Chris Christie-Bipartisan Appeal?

[carltonplace]

He won New Jersey in a landslide with across the board support from Reps, Dems, Male, Female and minority support.

He should be the perfect candidate for 2016 presidential run, but I doubt he is conservative (tea party) enough to win local primaries.

As a democrat this is a republican candidate that I could find enthusiasm for; he is savvy, straight talking and has shown the ability to buck partisanship to get things done.

I'm interested to see what he has to become to get through the primaries once he announces.
Republicans: is he viable in your opinions?

[Townsend]

Republicans: is he viable in your opinions?

To someone like me?  Sure.

To the Oklahoma styled conservative Republican?  I don't know.

I hope he makes it pretty far and has the opportunity to make the national stage more interesting.

[Gaspar]

Like him because he bucks both parties, and employs common sense. 

[RecycleMichael]

I like him because we wear the same size shirt. That is so rare in politics today.

[Conan71]

He's got broad appeal and I like him.  However, I think he will get Romneyed by a TP candidate in the primaries.  Rick Scrotorum provided plenty of sound bite fodder for the Obama campaign to latch on to in the general in 2012.  In 2016, all Hillary needs to do is use the sound bites from the GOP primaries to finish out her campaign.  That is if she can win the primaries.  I think the Clintons are viewed as too moderate by the more left leaning in the Democrat party.

Far righties are still appalled that Christie snuggled up to Obama on the eve of the 2012 election.  WTH was he supposed to do?  Not accept help from the President in the face of a huge natural disaster?

A good moderate is who is going to earn my vote in 2016.

[Conan71]

I like him because we wear the same size shirt. That is so rare in politics today.

But he can't be a man because he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me.

[nathanm]

I think the Clintons are viewed as too moderate by the more left leaning in the Democrat party.

The Democratic Party, for better or worse, is not controlled by its left flank in the same way the Republican Party is controlled by its right. The lefties get noisy, but most of the party still subscribes to the Clintonite "third way". You wouldn't know it from watching the news, but that's because the news takes Republican claims that Obama is on board with the agenda of the far left at face value and uncritically assumes that means the party as a whole is in agreement with its leftist wing, not because of his actual record, which is to the right of Clinton in many ways.

I actually have fewer quibbles with Christie than I do most Republicans, but I'm not voting for anyone who willingly associates themselves with that brand at this point. It shows a refusal to acknowledge what's going on within the party, IMO. If he ran as an Independent or a Democrat, I'd be about as likely to vote for him as I would be Hillary. They're both corporatist centrists, after all.

[Gaspar]

The Democratic Party, for better or worse, is not controlled by its left flank in the same way the Republican Party is controlled by its right. The lefties get noisy, but most of the party still subscribes to the Clintonite "third way". You wouldn't know it from watching the news, but that's because the news takes Republican claims that Obama is on board with the agenda of the far left at face value and uncritically assumes that means the party as a whole is in agreement with its leftist wing, not because of his actual record, which is to the right of Clinton in many ways.

I actually have fewer quibbles with Christie than I do most Republicans, but I'm not voting for anyone who willingly associates themselves with that brand at this point. It shows a refusal to acknowledge what's going on within the party, IMO. If he ran as an Independent or a Democrat, I'd be about as likely to vote for him as I would be Hillary. They're both corporatist centrists, after all.

I would actually have to agree with most of that.  I think the media magnifies political philosophy on both sides of the fence, because that is much better news. I would however disagree with your positioning of President Obama as right of the Clintons. 

In his writings and in his choice of policy, President Obama makes it very clear that the private sector is enemy territory.  This holds true except when there is monetary support to be had for political gain.  While Bill and Hillary were/are always open to the highest bidder, they also have very strong feelings about legacy, and realized that to continue to amass power they would need to produce results, and that can only come from the advancement of private enterprise.  That is why the Clintons always surrounded themselves with highly productive people, relied on them for guidance, and leaned on them for results. They applied quite a few conservative principals and ethics.

President Obama simply thinks he can manifest policy, power, and legacy through rhetoric.  He has never learned that intensions are not results, and has no clear roadmap of how to produce, or put the right people in place to do so.  He is more comfortable at the lectern than in the conference room. He has consistently surrounded himself with politicians and academics willing to validate his positions, all brilliant people with amazing and complex minds, but no experience with the execution of their own ideas, or production of results.  Like him, they share the misguided concept that you can speak something into being.

To sum up President Obama's only mistake. . .he is so left minded that he cannot understand the creation of value beyond just words.