Thomas Sowell gets what I've been saying about Christie for awhile now - I don't know whether the big guy would make a good president, I don't even know that much about his policy positions - and I'm not sure what to make of the 'traffic jam scandal', whether it ruins him, makes him stronger, ends up working to his advantage, or if maybe in the end it says something unflattering and disqualifying about the way he wields power and manages his people - I dunno - what I do know is that conservatives in general lack what he has and has in spades: the ability to talk in a clear and convincing and appealing and engaging way when the cameras are on and the ability accordingly to come across to a broad range of people as real, approachable, trustworthy and flat out damn likeable. In a political age defined by mass media and a popular culture that sees almost everything through that prism, and with that media inherently inclined towards a bias against conservative ideas and often openly corrupted by a politically motivated hostility to conservatism - to be a conservative and have the communication skills Christie has is like gold - and I firmly believe that if the GOP cannot find national candidates like this who have the ability to counteract and hopefully overcome the natural and often unnatural bias of the media, then the GOP is doomed to an increasing irrelevance.
And yet we see in the base's hatred of Christie and embrace of people like Cruz the incapacity or simple stubborn refusal to acknowledge this reality - the right wing base does not seem to grasp that what they see and hear when Cruz talks is not what most of the rest of the country will see and hear when Cruz talks should the GOP be foolish enough to make him their candidate. Now, I suppose you can make the argument that by the end of Obama's term the kind of liberalism he espouses will be so discredited that the country might be ready to tolerate a Cruz - possible, I guess - more likely though is that if what Obama represents is wholly discredited and the GOP puts forward someone like Cruz that will free up whomever the Democrats run to move convincingly to the center - which is why the GOP needs to run someone who can appeal to moderates and thus force Hillary et al to try and defend what Obama has wrought.
And yet we see in the base's hatred of Christie and embrace of people like Cruz the incapacity or simple stubborn refusal to acknowledge this reality - the right wing base does not seem to grasp that what they see and hear when Cruz talks is not what most of the rest of the country will see and hear when Cruz talks should the GOP be foolish enough to make him their candidate. Now, I suppose you can make the argument that by the end of Obama's term the kind of liberalism he espouses will be so discredited that the country might be ready to tolerate a Cruz - possible, I guess - more likely though is that if what Obama represents is wholly discredited and the GOP puts forward someone like Cruz that will free up whomever the Democrats run to move convincingly to the center - which is why the GOP needs to run someone who can appeal to moderates and thus force Hillary et al to try and defend what Obama has wrought.
