Tag Archives: chris christie

Political Talk Here, There and Everywhere

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American politics

This column by Indiana Chamber Director of Publications and Social Media Matt Ottinger originally appeared in the Inside INdiana Business newsletter, Inside Edge. 

At a recent event I attended, the conversation among my tablemates turned to politics – namely the late September Republican presidential debate on CNN. Most of my fellow attendees casually mentioned their disdain for the spectacle. When it was my turn to comment, I simply stated, “I love it. I’m not proud of that, but I do.”

Whether it’s Donald Trump’s bombast and “Mean Girls”-style insults, Chris Christie’s bluster and scolding or Rand Paul’s visible contempt for having to be part of the charade, I can’t get enough. For me, it’s like I’m swimming in a barrel of Tropical Skittles next to a keg of Mr. Pibb during a binge watching session of “House of Cards” – an overdose of disgusting, shameful goodness, and I’m simply helpless to its siren song.

It’s been intriguing watching our Midwestern neighbor and former Congressional budget hawk John Kasich strike the moderate chord, while projected frontrunner Jeb Bush struggles to meet lofty expectations. And then there’s Scott Walker. Poor, poor Scott Walker, who disappeared from the race faster than a cheese curd at a mouse convention in Milwaukee.

Granted, politics can devolve into a game at times, but it mustn’t be forgotten that the political world greatly impacts the business community. That’s why our political action committee, Indiana Business for Responsive Government, always has boots on the ground impacting statewide races. It’s also why the Indiana Chamber takes an increasing number of business leaders to Washington, D.C. annually during our D.C. Fly-in. We’re grateful to Indiana’s Congressional delegation for meeting with our members and guests to discuss the issues critical to their businesses and economic growth in our state.

Furthermore, due to my personal affinity for the craft, it was quite a pleasure speaking with famed politicos James Carville and Karl Rove for our most recent edition of BizVoice magazine. The Q&A serves as a preview to the duo’s upcoming appearance as keynote speakers at the Indiana Chamber’s 26th Annual Awards Dinner on Nov. 4.

During the conversations (which took place in mid-July), I asked their perspectives about the opposition’s outlook on the 2016 presidential race:

Rove on if Sen. Bernie Sanders actually has a chance to win the Democratic Party’s nomination: “There’s substance, but the problem is that while you have a very liberal turnout in the Iowa caucuses, and New Hampshire is a more liberal state, there aren’t a lot of Burlingtons and Benningtons and Berkeleys and San Franciscos. There are a lot more Indianapolises and Evansvilles. While he runs well with the hard left, if you’re not very liberal, he’s not your cup of tea. (Clinton) will be the nominee, but it won’t be as easy as people think.”

Carville on if the attention to Trump’s bellicosity is a danger to the Republican brand (at the time of the interview, Trump had recently made statements about Mexicans crossing the border and raping women): “Yes I do. The reason is there are a considerable number of Republicans who agree with him. It’s exposing there are people out there who believe that. That’s a part of that party that is not going to go away with time. When he goes away, somebody will pick it up again.”

Trump, however, still leads national polling, so he continues to resonate with a portion of the country, although prognosticators are predicting his impending demise.

If pressed to make a prediction this early (and it’s so early I’ll likely regret it), I’d forecast a Marco Rubio vs. Hillary Clinton showdown next fall.

In early November, Carville and Rove will offer their expert opinions on the presidential race and politics. A few tickets still remain for the event and can be purchased online.

It will be a great evening of banter, insights and celebration of the business community; we hope to see you there!

Is Christie the New “Boss” in New Jersey?

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Ever since college, I've been known by my friends and family as a Bruce Springsteen enthusiast. In fact, I was in attendance when he performed the first concert in Conseco (now Bankers Life) Fieldhouse. (I actually sat behind Pacers Rik Smits and then-rookie Jeff Foster, who were both kind enough to stay seated throughout the show.) So imagine my surprise when I found this article in The Daily Caller asserting that Gov. Chris Christie is technically more popular than "The Boss" in his home state of New Jersey.

However, do note that the poll was conducted by a conservative organization, so I'm betting there was push-polling involved. Frankly, I'm a little inclined to call "bull-feathers" on this, but it makes for interesting blog fodder. But if this sentiment is accurate and spreads nationally, it could bode well for Christie in 2016.

Chris Christie is apparently more popular in the Garden State than his musical idol Bruce Springsteen.

A Conservative Intel poll of 778 likely voters shows 56 percent of New Jerseyans have a favorable impression of their Republican governor, while just 34 percent have an unfavorable view of him. Ten percent said they were not sure how they feel.

Christie bests Bruce Springsteen, a New Jersey icon, by eight points. “The Boss” registers a 48 percent favorability rating in the poll. In contrast to Christie, however, only 22 percent say they have a distinctly unfavorable impression of the “Born to Run” singer. A whopping 29 percent said they were unsure of how they feel about Springsteen.

