… For enjoying the fine NJ tradition of never forgetting a slight:
METUCHEN, N.J. — The former campaign workers who partied at the home of Barbara Buono this month were “just jubilant.” The people she bumps into on the street “are just happier to greet me.” And amid the deluge of supportive texts she receives, there are often pictures of Gov. Chris Christie sitting on the George Washington Bridge. She chuckles but doesn’t reply.
The Fort Lee traffic jam scandal has unleashed a wintry mix of subpoenas, tortured apologies and fresh allegations against Mr. Christie, a Republican, and potentially put a deep freeze on his presidential chances. But the same revelations have had a warming effect on Ms. Buono, the Democratic nominee who badly lost to Mr. Christie in the November election and bitterly complained about the betrayal of Democrats who barely lifted a finger to help her. Ms. Buono has gone from media piñata, Democratic pariah and Keystone Candidate to the Cassandra of the Christie scandal, whose October warnings about “the unexplained closure of two lanes starting in Fort Lee” went unheeded by most fellow Democrats.
Now, as Democrats unload daily on Mr. Christie and hound him as he travels around the country, Ms. Buono nonchalantly greets well-wishers in snow boots, cords and leather bomber jacket at a local cafe. Bewildered by the belated timing of the Democratic attacks, which she attributes to “buyer’s remorse,” she wonders if the party might not have more wisely spent money on challenging the governor during the actual race…
She said she watched Mr. Christie’s 108-minute-long news conference on January 9 with her daughter but had a hard time sticking with it. “He is a fraud, a charlatan,” she said. (Mr. Christie’s office declined to respond.) And she confesses bewilderment about the national Democratic strategy of demanding Mr. Christie step down. “He should stay, right, there!” she said, smacking the table for emphasis. “Stand next to all these candidates who are running for governor in 2014. Of course they won’t stand next to him anymore. It is a little comical.”…
Revenge is a dish best eaten… as a friggin’ banquet!
No, I don’t want Buono ‘running down other Democrats’ for the media and the GOP admakers. (If you read the whole NYT article, the reporter was clearly trolling for much more bitterness than he actually got.) But she was right about Christie being a venal bully who got a free pass from both sides of the political aisle (and an infinity of free ‘reportorial’ advertising). And in my opinion she’s right that we Democrats have to stop being lazy and risk-averse, and start contesting every seat — not necessarily throwing a ton of resources into ‘hopeless’ races, but putting up a fight even when the odds aren’t in our favor.
Suffern ACE
Well, you have to look at it from the perspectives of the Dems. Christie was favored to win, and Buono was a woman after all. Couldn’t be caught endorsing a losing candidate from your own party who won a primary. That would make people think that you shouldn’t be a leader in the party, if you went and endorsed someone simply because she was your standard bearer. That, and she was kind of pushy. Oh, and there were “business” opportunities that Christie and his Sandy Money could facilitate. Those couldn’t be left on the table.
DougJ
Is “jubilant” better than “gleeful”? Or is it equally unserious?
jl
Off Topic, but maybe just a head up for a future post on how dumb the GOP just has to be these days.
RNC Chairman: Yeah, We’ll Use Lewinsky Against Hillary Clinton
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reince-priebus-hillary-clinton-monica-lewinsky-rand-paul-2016
Maybe its some kind of mainstream GOP headfake aimed at Paul, not the media or the Democrats. Otherwise, what drug has Paul put in the GOP waters?
Anne Laurie
@jl: I think it means large portions of the RNC leadership have never forgiven Bill Clinton for getting extracurricular blow jobs, is what it means.
“Bitter, sexually frustrated men” seems to be the only remaining natural GOP target demographic.
West of the Cascades
It’s also not a bad strategy for (former) Senator Buono to be gracious and not-bitter … if Christie really did fly over the GWB traffic mess in a helicopter on September 11th, there’s a fair chance she will be able to run for Governor in a special election sometime in the next year (I’m assuming the Lt. Gov. goes down in flames with the Christienberg).
eric
The persecution of Chris Christie is further evidence of the progressive lurch to naziism. After all you cant have Christie without Christ.
Amir Khalid
Sigh. Everything you need to know about politics, you can learn on a school playground.
shelly
@Suffern ACE:
I hear you. But at the time, Christie was seen as such a steam-roller it seemed like a losing bet to pour money into Buono’s campaign. But whatever the rationale, it was shamefull how they just left her out hanging.
blonde moment
I think the Democrats did that once – wasn’t it called the 50-state strategy? Didn’t Howard Dean have something to do with that? And seems to me that it was a success, at least in the short term. I do not understand why in the world the DNC left it!
kc
@DougJ:
Which one is more shrill?
susan
The DNC destroyed the 50 state strategy because Howard Dean implemented it.
We really have to fight the “elites” of our party with the same level of determination and energy that we bring to our fight against Republicans.
Both are the enemy of average Americans.
lamh36
Since this is an open thread, I wanted to share with ya’ll what happened at work today.
So… went to turn in my resignation today. I was all set to give 2 weeks. But, Damnit Damnit damnit. After I told her I had bad knews and that I was moving back to NOLA, she went on and on about how I was a great tech and how great is was to work with me and literally said I was pretty much a perfect hire! She was soo profuse about it, sh was practically begging me not to leave. So told her that to help her out since they’ve lost a lot of techs d since they have been a good place to work that I’d agree to work weekends but only until at least March but as soon as I get a job that I’d be handing in an official notice…damn it damn it damn it!!!
Oh well my lease isn’t up til June and I didn’t want to spend the money to break it anyway. I probably won’t be working weekends at my new job until probably April anyway. In that time I can take my time to look for a good apartment or rental home in NOLA.
BTW, I know there could be worse problems to have, but I just wanted to share with ya’ll what happened
PurpleGirl
@Anne Laurie: Old Republican men will always be bitter about not having gotten any action when in college. They were too uptight for the DFH women and they’ve always resented the physical freedom of the DFH.
patrick II
Christy was the putative Republican nominee for president (I know, not to DougJ). Two of his biggest selling points in the general was going to be his ability to work with dems and to win the governorship by a large margin. I have no idea why democrats, both local and national, did not make the effort to both cut the margin, even if they lost, and run a hard campaign and look for the graft that (now) was obviously there. It just makes so much sense from the longer term national strategy view, even though Buono would almost certainly still have lost.
Fortunately for everyone, Rachel Maddow is smarter than most establishment dems and pushed Bridgegate as a big deal.
Gene108
The problem in NJ was not Democrats unwillingness to contest every race, but guys falling over themselves to curry favor with Christie.
If Christie’s aides had not documented their involvement via e-mails, Christie’s story about a traffic study would have been accepted whole cloth.
I personally hope we can purge the NJ Democrstic Party of the “Christie-Dems”.
aimai
@lamh36: Sounds wonderful, actually–there are worse things that happen than to find out how valuable you are at work. Even if you are leaving. Anyway, you know where you are going and when and that’s pretty cool, too.
Paul Gottlieb
Barbara Buono has been an exceptional State Senator for years, and when NJ Democrats like Cory Booker Booker were running a mile to avoid running against Christie, she stepped up to the plate. She received zero support from state Democrats, who seemed to be more interested in assuring that Christie would share the loot with them post-election. Booker, who was a cinch for election to the Senate avoided her like the plague. He was more concerned with burnishing his own image as a winner than in showing an ounce of party loyalty. Obama made sure that he never publicly acknowledged her very existence. She has every reason to feel disgust at the cowardice and lack of loyalty from her fellow Democrats.
just one more canuck on a phone
lamh36 @ 12. – that’s great – it seems to be a rare thing to have a boss show their appreciation these days.
Good luck on the move
Violet
@lamh36: It’s not such a bad thing to be appreciated. So are you going to live where you are now and commute daily to NOLA? How far is that? Then work weekends where you are now? That sounds like a stressful schedule. Or did I misunderstand what you’re saying?
Gene108
@Paul Gottlieb:
Hell more than just campaign support, party big shits, in NJ, were fighting her right to appoint the state Dem party chair, which the gubernatorial candidate normally gets to select.
