the rix mix

Chris Christie is Governor of New Jersey. To his credit, he seems to understand that he won't solve anything long-term by creating conditions for more poverty, more crime, & crappier urban schools. What he can do is establish an atmosphere around his office that corruption & nepotism are not welcome & will not be considered the way things have to be. He was raised in affluent Livingston, but he was an Essex County public school kid, & he's proud of his connection to Newark. He's not behaving as a right wing ideologue, & there's little in his record to indicate he ever was. His stated social values are commonplace conservative Catholic; of course he's opposed to abortion & same sex marriage. He probably hopes these won't become issues for him any time soon. He's stuck with the Democratic Statehouse majorities for two years. A bad governor would be adversarial in the hope voters would blame the majority for failure & turn them out. But I doubt Jerseyans have the patience for that game right now, & Democrats know they can't wait out Christie for 4 years. We shall see.

Labels: New Jersey politics