Yes, the Chris Christie press conferences is finally over. The question remains: Is Chris Christie finished, too? It’s actually far too early to tell. But there are clues. John Dickerson from Slate argues that Christie has built a Jenga tower — and that with each added block, the risk grows of it all falling down around him. Christie took the blame, but he also made a lot of claims, starting with the one that he knew nothing about anything.
Christie did a full hangout, an extremely rare strategy in politics today. Slate asks if can he survive it.
To review: Christie’s staff created four-days of stop-dead traffic jams out of political pique, affecting tens of thousands of commuters, sucking their time and wasting their fuel, mucking up their personal and professional lives. When the governor went to apologize to the Ft. Lee mayor yesterday, he took a helicopter to avoid traffic.
One-time Colorado Republican Party Chair Dick Wadhams, advisor now to state Rep. Amy Stephens, who’s running for the U.S. Senate against Mark Udall, said Udall’s pressing the Colorado department of insurance on the numbers they released for Obamacare-era canceled policies is a “worse scandal” than the Christie traffic jams. Wadhams has either never driven to the Washington Bridge or doesn’t own a car or he has given up on ever again being taken seriously about anything.
In the New Yorker, John Cassidy says Christie is one story away from oblivion.
The New Republic argues that Christie is more Nixon than Giuliani. This is seen as a bad thing.
If you’re wondering who Republicans are talking to with all this new emphasis on poverty, here’s one guess: It’s not the poor. Via the National Journal.
A billion here, a billion there: Wall Street thinks its mortgage-crisis bill could be $50 billion. Via the New York Times.
A health care industry expert tells Ezra Klein what the problem is with Obamacare. Via the Washington Post.
New York, responding like rational humans to climate change: “With $1 billion financial boost, Gov. Cuomo aims to install 3,000 (MW) of solar across New York. That’s enough to power 465,000 New York homes, cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2.3 million tons annually — the equivalent of taking almost 435,000 cars off the road — and create more than 13,000 new solar jobs…. The governor also unveiled the $40 million NY Prize competition, which will bolster community microgrids in the state, helping to make the electrical grid more resilient in the face of increasing extreme weather like Superstorm Sandy. Additionally, Renewable Heat NY will seek to utilize private sector investment to boost biomass heating as a cheaper, renewable alternative to home heating oil.”
