The Case for Chris Christie

The other day, while walking into the community center to vote, a couple of folks (one Republican and one Democrat) struck me up for a conversation.  While having a good natured chat about the local items on the ballot, the Democrat asked me who, among the current bunch running for the Republican nomination for President, I favor.

Interestingly, no one had asked me yet, so I hadn’t been forced to really think about it too much.  But, standing there, on the spot, I began to speak/think out loud.  It went something like this:

Well, I guess I could split the bunch into 3 categories: 1) The Outsiders, who are currently doing well in the polls (Carson, Fiorina, and Trump); 2) The Senators (Cruz, Graham, Paul, Rubio, and Santorum; and 3) The Governors (Bush, Christie, Gilmore, Huckabee, Jindal, Kasich, and Pataki).

Group 1 – The Outsiders: I generally don’t like these folks.  Not because they lack the proper governing philosophy (conservatism to one degree or another), but because they lack governing experience.  It’s easy to claim that career politicians are the blame for the troubles that vex our nation, but that brand of thinking is lazy and faulty.  My response to this thinking is found in my August 9, 2010 blog.  Beyond that, I’ll point to, really, what I think is the best example of why I don’t want a newbee in the White House: President Obama.  Regardless of what you think of his liberal philosophy, he has shown that he can’t administrate himself out of a wet paper bag – let alone manage a ~4.1million person workforce composed largely of people you can’t simply fire (not saying it’s right.  Just saying it is).

So these folks don’t cut it in my book.

Group 2 – The Senators: Similar trouble as the Outsiders.  Managing a staff of 50 (who you can fire for wearing a neck tie that displeases you) isn’t quite the same as managing the aforementioned staff of ~4.1 million.  Being in the Senate can give you some valuable experience in examining the faults and common problems throughout the federal government.  But that can only happen if you’ve been in the Senate for a good chunk of time and bothered to show up to do committee work from time to time (out goes half of this group).  For the two who did spend any time of note in the Senate, conducting oversight and getting to know some parts of the executive branch – for these two in particular, I still don’t know why they’re running.

So these folks largely don’t cut it for me either.

Group 3 – The Governors: For the most part, these folks are approaching the governing philosophy from the right direction, and they have experience to varying degrees running the executive branch of government – at a state level.  So, among these, who catches my attention?

Bush – I have troubles with him not because of him, but because something inside of me doesn’t think it’s good for America to have a 3^rd person from any family as President in such close generational proximity to the others.

Gimore, Huckabee, Jindal, and Pataki – why are they running?

Kasich – Seems to be a fairly decent dude.  Good executive experience at the federal level, as well as in a governor’s mansion.  About as interesting as dish water, but that really shouldn’t be a disqualifier.  I’m not voting for someone based on whether they’d be an interesting person to chat with at the bar.  I want someone who can govern.

Christie – My thoughts on him are based largely on what a deeply entrenched and high ranking Democrat party political operative (who will remain nameless) in New Jersey once confided to me: “that guy can govern.  He’s on the other team, but the state government actually works in New Jersey now.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  He brought in people who know how to manage, and this state is actually functioning properly for the first time in all of my experience.”  This was coming from an absolute political hack who hated admitting anything positive about Christie!

To me, that's much of what a President (Article II of the Constitution) is about – implementing and enforcing laws.  For all of the moaning we have about government bureaucracies, they are simply (for the most part) implementing programs that Congress passed at the behest of their constituents. 

If we’re going to have these departments, agencies, and programs, shouldn’t they at least be properly run?  Once they are truly and properly being operated, then we can have an honest discussion about whether or not some of the programs they are implementing should expire, or be reauthorized by Congress.  Until then, you never really know if the program is lousy because it’s a bad idea, or if it’s lousy because no one bothered to implement it correctly.

This was more or less my thinking-out-loud-answer to the two fellows I was chatting with outside the community center.

Chris Christie is my guy because he’s gotten the begrudging admiration from his (privately) honest adversaries, because he’s conservative (but not a lunatic), because he’s an experienced chief executive of an executive branch of government, and lastly, but not least, he seems awfully genuine.  On that last point, perhaps I'll concede a little bar-stool thinking into my decision making.

Go Governor Christie.  I hope you make it!