I Went to Trenton to Govern, But All I Got Was This Lousy $38 Million

Governor Christie has had some major legislative accomplishments over the past two years including a 2% cap on property taxes and a public worker pension and benefits overhaul. Mind you, these laws have not necessarily made life better for New Jerseyans, as taxes have still risen and thousands of experienced public workers have either retired, fled or have been laid off because of them.

The past six weeks, though, have been another story for the guv'nor.

Despite his general popularity, the Republicans actually lost seats in the November legislative elections. Now Christie will need to rely even more heavily on the Democratic majority in the legislature and the Democratic power brokers in Essex and Camden Counties. Add in the disdain that Senate President Steven Sweeney has for Christie and you have a recipe for gridlock sprinkled with a tablespoon of revenge.

Then, the general consensus was that the lame duck legislative session was going to be one of the most active in years, with bills flying around State Street on teacher tenure and evaluation, property taxes, jobs, budget cuts and patronage. What's happened? Nada. Almost every issue was pushed to the formal session that begins in early January, and won't probably get any steam until the Governor's State of the State message in the middle of the month.

And in the spirit of the holidays, Christie picked a fight with Senator, and former Governor, Richard Codey over the permanent appointment of Commissioner of Education Christopher Cerf, accusing Codey of (gasp!) feeding information to reporters. Christie canceled Codey's security detail and fired Codey's cousin from the Port Authority board. That's politics through and through and shows that Christie will never be the warm, fuzzy leader he sometimes pretends to be.

But the true state of the Governor's clout was uncovered when New Jersey was actually awarded $38 million dollars in Race to the Top funds by the Obama Administration so it could implement a speculative teacher evaluation system based on student standardized test scores. Getting money should be a positive, but this award only dredged up the previous failure to even qualify for $400 million dollars in education funds because of the Governor's attitude towards the New Jersey Education Association. Not only did it cost the state money, it also cost Commissioner of Education Brett Schundler his job and showed that Christie would blame everyone but his leadership for the error. It's a pattern that he's repeated in every misstep since, and it's one reason why he would not make a good president.

He's ending the year by essentially becoming Mitt Romney's pit bull and possible vice-presidential running mate. Granted, he did only say that he would keep the door open, but that will only serve as a distraction in the coming year, as his flirtation with the presidency proved throughout the fall, because every time he doesn't get what he wants, the media will remind us all that he's got his eye on the national ticket. The Governor should just say no this time around and focus on the state.

It's still very possible that Christie will get some of his reforms through the legislature, but many in the state are tired of his outbursts and outlandish statements. Prosecutors like him are convinced that they are always right and that they have the ultimate truth on their side, so why compromise? We need to remember that the next time one runs for statewide office.

We Hardly Newt Ye!

That was close. And scary. The idea that Newt Gingrich might actually win the GOP presidential nomination sent shivers down the spines of enough Republicans that they actually came to their senses this week and  began to support Ron Paul in the Iowa caucus polls. As for the national trends, it looks like Mitt Romney is the betting favorite on Internet sites.

The Gingrich flirtation lasted only as long as voters knew little about what he might do in office. His tirades against the federal judiciary might play well with the ultra-conservatives, but they seem to be non-starters among the more moderate voters who will come out in later primary states. Also, his lack of organization is showing, but that shouldn't come as a complete surprise. Gingrich never seemed to be in the race for anything other than to get his ideas in the marketplace. He succeeded. Now there's a 50% off sticker on them and they're not long for the discontinued bin.

Republican voters have sampled all of the candidates over the course of the last few months and they seem to be coalescing around Romney, despite conservative suspicion that he's not fully committed to their causes. There's a good reason for this; he's not, but he's the only electable candidate in the field. So that leaves us with a volatile race in Iowa with any of Romney, Paul (my favorite to pull out a win), Bachmann and Perry able to cobble together enough caucus voters to move on to the next set of states. Rick Santorum is getting a little love this week from evangelicals, but that will all come to naught after Iowa.

Then the serious race will begin in earnest. Depending upon what happens in the next few days, Romney will have to defend Republican obstruction that led to the end of the payroll tax cut, or he'll have to run against it as flawed policy, despite the cut being popular among voters and economists. He'll also have to harness the Tea Party faction that doesn't want to compromise on anything, and is losing support, even with Republicans. Add on the fact that President Obama's poll numbers are improving, and Mitt suddenly has a more daunting task ahead of him than he did in October (did he just announce his first major policy decision?).

But that's all in the future. Right now, we should be thanking Newt Gingrich for a spirited campaign that ultimately showed his best days to be behind him. His rise and fall was swifter than Herman Cain's and the reality of a Gingrich presidency was always going to present problems in a world that's moved beyond the 1990s. Perhaps Romney can find room for Newt in his administration as, say, ambassador to Libya?

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Technology, Democracy and the Revolution

The Internet wants us to grow up.

So far, we've used it to play games, go shopping, follow our friends (and strangers), work more efficiently, and play games. Fun activities to be sure, but now it's time for the Internet to take us into the serious future where people really will be replaced by machines and the machines will know more about us than we are comfortable disclosing to actual humans.

It will be scary for a while, but then, most revolutionary change is. Follow me.