New poll asked NJ voters to describe @GovChristie in 1 word. Here's the resulting word cloud http://t.co/cm4HrrSwjt pic.twitter.com/mSfszJe94r
— Abraham (@Hip_ToBe_Square) February 19, 2015
Maggie Haberman, in the NYTimes:
He does not return phone calls. He does not ask for support. He arrives late for meetings. And he acts as if he has all the time in the world.
The complaints have piled up for weeks, dismaying many longtime supporters of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and sending others into the arms of his rivals for the presidential nomination, according to interviews with more than two dozen Republican donors and strategists.
As a half-dozen other candidates aggressively raise money and chase endorsements in Iowa and New Hampshire, friends and detractors alike say Mr. Christie’s view of his status and pre-eminence within the Republican field is increasingly at odds with the picture outside his inner circle.
Policy advisers, donors and even a prominent New Jersey state senator who met his wife through Mr. Christie have all flirted with or committed to rival candidates. One potential donor, Woody Johnson, the billionaire owner of the New York Jets, will back Jeb Bush, according to three people close to the Bush campaign. Mr. Johnson attended a round of Bush fund-raising events on Wednesday in Chicago, where the former Florida governor acknowledged him by name…
“He’s a very popular figure, but he’s made a mistake by not creating the necessary momentum for the kind of national organization you need to be successful,” said Anthony Scaramucci, a New York hedge fund manager who is now backing Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. “He’s not touching enough people. And I think this is a classic rookie mistake.”
Friends say Mr. Christie is both understaffed and too controlling. They also say he is convinced that his raw talent and charisma can overcome the political obstacles in his way…
Ah, yes, the famous Jersey charisma! There’s a lot more words, carefully arranged, leading the reader to the conclusion that Scott Walker’s rise has been Chris Christie’s doom. Christie was targeting the big-money GOP donors who didn’t have an “in” with the decades-old Bush political machine, but the Koch brothers seem to have convinced their fellow dis-Establishment plutocrats that it’s better to take a dependent stake in Walker’s campaign than to try floating a third Wall Street candidate in 2016.
Jill Colvin, for the AP:
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) – Four years ago, seven big-money donors and leading Republican activists from Iowa loaded into a private plane and headed to New Jersey for an urgent meeting with Chris Christie. Their message: Run, Chris, run.
The group from the lead-off caucus state failed in that mission to persuade the brash New Jersey governor to jump into the 2012 race for president. This time around, Christie’s White House ambitions no longer appear to be an issue. But those once-eager Iowans aren’t as keen to throw their support his way.
“It’s a brand new ballgame,” says donor Gary Kirke. “There’s a lot more people in the race, and a lot has happened since then.”…
A priv. refrain from some Christie friends: they shrugged at 2011 overtures. Thought '16 was moment. Always the plan. Now wonder if '11 was.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) February 20, 2015
jl
Good news for Christie and GOP as well! He’ll probably put that in an email for the GOP primaries. Please the base is the prime directive.
raven
Former Virginia first lady Maureen McDonnell was sentenced Friday to one year and one day in prison for corruption charges.
MattF
I have a hypothesis: Christie (and some other Repubs) look at Obama, that he came ‘out of nowhere’, and became President. They think “What’s he got that I haven’t got?”
And they have no idea what the answer to that question might be.
jayboat
I think he doesn’t give a ratz rear because: a) he’s a genuine asshole and b) he knows there’s trouble coming- trouble he won’t be able to squirm away from.
princess leia
Dead for 48 minutes, Catholic Priest claims God is female.
http://starrfmonline.com/1.2002887
Now we know why they really wear the dresses.
piratedan
@raven: Well they say that Orange is the new Black….. I hope that she learns that binging at the public trough is not a wise thing to do but my guess is that somebody connected somewhere will allow her to walk…. all the right friends in all of the right places and all that.
Iowa Old Lady
What are the odds that O’Reilly gets the Brian Williams treatment?
