On Tuesday night, former US Attorney Chris Christie made history.
Essex County residents had reason to know that Chris Christie would be a different kind of candidate. After all, Christie, a Republican, got Jim Treffinger indicted and forced him to cop a plea for his corrupt activities as County Executive--and Christie didn't seem to give a rat's tail that Treffinger was a fellow Republican. And that, of course, was only the beginning. Most recently, Christie won the Republican nomination for Governor because he was affable, personable and approachable--things that Steve Lonegan was not, and for that matter that Jon Corzine is not, either. And if the best that Jon Corzine could come up with was that Chris Christie threw his weight around (literally), that only showed how desperate Corzine was.
And for good reason. One hundred forty public officials had gone the way of Treffinger for the past several years, and on the same grounds. Many of these officials were tied to Corzine. But even that wouldn't have been enough, under ordinary circumstances, for Chris Christie, or any Republican, to knock off a Democratic governor in a dyed-in-the-wool Democratic State.
But the circumstances were anything but ordinary.
First came Barack Obama. No matter what any other poll result says about most voters in New Jersey actually approving of Barack Obama, he has brought in a method of governance, and results, of which no reasonable voter can approve. Worse yet, for Corzine, Obama has brought to Washington certain other methods and attitudes that make Jim Treffinger look like a piker, as if New Jersey residents needed any reminders of the 140 Jim Treffingers that Christie had brought down.
And then came Rick Santelli's "Rant Heard 'Round the World," calling for a modern-day Tea Party:
In New Jersey, as elsewhere, ordinary citizens took Santelli's advice. The Tea Party Movement is at least as robust in New Jersey as it is everywhere else. And everybody--but everybody--underestimated them. The mainstream press ignored them, except that The Star-Ledger (Newark) did at least run this article about the participants in the 9/12 March on Washington. Meanwhile the Tea Party goers were quietly forming networks, talking up issues of individual liberty, and making a reasoned decision on which among ten candidates for Governor would be liberty's best friend.
Those are the people whom Chris Christie reached. And that is why Chris Christie will be New Jersey's next Governor. And what a margin--well over 100,000 votes! After multiple Presidential visits to the State, a horribly abusive absentee-ballot law, and--the kicker--the Democratic State Committee funding robocalls to Republican-leaning voters encouraging them to vote for Chris Daggett, a Democrat in all but name, Christie still won, and handily.
And as it turned out, it was a nearly clean Republican sweep in the Mid-Atlantic region. In Virginia, Bob McConnell and his two running mates all won their races with nearly 3 to 2 margins. McDonnell had everyone expecting him to win, but not by such a margin, and not with his running mates winning by similar margins.
The message ought to be clear: As the Japanese Admiral Yamamoto might have observed, statist politicians have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve. Business as usual will not do anymore. Neither will machine politics, whether it's the Chicago Way or the Hoboken Way or the Treffinger Way.
Comments