The poll was conducted over Oct. 13 – 14 and has a 3.5 percent margin of error.

Christie is an unabashed fanatic of Springsteen’s music, claiming to have attended over 130 Springsteen concerts. Christie even admitted that he wept after Springsteen hugged him last November.

The Conservative Intel survey also shows that Democratic Newark Mayor Cory Booker is likely to win Wednesday’s special Senate election in New Jersey to replace Frank Lautenberg, who passed away in June. According to the poll, Booker holds an 11-percentage point lead over his Republican challenger, Steve Lonegan, 52 percent to 41 percent.

Speculation Time: GOP Primary Scenarios

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After his narrow Iowa victory, Mitt Romney appears to be the most likely choice to garner the GOP presidential nomination. However, due to the fact that many conservatives simply don’t like him, that’s far from a certainty. CNN has an intriguing article outlining the different possibilities of how things will play out from this point on. Read the entire piece, but I have to run this portion for the die-hard Mitch Daniels enthusiasts out there:

(3) The long shot: Someone else enters the campaign (10% chance or less). Normally, this late in the game, a new entrant to the contest would be the stuff of science fiction. But conservative voters seem to be singularly dismayed by the choices in front of them: as CNN’s Erick Erickson tweeted last night, "Typical of email I’m getting: ‘If you put a gun to my head and said Romney or Santorum I would say pull the trigger.’"

Who would step into the fray? One hears voters pining for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (unlikely to join, especially after endorsing Romney) and some have floated Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (who endorsed Perry). Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush would be a strong candidate, but that may be a tough sell to Bushed-out voters only four years after the conclusion of his brother’s presidency.

Would a candidate who jumped in this late even have a path to victory? Perhaps. The early primaries and caucuses are richer in symbolic significance than they are in delegates, especially with the new rules prohibiting winner-take-all allotment of delegates in the early states. And even with such a late jump on fundraising and organization-building, a candidate who was able to rack up a string of impressive victories in the middle- and later-term primaries could theoretically build up a big enough head of steam to take the convention by storm while making use of the Internet and earned (read: free) media coverage to play catch-up on money and organization.

The late-entrant scenario is still a dark horse at best, but even the fact that it’s within the realm of possibility underscores the reason Democrats are quietly cheering last night’s outcome: the GOP is still, at best, a party that’s looking for a standard-bearer — or, more dangerously for their 2012 prospects, a disunited collection of smaller groups of voters still pushing their own.

“Anyone Aboard?”

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If you’re like me, you curse America’s lack of — or at least not so convenient — cross-country passenger train access whenever you head to New York City, or some such locale. Even before TSA gropes became the law of the land, my disdain for large commercial airports could hardly be quantified. Although, I must say Indy’s new airport is about as delightful as an airport can be; in fact, it made LaGuardia feel like I’d landed in a toilet. (And Indiana business travelers are also blessed to have wonderful facilities like the Indianapolis Executive Airport, operated by Montgomery Aviation.)

But the fact is rail development requires serious infrastructure dollars, and as Governing reports, don’t expect that money to be invested in rail anytime soon, as American passenger train commuting may be stuck in the station for some time:

The Obama administration is more sympathetic to rail transit than its predecessors. It proposed a historic expansion of the rail passenger system, including building a national high-speed network of bullet trains with an initial $8 billion down payment in stimulus money (with more promised) to a few states for some modest projects to get things going.

The problem is that the newly elected Republican governors of states where much of the money was supposed to go — like Ohio and Wisconsin, and maybe Florida — don’t want it, at least not for high-speed rail. They’ll gladly take it for auto infrastructure like roads, bridges and highways. But U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Peoria, Ill., won’t agree to that: It’s accept rail or hit the trail, and the money will go to states that want it.

Recently the greater New York area was stunned by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to pull his state out of a long-planned project — described as the largest public transit program in the country — to build a second rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River to ease the commute by 45 minutes for Jersey residents who work in New York City. With substantial overruns, it was estimated to cost as much as $13 billion. Christie’s state was on the hook for $2.7 billion, plus the added costs for its share of the project, which already is under construction. Much is at stake, including 6,000 construction jobs.

Making significant improvements in rail service in this country seems like a no-brainer. Ridership is increasing. The highways and airways are overburdened. It’s far more energy efficient and cleaner, and compared to cars, it’s safer. If done right, it can be one of the most effective economic development tools available. But it’s also very expensive and requires a sustained commitment over many decades. And right now, governments are deep in debt.

Critics of Obama’s high-speed rail plan make several points. The project will cost far too much in initial outlays and subsidies to justify the benefits, siphoning off the funding of worthier programs, including commuter mass transit. The United States has become a suburbanized society, sprawling over a large land mass, with only a few places having sufficient population density to warrant intercity rail service. To be successful in any area except the Northeast Corridor, high-speed trains would have to make too many stops, and therefore would be too slow to compete.