Gin & Tonic
@Iowa Old Lady: Zero.
Amir Khalid
This guy really is a lot like Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. They’re both big men at their level, only they get exposed as small fry when they try to play with the big boys.
MattF
@Gin & Tonic: Yup, as long as O’Reilly continues to rope the golden–agers into the FOX viewing audience. Gee Haw.
srv
I would have voted for Chris until I found out he was a Cowboys fan.
Chris
Wow!
I’ve thought for a long time that Christie’s “Jersey charisma” was being overestimated as a handicap. The Republican base absolutely loves to see that kind of behavior displayed towards groups they hate – striding around the school pushing weaker kids into lockers is what the party’s all about. And the mainstream media will absolutely report it as Christie being charismatic, not taking any crap, displaying populist/working class rugged honesty… whatever. I don’t think it’s as big an obstacle as many liberals seemed to.
However, all that applies to his public image. If he treats Republican strategists and, worse, donors the same way he treats unionized school teachers, that’s a big no-no and his campaign is going nowhere fast. Republican donors are the kind of paper-thin-skinned divas who scream “HITLER! INVASION OF POLAND!” when it’s suggested that their taxes should be raised from their lowest point in eighty years to their previous lowest point in eighty years. You do not treat these people with anything but the most abject, obsequious, groveling deference if you want their money and their support.
Villago Delenda Est
The Outlaw Joisey Whale still doesn’t realize that his crusts are gone, gone, gone into carbon now.
Buddy H
“He arrives late for meetings. And he acts as if he has all the time in the world.”
He’s a rock star! He’s Mick Jagger!
Petorado
@Iowa Old Lady: O’Reilly’s whole schtick is playing the righteous victim of all the slights thrown at him by the liberal world. Having allegations thrown at him only strengthens that perception of him by his fan base.
Amir Khalid
@Buddy H:
Which raises the question: who is his Keef?
mdblanche
Is that anything like the famous Giedi Prime charisma?
cmorenc
I’m not sure Christie’s fall is something progressives should celebrate, even though that’s for perverse reasons. The perverse reasons are twofold: 1) Scott Walker appears to be well along toward a successful takeover of the same ecological niche within the GOP Presidential field that Christie needs to be his to have any chance at the nomination; 2) Scott Walker is emerging as a far more dangerous potential candidate vs the Democratic nominee (whether Hillary or not) than Christie would have been. Christie seemed attractive for awhile to not just New Jerseyites, but nationally for his blunt, aggressive style in tackling crustily entrenched interests standing in the way, but his approach doesn’t wear so well over time as what people transition to seeing instead as an arrogant, nasty bully with some corruption issues of his own. OTOH Walker has cynical animal cunning wrapped up in much smoother sociopathy than Christie, and is far better at stoking working-class and middle-class resentments.
If Walker wasn’t really good as a politician (even he arouses burning distaste in us progressives), he’d never have succeeded in winning three elections in a state like Wisconsin (instead of e.g. Missouri). If Walker somehow manages to derail the traditional GOP establishment’s favorite, Jeb Bush and win the nomination – we sure better hope Hillary (if she’s the Dem nominee) is up to beating the most Nixonian candidate since Nixon, but one with a less oddly off-putting personality to many ordinary voters (even though we can’t stand the sight of him).
buddy h
@Amir Khalid: Andrew Cuomo? His prince of darkness?
brantl
@srv: You would’ve voted for my dick, if you thought it was Republican. And most dicks, are.
Yatsuno
@cmorenc: You’re giving Walker way too much credit. Like it or not Wisconsin is a small pond politically, and Walker won on several different issues but the luckiest was that he has won mostly off-year elections. And he hasn’t won by anything approaching a decisive margin. If you can show how he can win all the states Romney won plus at least three Obama won, show your math. And keep in mind if his opponent is Hillary she whomps A LOT of Republicans even in states Obama couldn’t win.
jl
@Chris: I understand the GOP donors’ concerns. Christie doesn’t understand that he is ‘the help’. Good flunkies are on time and snap to.
