I was listening on CSPAN to yesterday’s speeches at some RGA (Republican Governors Association) meeting, and it struck me: we were all assuming a… somewhat ‘meh’ year for the RGA. And it was realistic to do so: we had had such a great year in 2010 everybody figured that there’d be a reversion to the mean. I mean, we knew about Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania. We figured that Florida was going to be heavy lifting, and many of us figured that Rick Scott wouldn’t make it through. Maine and Paul LePage, likewise. Sam Brownback in Kansas was being treated as a dead man walking. There were even people worried about Rick Snyder in Michigan and Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
…Well. Corbett got eviscerated, on cue. Sean Parnell in Alaska eventually lost, in what can be charitably called a ‘mess’ of an election. But all those other people won – and then we flipped Illinois, Massachusetts, Arkansas, and Maryland. That’s a solid win for the RGA, which means that it’s a solid win for Chris Christie. Maryland’s Governor-elect Larry Hogan in particular couldn’t thank Christie enough for the RGA’s help, which was indeed easily the most significant support that the Hogan campaign got from the GOP*. That will have an effect on donors and organizations. And it’s a legitimate one: being able to win in tough places to win is pretty much the yardstick that we’re using for our Presidential candidates**.
This doesn’t make Chris Christie inevitable. It does make him more plausible, and you should probably take his candidacy seriously. Because he might end up being the nominee.
Moe Lane
*I don’t even think that Hogan is all that upset about it. It was such a genuinely out-of-nowhere result that, really, how can you be annoyed that people didn’t really expect you to win the lottery?
**When you think about it, Scott Walker’s appeal to the conservative grassroots is based on the same criterion. Walker went into progressive-held territory and carved out an empire, complete with a Throne of Skulls.
“We figured that Florida was going to be heavy lifting, and many of us figured that Rick Scott wouldn’t make it through.”
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Who is this ‘we’ nonsense? I knew from the primary onward that Charlie Crist had a snowball’s chance in hell to win. The onky shocking thing that came out of the election was how close it was, not the outcome.
I don’t know if it was shocking that it was close. Scott was in pretty bad shape in the popularity department for the majority of his first term. His strong primary showing was indicative of his eventual win, but the opposition to him was always pretty strong. The dems weak primary showing was most likely due to crap candidates.
Hey, if Cristy is good at getting R Governors he can just stay head of the RGA for a few more cycles and skip the whole running for President thing.
Because as we’ve learned, being good at winning elections is not the same thing as being a good President.
CC seems to be a Republican only because it was a faster track to nomination than waiting in the Dem line.
I don’t think it’s anything more complicated as that he’s from New Jersey. Not many deeply conservative politicians come from there. He’s not a Michael Bloomberg who was only a Republican (briefly) so he could get on the ballot in NYC.
Reworking of an old OLD joke:
You know what we call New Jersey Republicans here in Texas? – – – Democrats.”
And Flipping IL was great, but, imho, expected. Quin barely won election back in `10 and was just a disaster for pretty much his whole term. He was a dead man walking. He had some success tarring the R challenger as a robber baron, but just wasn’t going to be enough in a Repuclican year. And it wasn’t.
The biggest mistake the IL Dems made was letting Quinn win the nomination uncontested. Even Daley could’ve probably won IL this year. Lisa Madigan had an even better shot.
Quinn was their Corbett only the media didn’t talk about it so only a few people considered our chances in IL to be good.
Getting a bunch of Donor money and then shuffling it to needy GOP candidates, doesn’t make Christie electable nationally. Though he’s still a better candidate then John Kasich.
A note about Parnell – one upside to his loss is that he is now eligible to be a front-runner for Don Young’s House Seat in the next election (or if Young falls over in a heart attack). Young won his election but all I heard from everyone around me was “this is the last time, he’s getting senile” and the comments he made on the campaign trail didn’t go over well. I think Parnell’s loss is largely attributed to the current kerfuffle over the Alaska National Guard sort-of-scandal (which the Anchorage media did everything they could to keep it in the news) and the strong Alaskan Native uprising over the proposed Pebble Mine issue (which could be seen in the matching Proposition over that issue). Both of those will largely fade away in the next few years and shouldn’t have much impact on a House seat election. Parnell would be excellent in the House and could go up against anyone the Dem’s raise as a challenger, including soon to be ex-Senator Begich. So it might be one of those “lost the battle but won the war” scenarios.
Moe, remember the flak I took when I told people that Mitt Romney would probably lose to Obama.
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Well I’m probably going to get flak again, cause I’m going to say flat out that Chris Christie would probably lose to whomever the Democrat Candidate is in 2016. A lot of Conservatives believe he threw the election to Obama in 2012 (whether that is deserved or not is open to debate). More importantly, the reason he will lose is because he really doesn’t play well with people in the midwest, he comes across as extremely obnoxious.
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In fact one woman actually told me today that she would actually leave the Presidential column blank rather than vote for Christie.
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Scott Walker is a much better candidate because he doesn’t come across as obnoxious.
I’m going to agree with you.
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If the New Jersey Whale is the nominee, I’m voting Libertarian.
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Mew
5’ed, with a can of kitty treats and some catnip. 🙂