ChrisWeigant.com

What Will Christie Do?

[ Posted Tuesday, June 4th, 2013 – 17:10 UTC ]

The death of Senator Frank Lautenberg has given New Jersey's governor an interesting choice. Who will Chris Christie appoint to fill the vacancy, and what will it mean for his own political future?

Christie has already announced that there will be a special election this October for the seat, no matter who he picks to fill the seat in the meantime. This is nothing short of sheer political opportunism on his part, because if he weren't scared that this race might impact his own re-election bid for governor, he could quite easily have put this race on the ballot which takes place a bare few weeks after the special election. New Jersey voters will go to the polls mid-October, and then in early November -- costing the state over ten million dollars. That's a dandy point of attack for his Democratic opponent, one would think. But that choice has now been made, and it's kind of beside the point here.

Christie remains popular in New Jersey, one of the rare Republicans who can keep a blue state happy. Which is why he's got to be assessing his chances of a run for the White House in 2016. Seen through this lens, Christie's got three basic choices to fill the empty Senate seat before October, and it will indeed be interesting to see which one of these he picks.

 

Name a Republican who will not run to keep the seat

Christie's "safe bet" would appear to be naming some caretaker Republican who would not run to keep the seat beyond October (either in the special election or in the 2014 election, when the seat will be up for grabs again). He could nominate some "old bull" from the party, or some loyal staffer who would promise not to run in the future. This is an accepted "polite" thing to do in these situations, and it has been done recently by both Republican and Democratic governors. By doing so, Christie would send the message that the voters are the ones who get to make the ultimate choice and there should be no "stacking the deck" before that happens.

This will probably be popular in New Jersey, a state which hasn't actually elected a Republican to the Senate since bell bottoms were in fashion. Democrats wouldn't fault Christie for replacing a Democrat with a Republican if the nominee showed no interest in campaigning to keep the seat. On the national level, Christie would get points from Republican primary voters for denying Harry Reid a Democratic vote for most of the rest of the year. At the very least, they wouldn't punish Christie for doing so, one assumes, as long as the nominee is fairly non-controversial.

 

Name a Republican who will run to keep the seat

This would be the choice to really please the Republican Party primary voters, though. Christie's always been seen as a fairly hardball type of guy in politics, and this would burnish this reputation. Christie could name and up-and-coming Republican who was already planning on running for the seat in 2016, and by doing so give that candidate a leg up by being able to run as a sitting Senator.

While this would please the national audience of Republican Party primary voters (who may determine Christie's ultimate fate in 2016, of course), it might leave a bad taste in the mouths of New Jersey voters (at least, the non-Republican ones). This could damage Christie's brand of being a "fair and square" type of politician, and give him headaches in his re-election campaign. If Christie lost the governor's race this year (a longshot, but worth mentioning), it may take the shine off him as a candidate in 2016. He certainly would have a much lower profile if he wasn't in the governor's office for his presidential run.

Of course, Christie may think he'll win re-election anyway (and he may well be right to think so), and if he chooses this route it will be very interesting to see what sort of Republican he appoints -- a Tea Partier, or a mainstream candidate?

 

Name a Democrat

This is probably not a very high probability, but it could conceivably happen. Christie has never been particularly afraid of promoting himself as being somewhat "above politics" -- especially since his embrace of President Obama in the post-Sandy era.

He could conceivably announce that New Jersey voters have long sent Democrats to the Senate, that the senator who died was a Democrat, and that he will respect the wishes of the voters by naming someone not of his party to finish out Lautenberg's term. I can see him making that announcement (whereas I couldn't see many other Republican governors ever doing so) -- it's within the bounds of possibility. Christie would boost his own approval among Democratic voters in New Jersey, since it would be seen as such a selfless move, politically. "Rising above partisanship" and all of that, to put it another way. So -- within his state, at any rate -- naming a Democrat might be beneficial to Christie himself among the voters.

Of course, by doing so he could also use the situation to his advantage as well. Christie could pick a Democrat who is not named "Cory Booker," and thus set the cat among the pigeons for the Democratic primary for the special election. By raising some Democrat's profile in the race, he could ensure a very close primary contest which would force Booker (who really, really wants to be senator, and has for quite a while) to spend a lot of money in the primary -- making it easier for whomever gets the Republican nomination.

That's pretty Machiavellian, however. And it ignores the wider (national) implications of Christie naming any Democrat -- the fact that it might absolutely kill his chances of ever becoming the Republican nominee for president in the future. It may be a "deal-breaker" for Republican primary voters, who are not generally considered a very forgiving bunch. They would see it as nothing short of a traitorous move to the Republican Party's chances, and they would likely not reward such a man with the nomination for higher office. This alone means Christie will very likely not nominate a Democrat (unless, of course, he really isn't all that serious about running for president anyway, which is also a possibility many fail to consider).