Calouste
@Chris: So the issue is that Christie thinks that he is the boss (not to be confused with the Boss, which Christie daydreams he is), where the donors obviously think that they are the boss. And Christie is finding out that, to refer back to an earlier post today, in the GOP, presidential candidates are cheap and easily replaceable.
buddy h
@brantl: Well… a firm, upstanding leader in these troubling times. Someone who won’t be soft on terror. Might possibly win the erec… er, I mean the election.
GregB
I’m pretty shocked that the word douche-bag didn’t make the word cloud.
Bitter Scribe
@Iowa Old Lady: If he survived Andrea Mackris, this should be no problem for him at all.
Ruckus
@GregB:
I’m pretty shocked that a lot of people don’t understand the dictionary definitions of some well used words, like honest or fair.
Chris
@jl:
@Calouste:
That would explain a lot.
I think Chris Christie wants to be Boss William Tweed, or thinks he already is. Whereas his donors see him more as… the “harrumph!” governor from Blazing Saddles.
trollhattan
@Yatsuno:
All true but look at how Walker’s polling in California.
ETA linkie http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_27557613/field-poll-california-democrats-solid-hillary-clinton-gop
Roger Moore
@MattF:
But they seem to be pretty sure that it’s his skin color.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
I was way late to the earlier thread(s) where you talked about cataract surgery. Since then I have talked to my brother, a board-certified ophthalmologist (and not the Rand Paul kind!), and gotten the following information:
First, he said, cataract surgery should be strictly the patient’s choice. No doctor should tell you that you “need it” or “have to have it.” He highly recommends using the National Eye Institute’s VF-14 (visual function) questionnaire (PDF version here) to assess your own vision problems. The “score” is (your own estimate of) how close your vision is to “perfect” or normal. Bro’ man said that, of two patients with roughly similar cataracts, one will say, “I don’t read much, I don’t do fine visual work, I’m at 95 percent,” while the other will say, “Damn it, I can’t follow the golf ball 250 yards down the fairway, I’m at 50 percent!” He doesn’t like to recommend cataract surgery unless someone is down around 80-85 or below.
He also said that that doctor who helps you decide whether to have the surgery should not be the one to perform the surgery—simple (appearance of) conflict of interest.
Other contraindications to cataract surgery are any other current eye problems—injury, glaucoma, etc.—and taking the drug Flomax (tamsulosin), which as a side effect reduces the function of the radial dilator muscle of the iris, leading to problems with standard cataract surgery. (Other options are available.)
The procedure itself is a piece of cake: It takes about 20 minutes, it’s done with topical anesthesia—bro’ man said, “You’ll be awake but you won’t care”—and there’s no pain.
If you wear glasses now, the doctor can put in a corrective IOL (intra-ocular lens) to fix that. Bro’ man says he shoots for correcting far vision—you can see the clock by the bed, you can watch TV, you can drive without glasses and do almost all everyday activities—but you might still need cheap drugstore reading glasses for close work. (If you’re used to wearing glasses now, that’s not a bad trade-off.) He said there are some IOLs that purport to fix both far and near vision, and they work well for a lot of people, but there is a subset for whom they work so badly that they require additional surgery. Also, they’re a lot more expensive. So he’s not a big fan of those.
Finally, he said that it is a valid question for the prospective patient to ask how many cataract surgeries the doctor performs in a year. He said you want someone who keeps a hand in and maintains the motor skills. The low end is 50-100 or below. Bro’ man, a grizzled veteran, does about 150-200 a year, mainly because he doesn’t want to do more. Some of his colleagues do 300 a year.
