Republicans cling to old attacks
We’ve got to start talking about what we’re for, and not what we’re against.
Our ideas are better than their ideas. And that’s what we have to stand up for.
Gov. Chris Christie (GOP-New Jersey) – at CPAC 2014
Chris Christie is on to something.
Or maybe he isn’t.
The beleaguered governor of New Jersey (it’s that Bridgegate thing), who didn’t happen to get an invite to last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, was a star this year.
He, like many of his fellow CPAC participants, knew he could get a round of applause every time he slipped in a dig against President Obama.
That strategy, though, was a bit ironic for the man who stood at center stage, and admonished his fellow to “start talking about what we’re for, and not what we’re against.”
Some fresh ideas should have followed, but they didn’t.
Instead, Christie launched into a red meat tirade about Obama’s “lack of leadership” that really doesn’t ring true.
“You’re the leader of the government. You see something that’s about to go off the rails, and what you decide to do is stay as far away from it as possible. Leadership is about getting in and getting something done, and making government work. Leadership is not about standing on the sidelines and spit-balling,” he told the cheering crowd of conservatives.
Therein lies a problem for Mr. Christie.
He’d made a similar claim about Obama when he campaigned for Mitt Romney back in 2012.
During a campaign stop in Richmond, Va., Christie made some mighty strong attacks on Obama’s supposed leadership deficit.
“Clutching for the light switch of leadership, and he just won’t find it. And he won’t find it in the next 18 days,” he told the crowd.
He was right about one thing. It didn’t take 18 days. It only took eight.
There was something call Hurricane Sandy, that brought parts of Eastern Seaboard to its knees, and a certain New Jersey to see the president’s full leadership at close range.
The president immediately flew to New Jersey, and promised Christie some much needed Sandy relief, while Christie appeared puppy-like, feeding from the trough of big government.
“The president has been all over this, and he deserves great credit. He gave me his number at the White House and told me to call him if I needed anything, and he absolutely means it. It’s been very good working with the president and his administration. It’s been wonderful,” Christie would later say on MSNBC.
Of course, it was Christie’s warm embrace of the president that allowed conservatives to leave his name off the featured speaker list for CPAC 2013.
If Christie was going to reestablish his conservative credentials, he knew he could do it, simply by, once again, questioning Obama’s leadership.
He must think Democrats have short memories.
If he does become the Republican presidential nominee, I’m sure Democrats would love to pull out all of those pictures of him and Obama doing the happy-dance together, when New Jersey was on the brink of becoming a sludge pile.
But CPAC 2014 had lots of rather curious attacks on Democrats in general, and Obama specifically. Failed vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, claimed, “”The Left isn’t just out of ideas. They’re out of touch.”
Well, here’s one of the “new ideas’ Republicans have these days.
“We need to abolish the IRS. We need to audit the Federal Reserve. We need to abolish every single word of Obamacare,” Tea Party favorite, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Cruz must have been sleeping during the 2012 presidential campaign, when voters all over the country rejected that kind of rhetoric.
Then there was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
He’s up for re-election in November, and polling shows he’s in for a tough fight, not against his Tea Party challenger, but the Democratic Kentucky Secretary of State – Alison Lundergan Grimes.
So, when it was McConnell’s turn to take the CPAC stage, he wanted to solidify his far right wing support.
He appeared on stage carrying a rifle.
How’s that for a “new idea?”
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net