McCain doesn't like the gays I figured that would give him some street cred with the religious right, but it really didn't.

As far as 2012 goes I'd bet a large sum of money that a Republican will win the presidency and I'm a pretty big Obama fan although a slightly disappointed one. I've become fairly convinced our country is full of short sited idiots who are more concerned about instant gratification than anything else. (to clarify I'm not saying they are idiots if Obama is not reelected, just that they are idiots) With the continuing dealignment and the bumpy road likely ahead of this country I wouldn't be surprised if we don't have a two term president for a very long time.

McCain is consistantly named as one of the worst bosses to work for on The Hill, along with Specter. One reason alot of conservatives hate him, at least here in town, is that he is a Numero Uno guy with the media, always consumed with positioning himself as a power borker to uphold his Straight Talk image/franchise. And, he's not a particularly nice person to staffers, etc.

On one hand, its good that he doesn't toe the party line, on the other, he's pretty full of his image. He seems like the guy in work meetings who sits quietly and then towards the end says, "well I know you all are waiting to hear what I think." Then the air goes out of the room.

I don't dislike him as a Senator/policymaker, I just think he's a little overidentified as the conservative that liberals/democrats admit to liking on some level. He's not viewed by the right much differently than Lieberman is by the left.

McCain doesn't toe the line on a few issues. But by and large, he's a conservative. He's at least as conservative as Bush, and more conservative than Romney.

His lack of public religiosity might be a small problem with the evangelicals, but who out there will have national appeal and not have those problems?

The point is, the attacks that came at him from the right seem out of proportion to his alleged moderateness. It was indeed personal. Many of the posts on this thread bear that out.

The thing is, the more ideological conservatives are now pointing to McCain's failure as reason to not nominate a so-called moderate again. The problem with that is McCain really isn't so moderate. And the only position that really puts him out of step with most voters is his position on immigration. But as Rove and Bush understood, there are long term demographic issues with that.

Now, part of this probably does reflect my bias, as vox pointed out. But let's be clear about all that. I miss country club Republicans. I wish there were more of them. At least there you have a little bit of good old fashioned noblesse oblige.

I'm fairly ambivalent about Governor Christie so far. I applaud him to a large degree for acknowledging without any real tapdancing that things are pretty fucked right now. There's going to be a fair amount of pain; I just hope he does what he can to spread the pain around as equitably as possible.

However, every time I see him in a dark suit I can't help but imagine it being covered in powdered sugar.

McCain and Romney have/had the same problem: past acts of apostasy created a need to overcompensate. Neither makes a very effective convert, though: McCain's self-regard as the Last Righteous Man makes it evident that he's faking, and Romney is such an over the top bull shitter that the performance isn't believable.

I have no idea whom the Rs will nominate in 2012, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a non-politician who poses the big threat to Obama. Question is whether that guy will be a Republican or an Indy, with the Rs getting their Palin on and winning three states or so.

Bakestar wrote:I'm fairly ambivalent about Governor Christie so far. I applaud him to a large degree for acknowledging without any real tapdancing that things are pretty $#@! right now. There's going to be a fair amount of pain; I just hope he does what he can to spread the pain around as equitably as possible.

However, every time I see him in a dark suit I can't help but imagine it being covered in powdered sugar.

I absolutely agree with you (although not necessarily about the powdered sugar) but as somebody who had to sit through a very, very painful school budget meeting tonight my opinion about Chris Christie is changing for the worst hour by hour. I understand he didn't start the fire but that does not make the funding cuts any easier to take.

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie proposes budget sacrifices to close $10.7B deficit

Gov. Chris Christie's N.J. budget plan key points

dajafi wrote:McCain and Romney have/had the same problem: past acts of apostasy created a need to overcompensate. Neither makes a very effective convert, though: McCain's self-regard as the Last Righteous Man makes it evident that he's faking, and Romney is such an over the top bull $#@! that the performance isn't believable.

I have no idea whom the Rs will nominate in 2012, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a non-politician who poses the big threat to Obama. Question is whether that guy will be a Republican or an Indy, with the Rs getting their Palin on and winning three states or so.

People expected...

Re: Christie

He would charge seniors more for prescription drugs and drop childless adults from welfare.

While essentially giving a tax break to the wealthy! Those guys making $400,000 + a year really need their money, but the old and those without a baby on welfare? Fuck em.

Can't wait till Sweeney kicks his ass in 2013, but its going to be a long 4 years.

wow. even at the end, those comments weren't really all that thoughtful, they just weren't yelling.

I particularly liked the treatment of the man with Parkinsons.

TenuredVulture wrote:http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/multimedia/video/video.html?video=949486

I like the guy throwing dollar bills at the guy who says he has Parkinson's. Very adult like.

its true, he is lazy and should go get a job! stop asking for handouts guy who cant control his muscle contractions!

Whenever I see one of those clips, I'm reminded of the South Park rabblerabblerabble gimmick. The people at those rallies make about as much sense as that.

One thing that really stood out to me was that not only is he cutting education funding but he is proposing legislation that would limit school boards to a 2.5% tax increase annually (which is down from the current 4.0% limit). This, of course, is on top of the money that he stole from school districts earlier this year when he froze state spending which forced school districts to use their surpluses (those that had one).

While I understand the purpose, I think the 4.0% cap is a bad idea let alone reducing it by 150 bps. I say there should not be a cap; let school districts and municipalities ask for whatever they want and leave it to the voters to say "Yes" or "No".

My district is considering cutting many programs to close our nearly $2.0 million budget gap. Things such as elementary music programs and freshman sports, as well as potential 30 FTEs are possibly gone. Our board is even considering closing one of our elementary schools. I cannot tell you how many parents stood up last night and asked if/how they could fundraise to try to save some of the programs; how many suggested pay-to-play for sports and other student activities.

My point is that voters/taxpayers are not as stupid as Trenton and Washington would like to believe. This thread alone is evidence of how many bright/connected people there are out there in voter-land. I might not mind paying an extra $150 or $200 a year in taxes if I know that it is going to help keep MAP testing or a Science teacher in the high school. But districts do not have the option of asking for more because of such restrictive legislation.

jerseyhoya wrote:N.J. Gov. Chris Christie proposes budget sacrifices to close $10.7B deficit

Gov. Chris Christie's N.J. budget plan key points

I'm so out-of-the loop when it comes to politics, but I was listening to NPR on my way to SC last Monday, and there was an NJ guy promoting his foundation that is educating the "little people" who want to get into politics at the local level to promote fiscal change.

Something that he was discussing as part of the fiscal issues NJ has in particular is all the little towns/counties/school districts with their full-time staffs and the costs that incurs, mostly in salaries and benefits. Something that he's promoting is regionalizing a number of the services that these provide, in order to cuts these costs, specifically looking at public utilities and school districts.

Whatever this guy's story is, some of the anecdotal changes that came out of his work included a local school district who cut their health insurance costs in half by getting into the state employee's insurance instead of their plan (at "small business" rates).

Hopefully these are the types of changes that we're going to see to get the state running more efficiently.

I might write something later about the NJ budget, hopefully after dinner when I'm on my 5th Smithwicks, but among the things I liked the best of Christie's budget were the things people are complaining about here...making seniors pay higher copays and the 2.5% cap on school budgets. The cap on budgets can be overridden by a referendum so it's not a hard cap, but if the growth of property taxes is ever going to get under control, the default assumption on local budgets needs to be really small increase in line with inflation.

I hope the compromise Christie and the state Dems can come to is to reinstate the tax on folks who earn above $400k for one more year, and split the money between restoring the portion of the earned income tax credit that was cut (the only part of the budget I was legitimately embarrassed about), paying into the state pension plan (even a few hundred mil could make for a nice gesture), and then the rest as school aid to local districts. I like that Christie didn't include the temporary income tax surcharge in his proposal because when both sides see renewing temporary taxes as an assumed starting point, they end up as permanent tax hikes. He said he'd veto any tax hikes, but we'll see where negotiations lead.

The stuff that MrsVox brings up about local consolidation is really important in the long run if the state is serious about getting its fiscal house in order. Hopefully the state's economy starts growing over this year and by next year the state budget can afford to buy off towns to combine themselves or something.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBI02nn6X0s&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
I haven't watched the series yet, but I'll post any good parts. I imagine it will be a mix of libertarianism, school choice, lower business taxes, etc. I'm more interested in seeing what kinds of evidence or case studies they use.

jerseyhoya wrote:The stuff that MrsVox brings up about local consolidation is really important in the long run if the state is serious about getting its fiscal house in order. Hopefully the state's economy starts growing over this year and by next year the state budget can afford to buy off towns to combine themselves or something.

My friend, the conservative Republican small town mayor and current Congressional candidate says that the savings there aren't as big as you might think. Service consolidation can have a some impact in some circumstances, but in most cases, he says it makes almost no sense to combine entire municipalities. (There are probably a handful of exceptions like Pahaquarry, population 6.)

If I were looking for waste in NJ government budgets, I'd start with the Counties. It seems you've got next to no accountability with how counties spend their money, and there are few counties that aren't dominated by the political machine of one party or the other.