Chris Christie
Christopher James "Chris" Christie (born September 6, 1962), nicknamed Chrispie Chreme, was the 55th Governor of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018. He was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but lost to the irresistible charm of Donald "Can't Stump the" Trump. Prior to becoming the governor of New Jersey, Christie served honorably on the Supreme Food Court of the United States for nearly six years, but was forced to resign when it was revealed that he was being bribed with KFC gravy and some of those breadsticks that you can get at Olive Garden.
As Governor, Christie was addressed as "Your Royal Hugeness", though in fairness, he lost a lot of weight in preparation for his Presidential campaign. Unfortunately, the other chins are as large as ever.
Darling of the right wing[edit]
In 2009, Christie defeated Jon Coricidin as Antihistamine of New Jersey. As a Republican who could be elected in such a left-wing hotbed, Christie became a darling of the right wing soon after his election, a feeling that intensified when he faced the usual hazing by the New Jersey Teachers Union. Christie chose the strategy, unprecedented at that time, of replying, "Youse can all go fuck yourselves." Conservatives were delirious, unaware that they would be next up to be hit by Christie's verbal bat; also unaware that the correct declension is "youse's selves."
After standing up to the Teachers Union, and even starting a couple charter schools in one of his rolls of fat, power-brokers started discussing Christie as a candidate for President. However, in October 2011, Christie disabused these hopes, saying, "New Jersey, youse is stuck with me." The rest of the nation, Christie added, could go fuck themselves.
The thrusts went in the other direction, however, when superstorm Sandy hit the New Jersey shoreline. As the Presidential campaign of his party's nominee Mitt Romney hit a crescendo, Christie sounded a flat note by welcoming opponent Barack Obama to the storm-battered beach. With the cameras rolling, the two exchanged a French kiss more prolonged than Al Gore's awkward foreplay with "Tipper" on the stage of the Democratic Nominating Convention twelve years earlier. This gave the lie to Romney's assertion that 47% of Americans were welfare cheats who would never vote for him in a million years. In fact, it was 47% plus one. In the end, America did not have to go fuck themselves, because Christie did it for them; Romney got the boot and New Jersey got the loot, enough pieces of silver to pay for widening of a shipping channel and dozens of new jobs for planners and grant applicants.
Bridgegate[edit]
Christie was re-elected handily in 2013, even though mayors in cities like Fort Lee sat on their hands. By comparison, mayors whose hands Christie sat on are now too flat to be located, much less interviewed.
Speaking of which, in September 2013, two out of three toll lanes onto the George Washington Bridge were mysteriously closed during a Monday morning rush hour. The explanation offered for the closures, which lasted all week — that state highway officials had to measure the dashed white lines on the pavement in order to determine how big a highway grant to put in for — convinced no one, especially when an email was found in which Bridget Anne Kelly, an aide to the Governor, told David Wildstein that it was "time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee." Wildstein protested that traffic problems were the job of another Christie aide — also, that everyone knows that Friday night is the time for traffic problems in Fort Lee — but in the end the self-starting advisor found a way to get it done.
Gov. Christie told reporters that he did not approve nor authorize the lane closures, and only found out about them by reading the paper. This last was another huge gift to President Obama, who instantly included it in his repertoire; he would tell members of the press that reading their wares was the only way he knew about Benghazi or about people's health care premiums not dropping $2500 per year as promised, and would never use official powers against his political enemies, except perhaps the IRS.
Christie promptly ordered an official investigation of the Christie scandal, with all diligence possible short of talking to Kelly, Wildstein, or any of the other principals, or preserving notes of the interviews they did conduct. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Trenton dropped the charges based on a longstanding basketball principle, "no blood, no foul."
2016 presidential campaign[edit]
Bridgegate become "old news" (to channel Hillary Clinton) and Christie in June 2015 started running for the Republican Party nomination for President. His first goal was to go to New Hampshire and loudly claim to be a "conservative," something that Jeb Bush would never do without plenty of protective adjectives in front. The "loudly" part was a natural.
The Christie lawn signs, subtitled "Telling It Like It Is," dared to employ the same misuse of the word "like" that originally got the Surgeon General to start investigating Winston cigarettes two generations earlier. Those signs were replaced by signs with small print reading, "Hey! What Are Youse Lookin' At?"