I hope NJ purges the state Party of these traitors.
Tata
@Gene108: The Christie Dems were a plague. It was super-confusing to watch them fall all over themselves and each other to kiss his ass when it was obvious to anyone with ears and a willingness to listen that he is what he is.
MomSense
@lamh36:
Good for you! If sounds like a stressful schedule so please make sure you take care of yourself.
lamh36
@Violet: I live in Baton Rouge. On a good day it’s only about 45 minutes to 1 hr to get to NOLA. I have an apartment here in BR and the lease isn’t up until June. I was already hesitant to break it since it would be a good bit of change. As for NOLA, I have any number of family members in NOLA including my mother and sister who both have an extra room where I could stay work, then I can travel to BR on the weekend I work and stay at my apartment.
My current told me to write up an official letter (via email) to her describing what my terms are..i.e. what weekends and for how long.
p.a.
The GOS seems to take a lot of heat currently, but credit where it’s due: Kos & co. was out front taking on the triangulators and the DINO’s in the days of ’43. ‘More better Democrats’.
Roger Moore
FTFY.
Baud
@p.a.:
I fell in love with blogs because of GOS during the W. years. It was after Obama became president that it all went south, and I ended up hanging out with all you good people.
Baud
I liked Buono each time I saw her on the national TV. But I don’t think anything could have saved her candidacy. I’m not even sure she could beat Christie today based on the last NJ poll I saw (which was a few weeks ago, admittedly).
max
@Paul Gottlieb: Booker, who was a cinch for election to the Senate avoided her like the plague. He was more concerned with burnishing his own image as a winner than in showing an ounce of party loyalty.
Yeah, well, it’ll be quite some years before I remember to give Booker any money. Obama, on the other hand, may have been operating on the ‘if I endorse her, I’ll screw her’ theory.
At any rate, it’s really clear that upper-echelon Democrats are really afraid of the press, in a way that Republicans are not. They should stop that nonsense.
Unrelated: Up on TPM right now, the top story headline is “Suicide Bomb Instructor Blows Up Bomber Class on Accident” and there’s a picture of guys dressed all in black doing pushups. The text under the pictures says: “The Congressional Budget Office issued its official rebuttal Monday to the Republican talking point that Obamacare would cost 2.5 million American jobs.”
max
[‘I guess TPM has it in for the CBO.’]
Trollhattan
@jl:
The Lewinski kerfuffle is now old enough to drive, and will be old enough to vote in the 2016 election. Seriously, that’s what they’re thinking? “Lewinsghazi!!”
Baud
@max:
While I agree, the press does treat Democrats much worse than Republicans, so there is some basis to the fear.
Trollhattan
@max:
Gore probably lost votes distancing hinself from Clinton. Hillary would do likewise, distancing herself from Obama.
Baud
And turn out in every election to vote for the Democrats who are running for all those seats.
srv
raven
@srv: See, he makes up laws and can’t be trusted. Lawless.
burnspbesq
@Paul Gottlieb:
In fairness to Booker, what have Essex County Democrats done for Newark lately?
Baud
@Trollhattan:
I agree that that would be incredibly dumb of her to do. On the flip side, I do worry a little that a lot of people, both in and out of the media, will be looking to run with “Hillary vs. Obama” memes that even legitimate actions she takes to define her own candidacy for 2016 will be portrayed as all-out intra-party warfare.
Geeno
@lamh36: Don’t know what exactly you do, but you could just keep the job, if they let you work remote from your new home. The team I’m in has members here (Rochester, NY) in Oregon and in London. We do a lot of chat forwarding.
ETA: That doesn’t mean you have to stop looking for something better.
the Conster
@Baud:
I’m so done with Hillary talk. She hasn’t announced and already it’s a freak show of potential memes.
Cassidy
But what does GG think if this?
Baud
@the Conster:
I know what you mean, but that ship has sailed. How do you get people to stop talking about it?
raven
@Baud: By holding your breath until you turn purple?
