt” that guys like John McCain try to feed on. And it’s this guilt that has a variety of “conservatives” folding on tax increases and debt ceilings and elections in the pursuit of fair play and the can-do American spirit.
The “bipartisan” fairies from the news media then sprinkle “bipartisan” dust on the great pretenders, yuck it up with them, let them mug and preen on TV mostly because they know it drives conservatives like me crazy.
It also undermines our conservative ideals.
Christie, for example, appeared on CBS This Morning on Wednesday suggesting that the government isn’t doing enough about gun control.
Yeah, he mentioned it in the context of focusing not only on “gun control,” but adding preventive steps like mental health screenings, but he’s not stupid.
Mental health screenings are gun control.
That’s what the NRA says and they are right.
The “comprehensive approach,” which Christie advocates, is the “government approach,” which conservatives dread.
Christie seems to take a comprehensive approach to everything especially talking.
So, someone needs to remind Christie that he’s not Governor of the United States.
He’s from Jersey for crying out loud. It’s like a perpetual off-ramp on the way to somewhere else.
It’s a place where Jon Corzine was elected governor.
And while that’s not a very fair comparison for Christie, I’ll at least say this much in his defense: Christie makes a much better Democrat governor from New Jersey than Corzine ever did.
Look at how far it got Jiffy Jon.
We can only hope Christie will do as well.
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