Christie advertisements stated:
- That he had vetoed a record number of taxes in New Jersey. This left it to his opponents to point out that the state legislature simply passed other ones, resulting in the highest-tax state outside of California, with a credit rating so poor that fathers do not dare loan their sons $50 to take a girlfriend out on a dinner-date.
- That "This campaign won't be about me," which played well in a state that did not know about all the rides in the New Jersey state helicopters to Little League baseball fields to watch his son play. In fairness, Christie was not the passenger; the helicopter was "a decoy" to draw off possible attacks on the state's Chief Executive, who rides in a gurney supported between two state helicopters.
- Nothing about appointing Muslim judges and being soft on gun rights.
These skillful ads deftly raised Christie's polling numbers up to several times his 10% approval rating back home. In fact, Christie's face began to appear in the missing-persons ads on one side of milk cartons in New Jersey, though milk drinkers thought it was merely part of the federal government's push against cholesterol, in conjunction with First "Lady" Michelle Obama's campaign, "Let's Waddle." Indeed, with Christie absent, the state began to be known as New Jersey Lite.
In the Presidential debates, Christie was undeterred by the criticism that declaring a "no-fly zone" over Syria, instead of Obama's plan to bring young Syrians to the U.S., might involve shooting down war planes that violated the zone; to-wit, those of Russia. "I'll do it, and I'll tell 'em who it was!" said Christie.
Christie received a coup when he was endorsed by New Hampshire's statewide newspaper, the Manchester Union-Leader, which stated that "the nation faces huge problems" and, well, Christie is a huge candidate. Suddenly, he had something to put in his mailings for the rest of the month. The paper's endorsement embroiled its publisher, Joe McQuaid, in a public shouting match with Donald Trump about who was the bigger liar and bully, and who owed whom more favors.
Battle in Bedrock[edit]
But that piss-fight could not hold a candle to the feud between Chris Flintstone himself and Marco Rubble. The Christie campaign devised a variety of useful names to call the Floridian, such as the "boy in the bubble," even though Rubio was making noses wrinkle on his own with a stilted speaking style.
The sniping from Christie did not have the usual function of a sniper but more like a Muslim suicide bomber. Election Day 2016 fell on Fat Tuesday, but Christie came up unusually lean. He held seventy town halls in the state — without even suffering a hernia — but after spending $852 per New Hampshire vote, to finish in the lower middle of the pack of current and retired Governors with pretty decent records, Christie announced late on Election Evening that he would return to New Jersey to "take a deep breath," and perhaps a fifteen-course meal. Going home is a good thing, whereas quitting is a bad thing. But Christie was quitting — except for a renewed search for New Jerseyans who had not supported his campaign and were due some more payback.
The New Hampshire newspaper announced its "un-endorsement" of Christie, hoping to put one rhetorical bullet back into the handgun, although the state's voters would not get a do-over.
Endorsement of Trump[edit]
On February 26, Christie, who had tirelessly claimed that only a Governor had the administrative experience needed to be President and that Donald Trump was utterly unsuitable, abruptly declared that Trump was exactly the right nominee. The reason for Christie's sudden switch may involve a promise of free food; although "politics makes strange bedfellows," it also makes for repeat trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet near the blackjack tables at the Trump Towers. Alternatively, Christie may have viewed Trump as a massive orange.
Christie soon became Trump's warm-up act on the road, sometimes performing magic tricks by making hot dogs disappear quickly. The prospect of more out-of-state travel, just as he had returned to the state and snow was starting to get moved off the state's thoroughfares, was the last straw for many newsmen. Newspapers from Longshoremen's Daily to the Newark G-String called for Christie to step down as Governor — though gently, to avoid cracking any concrete.
On March 1, Christie accompanied Trump to Louisville, Kentucky. Trump went to an auditorium to rebut Rubio's assertion that Trump had "short fingers," whereas Christie made a bee-line for a nearby KFC where he said the wings were "finger-lickin' good."
The next day, Christie introduced Trump at a rally in Palm Beach, Florida. Social media tried to understand Christie's bewildered expression and lack of enthusiasm during the rally, perhaps a sign that the food in the green room ran out, until Christie himself had to tweet that he had not indeed been taken hostage, and the look of indigestion on his face was in fact indigestion.
Trump promised to use Christie not merely as Defense Secretary but as an actual weapon of mass destruction, code-named Fat Man like the nuclear weapon dropped on Nagasaki, for possible use against North Korea.
See also[edit]
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