NotMax
@Cassidy
Nothing. Garbo died in 1990.
Baud
@raven:
Hmmm. That never worked for me with the ladies, but maybe in this context….
Suffern ACE
@p.a.: yeah. I clicked on a GOS post yesterday about how the RNCC had bought domain names for dem candidates and were using those sites to raise money for themselves. Those Outrageous Republicans are Committing Fraud! Could have been the rallying cry, but instead the whole thread was about how Eric Holder is a sellout.
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
Haha. I stopped going there over there regularly three years ago, but I guess things haven’t changed much.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Or — and this could be crazy talk — maybe you could start thinking about buying instead of renting. I don’t know what the real estate market is like in NOLA, but I’m guessing that between Katrina and the economic crash, you might be able to get something pretty good for not a lot of money, especially if you can save up a good “nest egg” in the next few months working two jobs. Just something to think about.
lamh36
@Geeno: I’m a Medical Technologist, specializing in Microbiology.
So there is no way to do the job “remotely”. It entails direct specimen manipulation and processing. The only thing we do on computers is keep track of work and results and the like.
lamh36
@Mnemosyne: Oh, I’m def thinking about it. My issue will be credit score. Even though I make a pretty good living right now, when I was younger and in college, the choices I made when it came to my finances were NOT good. I’m still trying to get back from that time.
So homeowner ship is what I’m hoping for, but I’ve in in year 1 of a 3 year plan to get my finances together and to buying a home.
lamh36
ummm, duplicate post?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@susan: The funny part is that, without realizing it, no one hated the 50-state strategy more than a lot of progressives. Sure, they said that they liked it but they then did nothing but bitch about the Blue Dogs that it produced. If you go with a 50-state strategy and it is in any way a success, you will get a bunch of Democratic Congressmen that spend a lot of time talking about how much they disagree with your priorities.
The inability of lefties to understand cause and effect on this would be entertaining if it didn’t piss me off so much. Pick whether you want to contest everything or whether you want a unified party, because you can’t have both.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@susan: The funny part is that, without realizing it, no one hated the 50-state strategy more than a lot of progressives. Sure, they said that they liked it but they then did nothing but bitch about the Blue Dogs that it produced. If you go with a 50-state strategy and it is in any way a success, you will get a bunch of Democratic Congressmen that spend a lot of time talking about how much they disagree with your priorities.
The inability of lefties to understand cause and effect on this would be entertaining if it didn’t piss me off so much. Pick whether you want to contest everything or whether you want a unified party, because you can’t have both.
Geeno
As far GOS goes, the main articles are still good by and large, just don’t wade into the comments. They’re way too pure for you. You might burst into flame after exposure.
WereBear
@lamh36: Well, it makes the move more gradual, but maybe that’s not a bad thing.
Geeno
@lamh36: As a fellow “bad starter” you have my deepest sympathies.
Litlebritdiftrnt
@Baud:
I go over there occasionally because I follow the site on Twitter. I usually just read the link and avoid the comments because the people over there are just rabid.
2014 isn’t going to come down to bitching on the internet, it is going to come down to boots on the ground, if we don’t get BOTG we are toast. I am hoping to see OFA operatives in every single district this year, doing that BOTG work. We have to register and get to the polls every single “meh” voter that would normally not come out in an off year election.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
You’d be surprised — I got a really good rate on my car loan (I think it was 4.75%) even though I had really crappy credit for a long time and had only just gotten my first credit card in 10 years about 6 months before. It’s definitely worth checking your credit report to see if anything negative is still lurking on there and then see what kind of rate you can get.
ETA: It helps that I’m married, though, which automatically makes me a better risk on paper.
Faux News
@jl: Wait, what? Hillary Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky? I’m sure this will be a winning talking point with women voters in 2016
Baud
@Litlebritdiftrnt:
Agree completely. And I still follow the front page articles on GOS through RSS, just for the info value.
Anne Laurie
@PurpleGirl:
Because, let’s be honest, it wasn’t just Mehlman resenting those ‘Dem queers’ for enjoying the honest lives that the Young Repubs wouldn’t allow themselves.
