The obvious takeout from the elections on Tuesday is the Fat Guy—not me—wants to go from being governor of the United States to president of the United States.
Why?
He wants the country to resemble New Jersey.
In other words: If you like your current government, you can keep it.
"I know tonight, a dispirited America, angry with their dysfunctional government in Washington,” said newly reelected Governor Chris Christie, “looks to New Jersey to say, 'Is what I think happening really happening? Are people really coming together? Are we really working, African-Americans and Hispanics, suburbanites and city dwellers, farmers and teachers? Are we really all working together?'”
Oh, please God, no.
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Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for people working “together,” but New Jersey? Really.
That’s what we are striving to become?
I’d set my sights a bit higher, say like, Romania, if the other choice is New Jersey.
Or perhaps New Colorado, coincidentally and colloquially known as Ransomtopia.
On Tuesday night, six of eleven counties in Colorado voted to leave the state and form a more perfect union. The largely rural, northeastern part of the state that voted for secession would need legislative approval—which they won’t get—and the approval of the governor—which they won’t get—to form a new state.
We’ll tentatively call the new state Ransomtopia, not for any personal reasons, but because I’m that generous and it has a certain ring to it.
It wouldn’t be named after me per se, but I would allow it to be named after my dog, Lexie Ransom, who would need my approval anyway, being a dog, and which, I would not withhold.
She’s a good girl.
In other election results, Old Colorado soundly rejected a billion dollar tax increase supported by government unions and they rejected union-backed candidates in school board races across the state.
In my home county of Douglas—soon to become the home to the capital of Ransomtopia—voters retained a slate of reformers who kicked out the union, instituted a voucher program to support more choice in education and a pay-for-performance plan that gets rid of teacher tenure.
“And no other local school board election anywhere in the country has so galvanized parents and politicos and attracted national attention and the financial resources of outside groups,” reported Denver’s KDVR, “all convinced that Tuesday’s votes here can be an inflection point in the national debate around education, a critical test case of just how far reform can go.”
It can go far, baby, really far.
“I think there are a lot of school districts who would like to take on these reforms they’ve done in Douglas County but they’re afraid the teachers unions are going to do exactly what they’re doing in Douglas County,” said Dustin Zvonek, who is both a personal friend and head of Americans for Prosperity in Colorado.
So let’s just say that New Jersey isn’t the only—or even the best—example of reform.
Denver also elected a slate of “reformers,” as did Jefferson County, the largest district in the state. And while those reformers may not be as bold as the folks in the capital of Ransomtopia, they represent a real change from the 100 year old, failed model of education that has been dominated by unions, professional educrats and special interest who always shout “Show me the money.”
Kind of like the failed, big state model that New Jersey is operating under.
Don’t get me wrong: For an East Coast Liberal, Christie makes a heck of a conservative, just as Mitt Romney made a heck of Republican in blue state Massachusetts.
But the media love affair will last only until he becomes the Republican nominee, and then he’ll just be another Tea Party extremist, like John McCain and Mitt Romney were to the media.
And Christie thinks that the “real problem” with Obamacare was that people weren’t told the truth. Well that doesn’t help, but it’s not the “real problem.”
The real problem is that Obamacare won’t work and when it collapses another generation will have clean up the mess, just like Social Security.
Just like all big government schemes.
It’s clear from all this that Christie will tinker around the edges of government. But he won’t solve the structural imbalances that require wealth to be redistributed from say New Jersey to, say Kentucky. Or from 18-25 year olds to 59-death year olds.
Christie, in short, thinks that if you like your current government, you can keep it, Obamacare and all.
And unlike Obama, he means it.
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