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

 

12 Comments on “What Will Christie Do?”

  1. [1] 
    nypoet22 wrote:
  2. [2] 
    nypoet22 wrote:

    sorry, brain fart.

    i think he'll pick a republican who will run. the guy may go out of his way to act principled, but he doesn't seem to care much at all about being polite.

  3. [3] 
    akadjian wrote:

    My guess is a Republican who'll run also.

    From the lists I've seen a couple of the more likely candidates include State Senator Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) or State Senator Kevin O'Toole (R-Essex)

    -David

  4. [4] 
    Michale wrote:

    Chris’ special-election plan irks Dems, GOP
    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/october_surprise_8mv0zLtI312hlO7Erq0LlJ

    Well, if Christie's plan pisses off both Dems and GOP then I guess it's the right way to go.. :D

    Sounds like my kind of guy.. :D

    Michale

  5. [5] 
    michty6 wrote:

    My guess is that he'll hold a special election - not on the same day as his gubernatorial election but weeks earlier at a cost of millions of dollars (because he's a fiscal Conservative lololol) to keep Democrats away from the polls on gubernatorial election day...

    ;)

    In all seriousness this is really a stupid issue. He should've just appointed a Republican and if asked why say 'because almost every single Governor in the past has appointed a member of their own party under these circumstances'.

  6. [6] 
    Michale wrote:

    In all seriousness this is really a stupid issue. He should've just appointed a Republican and if asked why say 'because almost every single Governor in the past has appointed a member of their own party under these circumstances'.

    To which the ONLY common sense response would be:

    "If every single Governor jumped off a cliff, would you do it too???"

    :D

    Michale

  7. [7] 
    michty6 wrote:

    Lol Michale. I can see this playing out in court:

    Lawyer: I cite the case of Michale vs Michty6 as precedent.
    Judge: Yeh but if the precedent said to jump off a cliff does that mean we should do it?!
    Lawyer: ...

    In other news, this pretty much sums up the 'scandals' of the past few weeks for me: http://www.mattbors.com/blog/2013/06/05/calls-on-holder/

  8. [8] 
    Michale wrote:

    In other news, this pretty much sums up the 'scandals' of the past few weeks for me:

    Yea, and it sums up the Left's attitude as well..

    "Ho hum, so we track journalists' emails. Big deal. So, we accuse journalists of being Co-Conspirators. Yaaawwwnnnn.. So we target conservatives and illegally release their donor info. Who cares. So we assassinate American citizens without due process or any oversight whatsoever. Big Yawn."

    Yea, that about sums up the attitude of the Left AND the Obama Administration.

    What's so interesting to me is that, change Obama to Bush, change Holder to Gonzalez or Ashcroft, change Rice to Cheney or Powell and ya'all would likely have died already from hysterical conniption fits..

    Don't bother denying it because the FACTS of it are well established...

    Once again, the power of the almighty "-x" rears it's ugly head...

    Michale

  9. [9] 
    Chris Weigant wrote:

    Michale [4] -

    Yeah, right after I wrote this I read another article that said the GOP was annoyed with him, too.

    While I do understand your sentiment about "must be doing something right," if I lived in NJ I'd be annoyed about the extra $12 million the election's going to cost, for no reason other than self-serving politics.

    -CW

  10. [10] 
    Michale wrote:

    While I do understand your sentiment about "must be doing something right," if I lived in NJ I'd be annoyed about the extra $12 million the election's going to cost, for no reason other than self-serving politics.

    Politicians are great at spending other people's money...

    "... the nature of the beast"
    -Colonel Hadley, THE FINAL OPTION

    Hay, you check out the latest in last weeks FTP??

    You gave me the idea.. :D

    Michale

  11. [11] 
    Chris Weigant wrote:

    Michale -

    I'll check it out. I'm almost out of the woods in terms of other projects distracting me, so I'm trying to get better about answering comments here.

    Looks like Christie went with the "name a flunky who will warm the chair until the election, but not run" option...

    Seems fair to me. It's what the Delaware gov. did a while back (when Biden became veep? I forget the circumstances). Name a seat-holder, but then let the voters decide.

    -CW

  12. [12] 
    Michale wrote:

    Seems fair to me. It's what the Delaware gov. did a while back (when Biden became veep? I forget the circumstances). Name a seat-holder, but then let the voters decide.

    Which, to me, sounds like the most responsible and fair-minded non-political thing to do..

    I'll check it out. I'm almost out of the woods in terms of other projects distracting me, so I'm trying to get better about answering comments here.

    Not sure how well it's gonna be received as it comes across as blatantly arrogant....

    Even for me. :D

    But it would definitely make me less ...er.. prolific around here as it would serve to take a LOT of wind outta my sails... :D

    Michale

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