Christie and the 2013 Elections

Our chapter on elections discusses state and local races, and our chapter on federalism features of photo of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (who just won reelection) with Cory Booker, the Newark mayor who has become a US senator.  At The Daily Beast, Lloyd Green writes that Christie's landslide reelection yesterday puts him into presidential contention:

As he goes forward, Christie will need to address the questions that clouded his consideration as Romney’s running-mate. Christie will need to assure the party about his own integrity, and his tendency to conflate government with his own self. “Steering government contracts to friends and political allies” is not the best trait for a former federal prosecutor.

Still, the nation having endured Bill Clinton and the Devil in the Blue Dress, Bush 43’s eleventh-hour disclosures about driving under the influence, Obama’s alleged sweetheart deal with corrupt businessman Tony Rezko, and Romney’s offshore and overseas investments, Christie is far from being out of contention.

America has re-defined deviancy down. If a plagiarizing Joe Biden can become vice president, while a plagiarizing Rand Paul can mull the presidency, and a grifting Hillary Rodham Clinton can be the Democrats' leading contender, then Christie should be allowed his moment of glory.

Christie has done more than just log frequent flier miles by jetsetting around the world. He has demonstrated that bipartisanship is more than a dream or a speech applause line. Christie showed that he could reach across the aisle during Superstorm Sandy and he did it again on Election Day, winning two thirds of independents and a third of Democrats.

The scrum over the nation’s future did not end yesterday. The results remained too equivalent. Rejection of Obamacare was not enough to carry the day for Cuccinelli. The Tea Party lost, but it was not vanquished. In New York City, Bill de Blasio—an ex-Sandalista—romped to election as Mayor, while across the Hudson River, a moderate conservative had a landslide win of his own. There was something for everyone.

Wikipedia and the Vice Presidency

Micah Sifry writes at TechPresident:

The act of observing something can sometimes change the thing being observed. Case in point: myobservation on Monday that we might be able to get useful clues as to the identity of Mitt Romney's vice president pick by watching for a surge of edits on their Wikipedia page.

Not any more.

Last night, Stephen Colbert played a snippet of a Fox News report noting the jump in last-minute edits to Sarah Palin's page four years ago, and then he went to town. Assuming that Wikipedia edits were the tip-off, he declared, "We could be looking at Vice President Season Six of Buffy-the-Vampire Slayer. So, Nation, let your voice be heard in this history decision. Go on Wikipedia, and make as many edits as possible to your favorite VP contender." He then proceeded to mime editing Tim Pawlenty's page. (You can find the segment at about 8:40 minutes in, here.)

Well, Rob Portman's page has had 112 edits since Sunday, against 52 for Marco Rubio and just 18 for Pawlenty. But as of last night, the Pawlenty page was locked to protect it from vandalism. In addition, the Portman and Rubio pages have been "semi-protected" by site administrators, which means they can only be edited by registered users. The same thing has been done to the pages for Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and David Petraeus (who got a burst of attention yesterday because of an item on the Drudge Report). That means that only people who have already been on Wikipedia for at least four days and previously made ten edits to other unprotected pages can edit these pages.

Christie's Decision, Cain's Surge

Our chapter on elections and campaigns discusses the difficulties facing potential candidates, many of whom opt out. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie confirmed yesterday that he will not run for president in 2012. David Levinsky reports:

Rutgers political science professor David Redlawsk said Christie’s decision, while sound, might end up costing him a future shot at the White House, particularly if a Republican is successful next year.

“The biggest risk to today’s decision now is that any near-term path to the presidency will be blocked if a Republican beats President Obama in 2012. Christie will at best have to look at 2020, when he will no longer be a sitting governor,” Redlawsk said.“Even if he wins re-election in 2013, he will be done by 2018, leaving a couple of years potentially in the wilderness. And if he doesn’t win re-election as governor, he’s toast.”

The Newark Star-Ledger reports that Christie remains critical of the president:

Once the campaign begins in earnest, however, Christie will have to accept a secondary role to let the party coalesce around a nominee, said Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University.

“You can’t have too many voices muddying the waters,” Harrison said.

Democratic pollster Douglas E. Schoen suggests a possible beneficiary:

And the big winner today is Herman Cain. Cain is the winner because he's the only candidate climbing in the in polls. In the Fox News poll released last week and the Washington Post poll released Monday, Cain is surging, more than doubling his prior level of support up to 16 or 17 percent.

Rick Perry has seen his support plummet. and Perry is now in an effective statistical tie with Cain for second place.

The front runner, Mitt Romney is at about 25 %, has been at 25% and shows no signs of being able to grow beyond twenty-five percent.

In plain English, he's stuck.

Another way to put it is that 3 in 4 Republican voters are not considering voting for a man who ran last time and has been the most visible and active and aggressive of the candidates competing now for the nomination.

I had a chance to hear Herman Cain live and in person last night at the Monday Meeting in New York City. He brought the house down -- getting three standing ovations and captivating a crowd that is usually is more hard-headed and analytical than emotional.

Every poll that I've seen suggests that Republicans are looking for fresh faces, new ideas and most of all optimism about our future. Cain offers all of the above.