I hope this information is useful. My brother said that if you have follow-up questions he would be glad to address those.
jc
I know it’s shallow of me, but in addition to all Christie’s other negative qualities, being obese is a disqualifying factor to my mind when someone is applying for a job where they’d damn well better be firing on all cylinders health-wise, on a regular basis.
kc
Sounds bad, til you remember they voted for him.
Bill
I can’t believe “fat” isn’t more prominent in that word cloud.
Because that dude is really fat.
Buddy H
News from Upstate NY:
http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S3711971.shtml?cat=300
Duo facing charges after dog set on fire.
I think people who do this sort of thing eventually graduate to experimenting on humans. They belong in the system, for a long time.
Tree With Water
Is the famous Jersey charisma anything like the famous reputation for good manners and decorum that NYC’ers have cultivated over their history?
Elizabelle
@Buddy H: There is nothing that would get me to click on that story. Cannot bear stories or pics about cruelty to animals and innocents.
Botsplainer
Yay! Another 6-10 inches predicted for the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of Louisville. Includes ice, and a conversion to heavy cold rain tomorrow. Plus, 90% of the city storm drains are covered by extremely hard, cold ice after the 10-20 below days.
There should be an awesome set of urban rivers and lakes.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Same here. I can’t tell you much I hate Sarah McLachlan.
raven
@Steeplejack: Super information but I’m interested in this: “He also said that that doctor who helps you decide whether to have the surgery should not be the one to perform the surgery”. That seems a little restrictive depending on where you live and the availability of ophthalmologists. I know it’s not the same but we have a doggie ophthalmologist and she both recommended and did Lil Bit. The bitch there was that she wanted to wait and see on the second eye and we ended up paying for the anesthesia twice since dogs have to be put under to do it.
raven
@Elizabelle:
Now I sit down on the sofa and I watch the evening news:
There’s a half a dozen tragedies from which to pick and choose.
The baby that was missing was found in a ditch today.
And there’s bombs a’flying and people dying not so far away.
And I’ll take a beer from the ‘fridgerator,
And go sit out in the yard and with a cold one in my hand,
I’m gonna bite down and swallow hard.
Because I’m older now: I’ve got no time to cry.
I’ve got no time to look back, I’ve got no time to see,
The pieces of my heart that have been ripped away from me.
Denali
@Steeplejack’
Thanks for the info on cateracts. I am facing them myself and appreciate this. My friend who has glocoma had cateract suryery, and it did not go well. Why it was reccomended, I don’t know.
Baud
@raven:
Thanks, Little Miss Sunshine!
Cacti
I’ve refered to Christie as “fat Giuliani” for a long time now.
The reason being, I’ve always thought his Presidential chances were a figment of the east coast media’s imagination.
piratedan
@Bill: tbh, I don’t really care how much he weighs because essentially he’s a heinous administrator and a lying piece of crap who lets his petty overweening pride take precedence over serving the needs of the people of New Jersey. Other than that, I’m sure he’s good to his kids although I have no proof of that.
Baud
@Cacti:
Yeah, Christie doesn’t even seem that interesting anymore, even compared to the other uninteresting GOP candidates.
Bill
@piratedan: Everything you say is true. I think being in good health is a minimum qualification to be president though. He is clearly not in good health.
It would be interesting to see how much scrutiny his running mate would get when compared to prior veep candidates though.
Chris
@Cacti:
It’s funny how much the East Coast media loves to carry stories about how out of touch Official Washington is and how the real America is in the heartland and the degenerate coastal elites are just completely out of touch. And yet it never seems to occur to them how much they are central to the phenomenon they decry.
trollhattan
@Baud:
He’d be an interesting foil in the debates simply because he’s at ease in front of the camera and quick-thinking. For we who would hate-watch for the sheer entertainment and loathing of the spectacle, there would be the longing for his innate nastiness to burst through the veneer for all to revel in. I would pay big bucks for a Christie-Cruz shouting match.
gene108
@cmorenc:
Walker is not in the same niche as Christie.
