Within the Margin

Everyone likes Chris Christie. Oh, except for some Republican donors who have probably never actually had to govern a state. Or anything. And who might not listen to enough Springsteen.

Last week, the Times ran a piece detailing Chris Christie’s rocky relationship with Republican insiders amid the fallout from having a warm relationship with President Obama in Sandy’s aftermath. That piece was worth a read to understand the depths to which out-of-state donors sunk as they begged Christie to focus on helping Romney rather than the devastation that had come to his state from Sandy.  Look, it should be noted that Chris Christie was hardly the Romney campaign’s biggest problem. If the Republicans really wanted to win that election, they could have offered a budget whose numbers added up, rather than Paul Ryan’s sleight-of-hand (the Paul Ryan “MATH” Obamicon was one of the more ironic images from the 2012 campaign). They could have offered something besides condescension for the rising demographic groups with whom they performed so poorly. They could have offered a set of values that would not be so easily caricatured as coming from the 1920s (economic policy) or 1950s (social policy. Oh, and foreign policy, with that bit about Russia.)

But they didn’t, and Romney lost, and Chris Christie has little to do with that. It’s probably not the first time in the annals of history that the GOP donor class is out of touch with normal people. It seemed pretty obvious to most, I think, that the man’s commitment to duty and deep love for his state was fueling a desire to work hand-in-hand with the federal government to get through a crisis. But don’t take my word for it. Quinnipiac has been polling the Garden State, and they found that 84% of New Jerseyans approved of Christie’s praise for Obama – including 69% of Jersey Republicans. When it comes to Christie handling his job, particularly inter-governmental relations, I care what people in his state think – not what donors think, and now what insiders desperately looking for their next consulting gig might think.

Now, as Democratic insiders go, I’ve always been pretty tolerant of this guy. There’s a reason for this. When it comes to Christie, the first thing I think of is not union-busting or physical girth or New Jersey bluster – which are the things media people and pundits and political combatants usually cling to. For me, the first thing that comes to mind when I ponder Christie…is Springsteen. That goes beyond Christie and I simply being fans of a man and his music, because the music represents something hard to define, but which is about an attachment to place and time and personal struggle that I feel in an acute way, and which I think Christie does as well. I can disagree with Christie on some – not nearly all – of his policies, but I might consider him something of a kindred spirit in how he goes through his life. So when I see donors lamenting that Christie’s too tight with Obama, or Iowa Republican operatives saying they “don’t forget things like this, I think, “Oh, another bunch of donors and hacks who could use a little more Bruce in their lives.” If you can’t empathize with Christie and understand the importance of place and people before politics in the days and weeks following Sandy, then it seems to me there’s a catalog of music that’s missing from your life. Come back to me when you’ve found your soul.