BarbCat
This information age age thingy isn’t working out very well for the right. Even their ugly unlimited dark-money funded ads are backfiring because, well, fact-checking.
Roger Moore
@lamh36:
Your credit score tends to be weighted pretty heavily to what you’re doing now. They’re even supposed to ignore a bankruptcy 7 years after it was wrapped up. As long as you’ve been keeping a good handle on your credit recently, it shouldn’t be too bad.
Ian
@jl:
Oh please oh please oh please oh please….
the Conster
This statue of a naked man at Hillary Clinton’s alma mater has created squid clouds of butt hurt. Wellesley College white privileged victimhood of a different sort.
ruemara
@lamh36: this… ‘being valued for your skills and abilities by your employer’… What’s it like? I’m not sure if I’ve ever had it.
joel hanes
I do not understand why in the world the DNC left [Howard Dean’s successful 50-state strategy]
Because of the Iron Law of Institutions:
Dean’s strategy worked by building viable independent, grassroots state party organizations in every state.
Such independent grassroots state organizations are not very biddable, and neither are the candidates they tend to elect. The national Democratic party officers prefer lawmakers that will do what they’re told by the national organization, because this magnifies the importance of the national Party leadership within the party, which is (by the ILI) their goal. When a candidate is elected after getting most of his or her funding and logistical support to the DNC, you can bet that junior lawmaker is going to vote pretty much as Steny Hoyer instructs. This vicious cycle goes like this :
Prominent corporate whore in national party
attracts massive corporate campaign contributions
uses those funds to favor the most corporate-whore of the available candidates
who in turn owe their seats to the national party
and so vote for as directed by national party
and are rewarded with sweet sweet corporate contributions
OTOH, a successful grassroots candidate, who has funds and support that didn’t come from the DNC, can blow off some demands of the national party and vote in favor of the interests of those who voted for her, or vote her conscience. Such voting diminishes the importance of the leaders of the national party organization, which is intolerable to those leaders.
The Prime Objective of Steve Israel and Debbie Wassername-Shulz is not victory for the Democratic Party: it’s the increase of their own influence within the national party organization. They don’t care much about taking back the House. They don’t care about governance or policy, except as tools to be used to increase their own importance, and to help their corporate friends and supporters. They are not striving for a progressive agenda; in fact, they strive to prevent any such thing. The current fucked-up situation of our government is fine with them as long as they themselves can be influential players.
So : the 50-state strategy produced unruly, little-d democratic, grassroots organizations that were not very controllable from Washington DC. The strategy had to be abandoned because the officers of the national party would rather that Democrats be in the minority but with power for those officers, than for the Democrats to be in the majority but with diminished top-down control, and thus diminished power for the national party officers.
Ripley
@Cassidy:
GG Allin? He died three years after Garbo. Not a guy with a lot of political, um, foresight to begin with, and you certainly wouldn’t have wanted to share fries with him.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@blonde moment:
Rahm. Thanks a lot, Obama.
ruemara
I’m all for the 50 State Strategy, but I’d really like people to recall one significant thing: The Democratic Candidate That Can Win In Wisconsin Is Not The Democratic Candidate That You Will Like.
Tyro
I don’t think Buono understood her position as the sacrificial lamb against Christie. I mean, it was pretty clear by late 2012 that Christie was too popular to beat outside of dead woman/live boy contingencies. Buono’s job was to put up a good fight and be a “good soldier” in the hopes of getting a payoff down the road. Her actions, though, seem to indicate that she didn’t understand this reality.
El Caganer
@Tyro: She obviously didn’t understand the reality that her own party would sell her out, either.
Cervantes
Someone’s learning.
Rich S.
Seems to me that any political party, or for that matter, any group, person, or organization, who are engaged in any sort of competition should never have to told that they should ‘contest every seat’, or to just put some effort into every game. If they need to be told this, then they are useless and spineless piles of shit who do no one any good. Yes, this is what democrats are these days.
chopper
@the Conster:
If I were the artist, I would respond to all the talk by replacing the statue with one of a black dude.