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Chris Christie and Jeb Bush Team Up on a Mutual Target: Marco Rubio

donsutherland1

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From The New York Times:

rustrated and flailing as his candidacy threatens to slip away, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is embarking on a scalding effort over the next week to discredit Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the man he blames for undermining his campaign and whose ascendancy he deeply resents...

The shared concern has even prompted the opening of a back channel: Members of the Bush and Christie campaigns have communicated about their mutual desire to halt Mr. Rubio’s rise in the polls, according to Republican operatives familiar with the conversations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/u...up-against-boy-in-the-bubble-marco-rubio.html

Resentment, vindictiveness, and a quest for the destruction of one's opponent are not leadership attributes, unless one is defining leadership under Trumpian standards. Is it any surprise that Mr. Christie and Mr. Bush have made no meaningful headway in the race? I think not.

With all due respect, Senator Rubio never advised Gov. Christie to absurdly declare that he'd shoot down Russian aircraft (Chris Christie Defends Saying He’d Shoot Down Russian Planes « CBS New York). Rubio did not lead Christie to underfund New Jersey's pensions further exacerbating that State's structural imbalances (N.J. credit rating cut record ninth time as Moody's cites pension shortfall | NJ.com). Senator Rubio also is not responsible for Bush's inability to articulate a compelling rationale for voters to support him.

All said, Christie and Bush further make, or to use Christie's oft-repeated terminology, "prosecute" the case that neither of them is Presidential material. I expected such conduct from Christie, but not so much from Bush. In doing so, they reveal the timelessness of Scottish poet James Thomson's keen observation, "Base Envy withers at another’s joy, And hates that excellence it cannot reach."

During Saturday's debate, Rubio should only rebut specific attacks, but conduct himself in a Presidential fashion. If Christie or Bush choose to make shrill attacks, they will only further close the door on their failing candidacies.
 
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This is part of the reason that the GOP side of the race is such a mess. Each one on the establishment side is unhappy unless they are the one who gets to "save" the party. On the anti-establishment side you've got two guys heading for a Hamilton/Burr style "debate". In theory you'd bet someone over in GOP HQ would call an adult over to separate the children. Maybe there just isn't an adult available.


The more this crap keeps up the more I'm convinced that the GOP needs to implode so that they can rebuild. Maybe, if things get bad enough, we'll see a real Conservative party develop.
 
From The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/u...up-against-boy-in-the-bubble-marco-rubio.html

Resentment, vindictiveness, and a quest for the destruction of one's opponent are not leadership attributes, unless one is defining leadership under Trumpian standards. Is it any surprise that Mr. Christie and Mr. Bush have made no meaningful headway in the race? I think not.

Christie has always been a bit of a bully. This helps him in New Jersey, where it's part of the culture, but plays poorly elsewhere. The unfortunate case here is Jeb, who always seemed an honorable man making a campaign out of being the honorable man... until it was time to turn on his friend for advantage.

In Iowa, it may be that him doing so actually blew back and helped Rubio. We'll see if a similar effect hits New Hampshire (though I doubt it - Iowans were less likely to be initially sympathetic to Jeb, New Hampshire folks are more likely to be so).

With all due respect, Senator Rubio never advised Gov. Christie to absurdly declare that he'd shoot down Russian aircraft (Chris Christie Defends Saying He’d Shoot Down Russian Planes « CBS New York).

As a Hawk - that was crazy. You cannot get into a shooting war with Russia unintentionally, you moron. If our nation requires a war with Russia, we go to war with Russia. But to accidentally trigger one because you wanted to look tough on television? Insanity.

During Saturday's debate, Rubio should only rebut specific attacks, but conduct himself in a Presidential fashion. If Christie or Bush choose to make shrill attacks, they will only further close the door on their failing candidacies.

Rubio's strength is that he can pivot from responding to an attack to aspirational response. I think that's the move to practice.
 
I consider myself to be an average voter, have split my vote over the decades fairly equally between republican and democratic presidential candidates, and in 2008 refused to vote for either. A couple of years ago, I would have strongly considered Christie as a presidential candidate. However, since the "retaliation" bridge debacle, two things became apparent: 1) Either He had full knowledge of and was involved in the corrupt endeavor which negatively affected thousands of his own constituents; 2) Or he didn't have the slightest idea of what his top aides were planning on the other side of his office door.

Neither option is acceptable; therefore, I will definitely not be supporting a Christie presidency in the foreseeable future.

Jeb Bush, well, I understand he has a fairly good reputation for healing many of Florida's most pressing problems when he was governor. Also, he has good name recognition, a fact which is more of a problem for him than it ordinarily would, given his brother's administrative decisions. Now I won't blame Jeb for what his brother did, and I thought very highly of Bush Sr., voted for him twice, but Jeb has run a completely amatuer, mish-mash of a campaign and quite frankly is looking like a greenhorn at his first rodeo. At this point, he isn't totally off the table for me, but he's going to have to nail every bucking horse between now and the California primaries to earn my serious consideration.

"Teaming up" like a pair of envious high school kids scheming to take out the jock who is getting more dates than they are makes both Bush and Christie look pathetic. It's petty, it's vindictive, and it's utterly childish.

All I really know about Rubio is that he hasn't made me hate him yet, lol. That automatically gives him an edge in this ridiculous lineup of GOP candidates still in the running. BTW, John Kasich hasn't made me hate him either... yet. :lol:
 
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I actually expected this to happen. There are 6 establishment candidates in the race and there can only be one. Let them go all Highlander on each other. Bush has already gotten schooled by Rubio once. But Christie actually knows how to throw a barb unlike Bush so we'll have to wait and see...
 
But Christie actually knows how to throw a barb unlike Bush so we'll have to wait and see...

Christie has a "glass jaw" so to speak. Although he's talked about Social Security reform, for example, his opponents are in a position to demonstrate that his talk is hollow rhetoric. New Jersey has faced a growing pension funding issue that that predates his tenure in office. His choices, including reduced funding for a plan with a large unfunded liability, have exacerbated that program's financial situation and this outcome has been cited in repeated credit ratings downgrades. In other words, if he passed up the opportunity to address his own state's pension issue, is there any reason voters should expect a dramatically different strategy when it comes to Social Security? So far, none of his opponents have gone after him on that issue. He's polling very weakly. But if he aggressively continues with his sophomoric rhetoric concerning Senator Rubio, Rubio is fully capable of putting a focus on Christie's record as governor, including the pension/credit ratings issues.
 
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