Given the political changes in the new Congress and in many states, it’s hard to imagine that we’ll see many bullet trains whizzing through our future. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all is lost for rail advocates. The incoming chairman of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Florida Republican John Mica, is outspoken in his opposition to the administration’s plan, which he claims is likely to lead to many “slow-speed trains to nowhere.” But he does support what he calls “a better directed high-speed rail program.”
 

Starting School Funding Cuts at the Top

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Education funding ALWAYS generates interest. For many years, it was the funding percentage increase that schools would receive. In recent times, the focus has switched to cuts and trying to minimize the dollar reductions.

In New Jersey, cost cutting governor Chris Christie has state budget woes and education tied together. His target, however, is superintendents’ pay. Not only are there 591 school districts in the Garden State (that’s a ridiculous number), but apparently bidding wars contribute to driving up salaries. While the governor makes a tidy $175,000 a year, that salary is exceeded by 253 of the school leaders.

The solution (one that does not require any legislative or regulatory steps): superintendents will be paid on a sliding scale — the smaller the district, the smaller the salary. It was reported that 366 of the current 591 would be getting pay cuts. In addition, state government will negotiate the pay for the leaders of the 16 largest districts. There would also be caps for assistant superintendents and business administrators.

Christie’ s response when asked about the possibility of superintendents leaving the state: "If that’s the sole reason they’re here, then goodbye."

It just might be that Christie sees too much red tape to reducing the number of school districts (New Jersey also has tried unsuccessfully to eliminate townships), so this is a money-saving alternative.

‘Public Enemy Number One’ Back in Power

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It’s always fun to talk education. Why? Only because there are so many interesting personalities involved and it’s so important for so many people.

In New Jersey, the new governor (Chris Christie) has appointed new commissioner of education (Bret Schundler) who has an old history with the state’s teachers’ union. School choice is the education topic at the forefront, with a heavy dose of politics. CQPolitics tells the story in these excerpts:

In making the appointment, it’s clear, Christie has decided to teach the teachers’ union a thing or two about politics.

Schundler — who was the first Republican elected mayor of Jersey City in 75 years, and who served in that position from 1992-2001 — was, through the course of his two-plus terms in office, a noted proponent of school choice.

His determination to empower parents with more control over their own children’s education was so strong that within a year of his taking power in Jersey City, the National Education Association had labeled him "Public Enemy Number One."

In the gubernatorial campaign of 2001, Schundler made his school choice agenda central to his campaign platform. Eschewing the kind of traditional GOP campaign advice that says it’s a waste of time and resources to campaign in the inner cities, he insisted on taking his education reform message right into the poorest urban areas of the state.

He accepted an invitation to speak to the annual convention of the New Jersey Education Association — at 170,000 strong then (and 200,000 strong now), the most powerful single special interest group in the Garden State. Given the union’s opposition to merit pay, school choice, and other empowerment agenda reforms, it was an interesting exchange.

Schundler told them some uncomfortable truths. Unlike his two opponents at the time — Democrat Jim McGreevey, and Republican Acting Governor Don DiFrancesco — he didn’t try to woo them. Instead, he explained why he thought they were wrong. He wanted to reform New Jersey education by introducing more competition into the system — and to do that, he said, he wanted to reform the state’s tax code to allow for greater deductibility of charitable contributions for scholarship foundations that would use their money to pay for private or parochial school tuition for children in distressed urban areas.

I’ve never forgotten the response from the teachers’ union’s leader, which was something along the lines of, "I congratulate Mayor Schundler for having the courage to come here. And I congratulate our teachers for not throwing their knives and forks at him."

But McGreevey was able to turn the tables on Schundler on the education issue. When Schundler talked about reforms that would allow taxpayers to save $600 million in property taxes, McGreevey said that meant Schundler "wanted to take $600 million out of the public schools." It wasn’t true, but it was loud, and it was repeated endlessly.

That was eight years ago, and nothing has happened to make urban education in New Jersey any better. In fact, by many measures, the problem has gotten worse.

In fact, it’s gotten so bad that key traditional Democratic allies — including urban lawmakers, ministers, and community leaders — have broken with the teachers’ union to join with conservatives to push for a pilot program that will allow vouchers in the eight cities in the state that have the worst schools. The pilot program would allow businesses to direct a portion of their state taxes to scholarships that needy students could use to pay for private or parochial school tuition.

If that pilot program sounds familiar, it should — it’s remarkably similar to what Schundler was proposing as his campaign’s centerpiece back in 2001. But unlike Schundler’s proposal — which would not have diverted a single dime in state funding — by allowing businesses to direct a portion of their state taxes to the scholarships, this pilot program actually would move state taxpayer dollars.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on developments in Jersey. Maybe Schundler will seek input from Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett.