Via the comments at this D-Day post, here is an idea I support completely:
how about some dem signage outside the clocked NJ tunnels and bridges reminding folks:
Traffic Jam Courtesy Gov. Christie.
Make them eat their decisions. Let every voter sitting in traffic for hours know just who is responsible. Sounds like a winner to me.
The Republic of Stupidity
I like it…
Nice and low-tech…
Simple… direct… would be seen DAILY by the people most affected by the situation… nothing to water or feed…
TRUE…
ChrisS
I support this as well.
I know a lot of dems supported globalization and free trade back in the 1970s and 1980s, but I think that in every little shit-hole town that used to be a vibrant community, there should be signs thanking politicians and business leaders for fucking the american worker.
Davis X. Machina
The effectiveness of such signs depends on your answer to this question:
“Assuming you’re pissed off at being stuck in traffic, are you more or less pissed off at being stuck in traffic than liberals are pissed off because Governor Christie shit-canned the tunnel?”
Go sell your copies of The Federalist Papers and Richard Hofstadter and both Arthur Schlesingers to an unsuspecting AP US Government student.
“What will piss liberals off?” Because that’s what it’s all about.
It’s in Burke. Or Oakeshott. Or Nozick. I forget which. But it’s in there someplace.
scav
Alex
I’m down with it as soon as I find out what a “clocked tunnel” is.
Napoleon
Heck, the local Dem party could pay one of those planes that fly a banner behind it to fly over the traffic jam while they sit there with that message on the banner.
PaulW
but… but… Christie will have his fee-fees hurt!
Here’s a better solution for the traffic problems. Have all registered Republicans walk to work instead of driving. Maybe then they’ll support transportation infrastructure projects.
TR
Oh hell yes.
Zifnab
This is the kind of grassroots rabble rousing we could use more of.
ruemara
@Zifnab:
Then the grassroots rabble rousing better start now, because the GOP certainly are starting.
ChrisS
A lot of people support mass transit commuter rail because they want other people to ride in order to reduce traffic.
Of course, until people realize how much of their fuel consumption is wasted pushing their vehicle and not them. People will reconsider commuting to NYC from CT and NJ in an Expedition when it costs them $500 to fill up.
sherifffruitfly
Won’t matter. Obama, Muslims, and Mexicans will still have brown skin.
matoko_chan
Chris Christie is FAT.
Alex S.
I can’t, Dancing with the Stars is on.
Zam
Republicans have a plan for that, it’s called massive job loss. That way no one has to drive anywhere, or owns a car for that matter.
danimal
Great idea. It’s the liberal response to the conservative billboards claiming Obama = Hitler/Stalin/Lenin/Mao.
Except ours is based in something approximating reality.
WyldPirate
@PaulW:
And he might start overeating as well and become obese and cost the taxpayers a shit load of money in health costs.
Eric S.
Back in 1998 Illinois Gubernatorial candidate George Ryan had a billboard sign up along The Eisenhower Expressway (I290) that promised, if elected, he’d fix the Hillside Stragler, a notorious bottle neck. The sign was in the middle of the bottle neck. Drivers idling on the expressway during rush hour stared at it for many minutes on end. George won. Many people gave credit to that promise for pushing him along.
Perry Como
I’m guessing the majority of people stuck in the tunnel traffic aren’t the ones who voted for Christie.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@sherifffruitfly: I think you may have won the thread, here.
bleh
Or a bumper sticker:
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Also, too: It might not be a bad idea to counter-picket outside of abortion clinics with signs that read:
Your Abstinence Education At Work!
But I think that might fly right over their wee little heads.
Blackfrancis
This is totally a job for the freeway blogger!
Culture of Truth
We could hand out little jars of preserves labeled “Chris Christie’s Traffic Jam”
Culture of Truth
Or little medicine jars labeled “ObamaCare: Stimulates and Relieves Congestion”
Scott de B.
And plenty of current Dems do. Myself, for one.
Tim I
It’s a great idea, but I would also put up signs where train passengers could see them. As it is now, you can ride the Acela (our version of high speed rail) from DC to NYC and then find yourself stranded for half an hour waiting to cross the Hudson.
The delays are even worse if you are on a regular Amtrak or commuter train, as the Acela gets priority treatment.
Citizen_X
@bleh: Clever! But that’s its downfall; it requires a moment’s thought.
aimai
@Davis X. Machina:
You know, I really doubt that is correct. I mean, sure, “this will piss liberals off” is behind a lot of what motivates right wing voters. But its usually attached to something that they find actually gratifying: like driving your hummer around town on Earth Day, or throwing stuff out instead of donating it, or hunting, or whatever. Sitting in traffic for fifteen minutes staring a a sign that says “Governor Christie Thought You’d Rather be Eating Fumes Than Do Anything Else!” kind of puts the whole thing in perspective.
Its definitely time to bring back the Freeway Sign Bandit, but this time with an emphasis on jobs, the environment, and the royal republican screwing that will now dramatize for the voters just what they forgot about the last 10 years.
aimai
wasabi gasp
Also, pictures of Obama on tongue depressors.
Maude
The Pew poll says a majority of people in NJ approve of Christie getting rid of the tunnel. This was before NJ Transit was billed for $271 million by the Feds.
People have no idea what this will do to the state.
eemom
can someone explain to me why Christie is considered a contender for the dreckulous array of 2012 republican presidential prospects? I mean even for the republicans it’s kind of ridiculous.
ruemara
@eemom:
He’s fat, boorish, obnoxious, completely hypocritical and is on tv a lot. Ergo, perfect conservative presidential material.
Rosalita
Yeah! An East Coast Freeway Blogger…
Mike from Philly
“Sounds like a winner to me.”
It is – which is why it won’t happen.
Hal
You mean future POTUS Chris Christie, don’t you? I expect him to begin dropping pounds and in about a year, he’ll have replaced Huckabee as the former fattie Governor turned obvious heir to the Regan empire.
Davis X. Machina
@aimai: At this point in the decline of our Republic people are content to sit hungry with their hungry children in the stands and watch the morality play — provided the hero-victims look like them, and the villains look like the Other, they’ll sell their children to get the ticket.
Carthage had Moloch. We’ve got Rush. But the sacrifice of the firstborn is the same…
MattR
@eemom: He has all the talking points memorized and has not done anything spectacularly stupid yet to torpedo his chances.
Martin
@aimai: I don’t think ‘piss liberals off’ is it. I thought it was, but after talking to more people, I think that’s wrong.
I think Rush is the patron saint of this mindset:
They don’t care about pissing us off. But they’re going to take any bit of advise that is supposed to help them and do the opposite, just out of principle. That study that showed when the power company tells you how much more/less power you use than your neighbors? Republicans went out of their way to use more – even though they were paying for it. The explanation I got: nobody is going to tell them what to do.
Seriously, the Obamas and Olbermann and George Soros should run a 30 second spot during the Superbowl telling people that dousing themselves in gasoline and lighting a candle is very bad for them, and have Al Gore and Michael Moore come out with a bunch of Powerpoint graphs and that motorized lift thing.
Before the game is over there’d be nothing but Democrats and Independents left.
Joshua
@MattR: Well, I would argue he has, but you can’t understimate the effect that bullying and finger pointing has on the authoritarians that make up the core of the modern Republican base.
This is not even getting to the whole “NJ’s economy still sucks after a year, wtf Christie” thing which is what the teabags said about Obama.
TR
@Martin:
This.
Linda Featheringill
@Martin:
[#39]
LOL. Thank you. The brightest note to appear in a rather dreary day.
[still chuckling]
Southern Beale
That’s the kind of signage that billboard advertisers like Lamar routinely deny for being “overly partisan.”
Sounds like a job for some local freeway bloggers.