Christie is the “moderate” Republican, who could appeal to middle America. The Democratic legislature in NJ kept Christie’s worst wing-nut impulses in check. Therefore Christie never got to fully gut public sector unions or destroy the funding for the state college system or restrict abortion access, quite the same way Walker has been able to do.
Walker’s record is so much more right wing than Christie’s that he will not be able to be positioned as someone with “cross-over” appeal, the way the big money interests in NYC were hoping they could position Christie.
Keep in mind Obama beat both McCain and Romney by margins of around 53% to 47%. Republicans only need to pick up 3%+1 of the vote and they have a path towards victory.
The right candidate, who can mask the crazy might be able to pull it off.
Walker has embraced the crazy and it will come out, when he is put under the national spotlight.
trollhattan
@Bill:
It was definitely a knock against cancer-survivor grampa McCain. Remember his mile-high medical history printout?
Elizabelle
@Baud: Yes. Hit “mute” and avert my eyes. Enough already.
@raven: I remember watching the evening news as a little kid in the 1960s. But I think it was a picture in the newspaper (1965) that informed me that little kids were dying in Viet Nam. I asked my dad: How could this be? I was shocked. First idea ever that children could be in war’s way. Somehow missed that with the evening news. No idea how.
Brandon
@gene108:
Well, we all know it’s not quite as simple as picking up overall percentage points. The Republican nominee will need to be able to hold every state Romney did in 2012 and pick up 64 EV’s elsewhere. Even if you spot him (it will be a him) Florida (29), Ohio (18), and Virginia (13), that’s still 3 EV’s short of 270. If you assume it’s Walker, he probably gets Wisconsin (10), but he still needs those other three to pull it off. That’s not an easy path to victory.
Jeffro
@cmorenc: Seconded.
However, still glad to see Christie on his way out of contention…
Howard Beale IV
@Petorado: When O’Reiley starts calling folks ‘pinheads’ you know he’s lost-the next step is to take it to him so he totally loses his shit.
trollhattan
@Buddy H:
Wish I could say we never experienced anything like that here. At least they’ve caught the dude.
Steeplejack
@raven:
I’ll ask him more about this, but my sense from our earlier conversation was that it’s not a deal-breaker but it should be something to consider. He is adamant that cataract surgery—and when to have it—should be the patient’s choice, based on their own assessment of their vision. You don’t want to be in a situation (this is my example, not his) where you’re going to the only ophthalmologist in Bodine County and he says, “You really need this cataract operation now [because I need to make my numbers this quarter]. And you should really get the super-duper near-far IOL [because it’s an extra $1,500-2000 to me].”
Also, my brother works in a group practice, and I think this is part of a whole suite of “best practices” they have to minimize even the appearance of funny business. Plus they get a lot of collegial feedback and second opinions. “Hey, Steep’s brother, do you really think Mr. Figby is ready for the cataract surgery? He seemed kind of iffy to me.”
Mandalay
@Bill:
Agreed, but I want more than just “good health” in a president. I have strong reservations about anyone over about 60, including Hillary Clinton, being up to the true requirements for the job, however good their health might be for their age.
But if it’s any consolation, I think that the number of voters who will overlook Christie’s health issues will be exceeded (outweighed?) by the number of voters who won’t vote for him simply because of his appearance. So the right result will emerge, even if it may be for the wrong reason.
Jeffro
@gene108:Walker is not in the same niche as Christie.
Christie is the “moderate” Republican, who could appeal to middle America. The Democratic legislature in NJ kept Christie’s worst wing-nut impulses in check. Therefore Christie never got to fully gut public sector unions or destroy the funding for the state college system or restrict abortion access, quite the same way Walker has been able to do.
Walker’s record is so much more right wing than Christie’s that he will not be able to be positioned as someone with “cross-over” appeal, the way the big money interests in NYC were hoping they could position Christie.
