Sean Hannity Goes Nuclear On Chris Christie

by JASmius

I had no idea that Sean's ego was that bruised by being bumped from his 9PM slot by Megan Kelly:

Sean Hannity declared that the "anointment" of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as the 2016 GOP presidential nominee following his re-election on Tuesday is "jumping the gun" — adding, "I don't know what the big appeal of Christie is, just based on the record."

He told listeners of his radio show on Wednesday: "It is hardly an economic boon or turnaround in the state of New Jersey, I can tell you that. [But] everybody is just going nuts thinking they have this thing figured out for 2016."

Ya know, Tea Partiers like "the Great American" have really got to learn to control their anti-"RINO" reflex.  More times than not, it makes them look really, really foolish, creates far more trouble than it's worth, and almost as often comes across as profoundly obnoxious as well.

I haven't blogged much about the results from the Virginia and New Jersey governor's races because I didn't blog about those races before Tuesday.  The outcomes were more or less preordained for months - Governor Christie was going to win re-election in a blowout because his only serious challenger, Corey Booker, opted to run for the late Frank Lautenberg's senate seat instead, and Double-C scheduled that special election early so as to hold down Donk turnout for his own contest; and Ken Cuccinelli lost because he ran a poor, disorganized, woefully underfunded campaign against Bill Clinton's ruthless chief bag man, secure in his self-righteous complacency that "money doesn't matter".  Which Cooch found out the hard way is resoundingly untrue.

That was half the reason I haven't had much to say about those two gubernatorial contests; the other half is the aforementioned tiresome Tea Party anti-"RINO" reflexing.  Seeing as how I'm anticipating quite a bit of Cuccinelli anti-"Establishment" discussion tomorrow, let's focus on the Big Man instead.

Is "anointing" anybody as the presumptive GOP nominee a year before the primary campaign even begins "jumping the gun"?  Sure it is.  But then, it always is, because that's what the media does.  Why do they do this?  Because - and I know none of you are going to want to hear this, so just brace yourselves - it is the media that chooses the Republican presidential nominee, not Republicans.  And sure as hell not the Tea Party.

(Also, they're desperate to change the subject from the ObamaCare disaster.  Beats me why I have to point this out for the guy who does have a national TV and radio empire.  I'll be happy to take that 10PM time slot off his hands if he can't handle it, either.)

I'm sorry, gentles, but that's the truth.  With an ever growing majority of states employing "open" primaries in which anybody, including independents, barnyard animals, and Democrats (pardon the redundancy on the last two), can vote in Republican contests, GOPers have less and less of a say over their own nominating process.  Combine that with the perplexing tendency of more and more rightwing purity fetishists on election days to quit rather than fight (i.e. "stay home" in "protest"), and it's no wonder that we keep winding up with "moderates" for standard-bearers.  Well, that and not having any nationally viable conservative alternatives, which there haven't been pretty much going all the way back to Ronald Reagan.

Just to review, "nationally viable" means more than just "he agrees with me 100%"; it also means having executive experience (i.e. current or former state governor) and being a quality candidate (i.e. the charisma factor).

Which brings us back to Chris Christie.  Fact is, while his non-fiscal record is less than scintillating,  the man has charisma and executive experience like he does cholesterol.  He'll never have the "dork" stigma Mitt Romney dragged around, and unlike Bush41 nobody will ever call him a "wimp".  It's precisely that he is a "fighter" that made him such a one-time Tea Party rock star in the first place - or have you forgotten "Christie Porn"?  If his ability to cathartically articulate the (fiscal) conservative message isn't the epitome of what we've lusted after in a national candidate for years, I'll eat the governor's lap band.

Also, Chris Christie is not just a governor, he's not just a current governor, but he's a current two-term governor, of a semi-major state, and he's already nationally known.  He's the first GOP governor in such a strong national position since George W. Bush, and before him....Ronald Reagan (whose pre-gubernatorial celebrity compensated for his having been out of that office at the time).  There'll be none of Tim Pawlenty's "punching down" flame-outs or Rick Perry's fifty-three-seconds-of-dead-air brain farts or Mitt Romney's Clark Griswold-esqe "I left the dog carrier on the car roof in 1983" gags - or, for that matter, no thirty-year-old DUI land mines to blow up six days before the election to plunge the country into a month-long bloodless civil war.

If Governor Christie hadn't left the reservation on "climate change," gun control, and gone wobbly on sodomarriage, TPers would already be stocking up on alcohol-free bubbly, and they know it.  So why, Mr. Hannity, are you so outragedly shocked that the media is "anointing" him the 2016 Republican nominee?