Joshua
@Martin: This mindset also speaks to the difficulty of market-based reform, because many people are, alas, not rational. And it also shows why ads in the “Do it anyway, you’re a man” genre work so well. Insightful post, thanks.
Citizen_X
@Scott de B.: There’s not a lot of “free trade” in the modern world. Free trade means the free movement of capital, goods/services, and labor. Which requires that there be rough parity in income levels between two different entities.
You can have free trade between the states, which was established with the adoption of U.S. Constitution. We could have free trade with Canada. But when you talk about “free trade” between, say the U.S. and China, then you’re just taking advantage of the captivity of workers in the poorer country. If you establish “free trade” with a poor country on your doorstep, like Mexico, then you’re got the worst of both worlds: trade (U.S. corn exports, in this case) destabilizes agriculture in Mexico, causing rural poverty in the south, which causes workers to flood into the U.S., depressing the wages of Americans.
Modern “free trade” has been a scam.
debbie
Genius idea. It contains just the right amount of snark for the NJ/NYC area, and it would go great with a photo I have of a street sign in front of the Metropolitan Museum: “Don’t even think of parking here.”
Athenae
Outdoor advertising in NJ. Who owns the billboards near the tunnels, and how much do they cost? We find that out, raise the money, design the billboard and put it up. Usually around here it’s Lamar and Adams Outdoor, but I dunno what the companies out there are.
A.
TR
@Southern Beale:
There are a couple apartment buildings in Jersey City right over the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. I’m betting you could find a Democrat or twelve in there to hang a banner out the window.
Lolis
Dems never seem to do any offense.
Ricky Roma
@Perry Como: My guess is that this is wrong, and a lot of people driving into New York are Republicans/Christie supporters. Some portion of NJ has an obscene love of cars, no matter how bad traffic gets.
I don’t know what the distinguishing factor is. I know both people on the right and left who live in towns specifically for train access to NY, and people on the right and left who scoff at the concept of mass transit. Being in marketing, publishing, or banking doesn’t seem to determine which camp they are in either.
Dork
How about: Empty Buffet Table Courtesy Gov. Christie
Kryptik
Hey, don’t forget, Christie is more popular than Obama, Zogby sez so! Why do you hate the will of the American Peeplez?!
Violet
@Lolis:
Exactly. Dems suck at offense.
FWIW, I was just in the car and listened to Limbaugh for about five minutes. He was going on about the purge of the Blue Dogs from the Dem party and how the “far left” was really happy about it (said he was following all this on the “far left blogs”). He said the far left was thrilled about the “purity” of the party now. He also commented on the Steny Hoyer/James Clyburn contest for Minority whatever-the-job-is and how Clyburn was going to have to “go to the back of the bus.”
How is it that despite the teabaggers tearing the GOP apart, the Dems are the ones who can’t get their party together? Sigh.
sparky
@Martin: nice post.
for myself, i’d say that Rush is the embodiment/enabler of narcissistic behaviour among certain segments of the american population.
also of note in this connection: the demand that “I” be able to do [X], where X can be, for example *cough* arrange for “my own” garbage collection, is always a demand for further consumption.
likewise, in politics, narcissists, definitionally, cannot be satisfied.
Church Lady
@Maude: Which is worse: a 271 million dollar payback to the feds or a multi-billion dollar cost overrun which would have been the responsibility of the NJ taxpayer? I know which one I would pick if I lived there. NJ, like NY, Illinois and California, is broke.
Nick
My guess is people who voted for Christie much rather sit in hours of traffic than admit they voted for the wrong guy.
And I’m not so sure he wins reelection anyway in 2013…too many strong Dem candidates.
RalfW
That’s how we gotta win HCR, too. TV ads of white middle class families with early 20’s kids “The GOP took our son Steve’s health insurance away, now he’s sick and we’re bankrupt”
Bad stretch of potholed road? Billboard saying “neglected highway courtesy of GOP failure”
Over and over, hammer the GOP for cutting programs that are popular in exchange for tax cuts for rich fat bastards.