Keep in mind Obama beat both McCain and Romney by margins of around 53% to 47%. Republicans only need to pick up 3%+1 of the vote and they have a path towards victory.
The right candidate, who can mask the crazy might be able to pull it off.
Walker has embraced the crazy and it will come out, when he is put under the national spotlight.
Their records are not that different – none of the GOPers are (except perhaps JEB!s…with the immigration and Common Core issues). Walker’s track record of fightin’ libruls and appealing to both the money wing and the fundie/teabag wing of the GOP could easily help him on his way to the nom; in the general, he’s then a Midwestern governor who talks about “middle class economics” just like Dems (never mind that his solutions are the problem). Add a teabagger VP like Cruz and it’s tough sledding next year.
He doesn’t have to mask the crazy – he looks like a relatively normal guy, a bit of a doof, with very little of the baggage that the other GOP candidates would have from previous national exposure.
Speaking of/sidebar: what does Rick Perry think of all this? I mean he went and got those educated-lookin’ specs TWO YEARS AGO and has been batting his eyes at the media ever since. I guess it’s not working??
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack:
I’m a candidate for cataract surgery in my left eye (right one is fine for the moment). This information is very useful. Thanks.
SiubhanDuinne
@piratedan:
He is good to his kids. He has himself ferried in a limo to within a few yards of their soccer games.*
*Might be softball, or hockey. I can’t be arsed to look up those details.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne: .
Didn’t he once helicopter in to one of his kid’s sportsball games?
muddy
@trollhattan: Yes, he went in a helicopter and then rode a limo the last 100 yards. I forget the sport but an outdoor one in warm weather.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@trollhattan:
You forget that California Republicans have been reduced to a batshit crazy rump. Walker may be the choice of California Republicans, but Hillary walks away with the state.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Oh, maybe that was it. I was thinking he was driven there.
@muddy:
Yes, this sounds right, now I think of it. “It’s a helicopter!” “It’s a limo!” “Stop fighting, you two! It’s an entitled, lazy, overweight Governor!!”
Mike in NC
Walker is an asshole but by no means ready for prime time in 2016. Maybe in 2020 or 2024, with all the Koch money to float a campaign.
Santorum is still ‘on base’ but will be elbowed aside by JEB!
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Don’t fear his winning here but do fear he can be groomed in the same fashion as Dubya for a national campaign. At present he’s the sole Republican I can see in that role (JEB! being one Bush too far).
And also, too, what the hell is he doing leading a poll here? How does anybody even know who he is compared to the others?
trollhattan
@muddy: @SiubhanDuinne:
I thought of him yesterday, watching Woody Allen in the Hydrovac Suit.
PsiFighter37
If Christie had run in 2012 and ended up being the nominee, what would have been his response to Sandy? Would he have decided to stiff his entire state to please the base? Or would he have still accepted aid, hoping that reaching out to his opponent would help him with moderates/independents at the risk of totally turning off his base?
Interesting thoughts. That said, he wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in hell of actually winning the nomination anyways. This infatuation with the money crowd in NYC (of which I am admittedly associated with) was enamored with him, but it’s clear he’s the big, bad bully who is treated like the shit when he’s in 3rd grade but is ignored by most everyone else by the time the end of middle school rolls around.
PF37 +1
AxelFoley
2011? As in Christie’s people think he should have readied for 2012 vs Obama?
Yeah, no. Christie woulda got murked worse than Romney.
I kinda wish the fat fuck did run in 2012 now.
Tree With Water
@muddy: The big slob pulled that stunt at his own kid’s little league baseball game. I hope that’s one acorn that ultimately takes a huge bounce and the sooner the better, for the kid’s own sake.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
Thanks for this information and the questionnaire. I have a nauseating feeling my time might be nigh for this.