Referring to exit polls on Tuesday that showed Hillary Clinton beating Christie in 2016, Hannity said: "Chris Christie on his most popular day can't beat Hillary Clinton. That ought to be a warning sign to everybody who wants to put their anointment on this guy without even having a primary."

Well, that answers my previous question.  Has it not occurred to you, Sean, that the inevitability of Hillary Clinton in 2016 is as much a media "anointing" as Governor Christie's?  Do I really have to go through all the reasons again why Hillary Clinton is a political corpse?  Okay....

1) She'll be seventy years old, older than Reagan when he first ran (and won), younger than John McCain when he ran (and lost); and age doesn't wear nearly as well on women as it does on men;

2) Her Rauch window closed in 2006 (measuring from when she was elected "co-president" in 1992, which explains her defeat at Barack Obama's hands in 2008) or will close in 2014 (measuring from when she was elected to the Senate in 2000); either way, it'll be closed, and she'll be well past her national "expiration date".

3) The Democrat Party doesn't do dynasties; the Kennedys, as the last half-century ought to have amply demonstrated, were the exception that proves the rule.  They're the "fad of the month" bunch (JFK, Carter, Clinton, Obama on that same sixteen year cycle), and if their next young, dynamic, telegenic, charismatic "Great [insert minority group name here] Hope" demagogue isn't ready for launch (and he won't be until 2020 at least, more likely 2024), they grab whomever's handy, not rummage through history's dustbin for has-beens, retreads, and never-weres.  I can't imagine Democrats want another Clinton any more than we would want another Bush (which makes the fact that Jeb is contemplating a run hysterically fascinating).

4) Benghazi?  Hello?

Hannity continued: "This governor has no idea what's going to hit him. All these liberal media people that want you to run, they are going to be your worst enemy when you get out there on the national campaign trail."

He knows, Sean.  He knows.  And that will bring the "fighting Christie" back to the fore.  Seriously, you can't figure this out?

Hannity also dared Christie to call President Barack Obama a liar for claiming people would be able to keep their healthcare insurance plans if they wanted to.

"Has Chris Christie ever said Obama's a liar? Hey Chris, election's over. I dare you. I dare you," he said.

"I want to hear you say, 'Yeah, Barack Obama is a liar and he lied about his lies.'"

Yeah, that'd be fun to watch and hear.  But then, the reason for the "kinder, gentler" Christie over the past year was that that was what was tactically necessary for a Republican incumbent to win re-election in a night-blue state.  Dropping Vader bombs on The One probably wouldn't have been too awfully helpful to that strategy until the past month, and that was garbage time anyway.  Going forward, it could be a different story, as the Big Man could use Red Barry against whomever the Donks ended up nominating in the same way that O himself used President Bush against John McCain.  Tell me that wouldn't be orgasmically cathartic.

Now, then.  All of the above having been said, I haven't settled on any 2016 candidate, mainly because I don't think there'll be any 2016 election because the nation will have collapsed and O finalized his dictatorship long before then, but also because there isn't a field from which to pick one yet.  Which gets back to Mr. Hannity's "jumping the gun" observation.

But I will say that of the names on the hypothetical list, I would rank Chris Christie second behind only Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and that will depend on whether he can win re-election and become a current, two-term governor a year from now.

To my Tea Party friends I leave a point to ponder and an accompanying question: As important as principles are, when your party has been shut out of power long enough, the imperative simply to win becomes more and more powerful.  Many of us had no illusions about George W. Bush's ersatz conservative bona fides in the 1999-2000 cycle, but his main nomination competition - Senator McCain - was even worse, and after eight years of Sick Willie and scandals nobody seemed to give a damn about and looking down the barrel of an Al Gore presidency, we rallied behind Dubya anyway because (1) we wanted to win and (2) we had to win.

So, I ask you all: If, despite the Tea Party's most heroic, herculean efforts, Rand Paul [snicker] and/or Ted Cruz [snort] and whatever ex-pizza magnates and congresscritters with delusions of grandeur might make the college try don't reach the top of the mountain, and Chris Christie ends up squashing it into a caldera, will TPers pass on another chance to get rid of ObamaCare (if that's still possible by then) by electing a Republican president to go along with a Republican Congress because the Big Man isn't ideologically spotless?  Or, put another way, would you really prefer a President Cuomo to a President Christie?  'cause if the answer is "yes," you'll have to work awfully hard to make that case.