Kryptik
@Violet:
Because a third of our party seems to constantly agree with folks like Rush, and another third are so beholden to the idea of ‘bipartisanship’ and ‘moderation’ to the point of utter contrarianism.
In other words, the only thing the country abhors more than a Democrat is a filthy lib.
Nick
@Lolis:
sure they do. They just get beat down and criticized by all sides when they do
Allan
Jerry Brown’s got a new web feature asking Californians to submit their ideas and suggestions to turn our state around.
I used it to suggest that he invest heavily in infrastructure including broadband internet, aggressively pursue any federal funds that become available due to red state governors’ posturing, then ADVERTISE to the businesses of that red state that they should relocate to CA to take advantage of our superior infrastructure.
aimai
@Nick:
That’s a typically stupid thing to say. The issue isn’t whether they have to “admit” that they voted for the wrong guy at all–its whether they learn from this that voting has consequences, even for them, and not just for black people or welfare queens or liberals. We do, in fact, know from just watching people deal with ideas in real life that people can and do rethink their positions when the consequences of their positions are dramatized for them. It should be obvious that very few teabaggers, and certainly no actual indpendents, ever really think through the implications of the policies they claim to support. Few even know what those policies are. Fewer can even name or grasp how those policies become law. Bringing that home to even a few voters, or raising the rage of the democratic voters, is a definitionally good thing.
aimai
sparky
reading the comments, it appears that many people here don’t have a clear picture of the NJ-NYC commuting scene. people who drive to NYC from NJ already know the score, and they are not taking NJ transit now, and to them the tunnel is irrelevant. (incidentally, much of the worst traffic is within the state rather than to NYC.)
IMO there might be more utility in pointing out to people who reside in, say Bergen and Essex counties that their NJ Transit delays are due to CC. also, they could say, especially in Bergen, that CC just lopped $20,000 of the value of their residence, as there would now never be a faster commute to the city. probably running an ad every so often in the papers would be best.
@aimai: agreed. but this presupposes a certain savvy amongst the professional political class that is not usually visible. and of course, there’s also a mountain of disinformation to overcome. none of that is a reason to throw in the towel, however.
MattR
@Church Lady:
Which of those two is real and which only exists in your head?
But accepting your choice as real, given that the cost overrun results in the existence of a tunnel that is very badly needed I will still pick the overrun.
@sparky: I am under the impression that one of the things the tunnel will do is make commuting from some areas of NJ (and Rockland in NY where I grew up) into NYC much more convenient which would theoretically lead to an increase in the number of people taking mass transit.
@me: Both NY and NJ should contract with their own companies and just hope the two ends of the tunnel actually meet in the middle under the Hudson.
Joshua
@Church Lady: I’m a NJ taxpayer, and if the tunnel, which is very much needed, that comes out of those cost overruns (which were the responsibility of NJ because this was a NJ Transit program – I thought Christie was going to run a tight ship?) leads to more good, high-paying jobs in New Jersey, I will take the cost overruns.
Let me show you the Interstate Highway System. It was and is massively expensive, and it far exceeded the cost. But was it worth it? Have it helped grow the American economy? Ever hear of the phrase, “you have to spend money to make money”?
me
Maybe everyone in New Jersey should be allowed to contract for their own tunnel building. That would be more ideologically correct.
alwhite
OT and designed to bring calls of “firebagger!” But really, is anyone surprised?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/09/103468/obama-administration-moving-away.html
Administration is backing away from 2011 date for Afghanistan pull out.
Nick
@RalfW:
I saw ads similar to this in New York.
WereBear
@Maude: I see this kind of attitude as a symptom; they don’t know how to think about things.
Essentially, they are reacting to national events as though it was a friend or relative.
*Obama disappointed me. I’ll show him! I’ll vote for the Tea Party Candidate. (Flirting with someone to make SO jealous.)