Mike in NC
Sadly, America will not embrace William Howard Taft v2.0 in 2016. Governor Krispy Kreme remains delusional, as does our worthless corporate media.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@debbie:
It’s a very low-risk procedure, and my brother says his patients are usually ecstatic about the results. Ninety-nine percent of the problem is the panic factor of “They’re going to poke my eye with a knife!”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@trollhattan:
Again: California Republicans are nuttier than their counterparts in other areas of the country. What that poll says to me is that Walker is the Tea Party/Koch Bros favorite, not Cruz or Santorum. That in itself is interesting, but not really instructive when it comes to the general election.
Baron V
No, 2011 wasn’t his year. The Romney people said so in 2012: If he’d run against Mitt, as they put it, “we would have destroyed him. And he wouldn’t be able to run for governor again.” http://swampland.time.com/2013/11/02/the-hunt-for-pufferfish/
Ruckus
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I went through this when I was thinking of having laser surgery. But I figured that thousands had gone through it with it with great results so the odds would be in my favor. That was 18 yrs ago and my far vision is still great. Fear of the unknown and of actual scary stuff is good. (Of course one can be afraid of things that have just about a zero chance of affecting one’s self too. Someone in Kansas being afraid of ISIS for example) Fear of medical procedures which are done by many times a day by many different Dr with great results is not.
Kay
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I think they just really want to win and they’re thinking if WI leans blue then he’s a better shot to win nationally. So if WI “should be” the Democrat by 5 points that gives Walker an even shot in a Presidential swing state (OH, FL, VA). Gets them closer across the board.
I don’t think state-to-national translates like that. If it did Walker would have helped Romney in WI in 2012.
Ideally, they’d want someone like Jeb Bush: R governor of a swing state who also put his state in their column in a presidential race or made it very very close.
Keith G
@cmorenc:
I want what your are sniffing.
Walker is a lightweight by any definition. The political tumult that has descended on Wisconsin has had more to do with Walker’s success than his political IQ.
“the most Nixonian candidate since Nixon“…? I am puzzled by what this could mean, but any meaningful interpretation would leave Walker coming up miles short of the mark.
I hope Walker makes it through, just so I can hear Bill riffing on the campaign trail. I fear I shall be disappointed.
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
Yes, it’s like fear of going to the dentist times 10, magnified by the fact that it’s a once- or twice-in-a-lifetime thing, so it’s not something you get “used to.”
Shana
@Steeplejack (tablet): I had cataract surgeries on both eyes a couple of years ago. I’m 56 now, so I guess I was 53 or 54 at the time. My regular eye doctor had been tracking it for a couple of years, and we both decided that I was ready. I then went to the practice my daughter had used for her pediatric ophthalmology needs (she has strabismus). I was really happy with how the procedures went. It was as you described in your first comment, local anesthetic. Kind of weird but you’re drugged so you don’t care. The only issue I had was that I woke up every morning for the first 6 months thinking “Oh god, I fell asleep in my contacts!” I’d worn glasses since I was 5 so it was a real adjustment. I use drug store reading glasses now, but small price to pay.
I also learned at the time that it’s the most common surgical procedure done in the US.
Kay
@Mike in NC:
I got a kick out of it because he’s such a big baby. Oh, boo hoo, you giant baby. You offended the rich people. Go yell at a teacher or something.
low-tech cyclist
@gene108:
You’re confusing your niches.
In the GOP primaries, the last thing Christie needs to be seen as is a moderate. His selling point within the GOP was hippie-punching, pure and simple. But Walker’s every bit the hippie-puncher Christie is, and with no doubts about whether he’s wingnuttily correct. So Walker > Christie.
jibeaux
I hate to mess up a highly disciplined open thread, but you guys are good with my tech questions. So, I’m getting into doing simple wills, I am a lawyer, and I’ve written a questionnaire for use in doing the draft of the will. There’s personal information requested. Lawyers often use email for these, but I have security concerns about that. I currently have mine drafted as a Google form, which I like for the “choose your own adventure” qualities. But if there are security concerns there, I could also subscribe to a cloud case management service geared towards lawyers which includes a secure communications portal for comm. w/ clients. Which route do you think I should go?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@jibeaux:
This thread is winding down. You might want to repost in the open thread upstairs or in one tomorrow (to get the day-shifters).