*I’ve had to tighten my belt, so should the state. (This is like not fixing your car while job hunting. To save money.)
sparky
@MattR: yes, that’s my understanding as well. what i meant was that the subset of NJ commuters to NYC who drive probably would not give up driving by virtue of the tunnel. consequently billboards would not matter much.
incidentally, that’s why i said i thought the most effective retort would be to point out that by torpedoing faster NJ Transit service to Manhattan CC just lowered the value of their residence, since property values are a function of commute times among other things. and this would be especially true for places further out and over the line (i’m surprised that the MTA still runs trains to Port Jervis.)
@me: agreed, though i would suggest it is best understood as a pathology masquerading as an ideology.
alwhite
@RalfW:
Hell, we had an entire freeway bridge collapse, killing & injuring dozens, due to 20 years of Republican (and toss Jesse “The Boobie” Ventura in with that crowd) neglect and short-term cheap thinking and the Dems were kind enough to never bring it up.
IN a 3 way race this fall a really weak & worthless D is currently ahead of a crackpot R by less than 9000 votes (with an even more useless R-running-as-an-I getting about 10% of the vote). Minnesotans are veeeeerrrrry slow learners I guess
Tom Hilton
I had a more general version of this idea back when Bush was in office: signs graphically similar to your basic CalTrans (or local equivalent) signs, posted at closed libraries & broken infrastructure & so on, reading “Your tax cuts at work!”
kay
@Allan:
It’s nice if business appreciates the value of investment in infrastructure but the real value to individuals is time.
It gives each individual hundreds of uncompensated hours back, to use as they see fit. You can use a straight time-hourly rate calculation, or you can go to quality of life; one hour saved on each end to do with what you please. That’s worth a lot.
I see this again and again with conservative dogma, and it amazes me. They never factor in monetary or personal costs that accrue from all of this short-term cheaping out, and they’re HUGE.
Everything costs. New Jersey voters have decided to pay in time instead of money, but they’re still paying.
Kryptik
@Joshua:
When a company invests in infrastructure, it’s called an investment.
When government invest in infrastructure, it’s called ‘soshulsim’.
Then again, not that we really have to worry about keeping that distinction clear, as neither group seems much concerned with the idea anymore.
MattR
@sparky:
I kinda disagree with this. I think there are quite a few commuters who drive because despite how much the trafiic sucks it is still better than the train. If you live in Bergen and want to take the train you have to transfer in Secaucus or go to Hoboken and take the path. I am willing to bet that replacing that with a straight shot into Penn station would greatly increase ridership.
Rommie
The signs would fail with the ones you want to have a change of mind, because the reaction will be “If it wasn’t for DFH Lieburls, NJ would have the money for the tunnel!”
I don’t think there’s enough potential JC’s out there any more to make the signs more than just feel-good snark, however deserved the snark is. People are entrenched like WW1, getting them to cross the no-mans-land is getting harder and harder.
snowbird42
We can raise huge amounts for candidates. Why not raise money for bill boards? One in NJ as suggested and some where ever the light rail money is turned down.
Mention jobs and progress lost.
pablo
I took that idea, and ran with it…Tunnel vision
TuiMel
Chris Christie doesn’t worry about traffic. He’ll just rent a helicopter and charge YOU for it.
Alex
Onward the March for Unfunded Liabilities! Taxpayers unite, you have nothing to lose but the entirety of your personal savings!
Bill Arnold
@<a href="#@Alex: comment-2189755″>Alex:
re
If there aren’t clocks near the beginning of the tunnel indicating how long the tunnel blockages are, there should be.
Jay in Oregon
@Martin:
I’m still waiting for BP and the Gulf state GOP parties to host a big ol’ Gulf Coast shrimp feed, to prove that all of that oil isn’t really hurting the fishies (or us!)
SB Jules
Great idea for NY-NJ.
If Christie comes to his senses, California won’t get his share for our rail system.
piratedan
@eemom:
supposedly he’s a man of principals, rumour has it that he ate two of them.
snowbird42
@pablo:
That is awesome!!! Just what Ive been envisioning!