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
Thanks for the information. I’m not concerned that the ophthalmologist might have a financial interest in whether I agree to the surgery. He’s not in private practice, he’s at University of Malaya Medical Centre, a state-owned teaching hospital. I’ll be checking in with the doctors I know (including those among my relatives) in the next few months as well.
Anne Laurie
@gene108:
Right now, Walker might as well be wearing one of those NASCAR jumpsuits with a single giant logo saying Wholly Owned Property of Koch Industries. He’s a sock puppet for a couple of old, extremely rich, unelectable cranks — Repubs (“libertarians”) who don’t care about social issues, just money.
Jeb Bush is a figurehead for the “Wall Street”, establishmentarian branch of the GOP. But because his clan’s been serving as Wall Street figureheads going back to Poppy’s grandpa and Bar’s old man, all the good “supporter” spots at the Bush head table have been claimed already. (Many of them by Aryans from Darien who wouldn’t have let the Koch’s Birchite old man into their country clubs, fifty years ago.)
Chris Christie was advertising himself as the finance-friendly candidate for “new” Wall Street money — the hedge funders & venture capitalists whose own parents wouldn’t have been welcome at the white-shoe golf clubs fifty years ago, either. But the Kochs have been working, through wholly-owned ‘think tanks’ like Cato & ALEC, to develop a new breed of state-level Midwestern/Western figureheads (Walker, Pence, Brownback) that are happy to serve as sock puppets for big-money extraction / agribusiness resource-plundering industries.
There isn’t room for three “GOP establishment” candidates. Jeb isn’t going away in the immediate future, for the same reason Microsoft still commands such a big chunk of the computer business — the Bush name still commands a vast legacy of mainstream respect. Christie came out of the blocks early, probably just as an attempt to forestall a Jeb run, but current conventional wisdom seems to be that he’s too lazy and self-centered to do the hard work of kissing arse & sucking up… unlike Scott Walker, who always takes the Koch brothers’ calls and never strays from his written script, however unfriendly the audience response. By this measure, there can only be one Apple to the Bush’s Microsoft — and Walker is the sleek, efficient, wholly proprietary system the not-Bush “establishment” donors have been looking for.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@MattF:
Perhaps it’ stood vast for them to perceive.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@cmorenc: wisconsin has republican majorities in both house and senate. I don’t think the state is the liberal bastion you suggest.
Minnesota, on the other hand…
Gingerbeard
I live in Wisconsin and have worked on four losing campaigns against Walker (including 2011 Senate recalls). Walker will not win Wisconsin in a presidential election.
70% of the jobs created in Wisconsin are in the Madison area. The rest are probably in Milwaukee and its suburbs. The rest of the state is largely filled with blue collar whites who have no hope of a better future. Walker has won in Wisconsin in 2010 because he promised jobs. instead off creating jobs he won by stoking resentment of public employees who are very much the haves in most Wisconsin communities. As in, they have health insurance and a stable job.
Walker’s success is explained by:
1. Veiled racism in the Milwaukee suburbs
2. Blue collar white resentment everywhere else
When people talk about him being more Nixonian than Nixon, it’s because of his ability to exploit white resentment. His entire campaign will be based on pitting blue collar whites against the Democratic coalition. The loser will be America.
Chris
@Anne Laurie:
Very interesting. I’d been thinking of it all in terms of moneyed “establishment” versus populist clowns (Romney vs Not-Romneys, in other words), hadn’t thought of it in terms of different factions among the 1% (Eastern Establishment versus other, even more conservative 1%ers in the rest of the country. Again). Who did the Kochs back in 2012, anyway? Cause Romney was definitely an East Coast Establishment man.