A question for Mayor Zimmer of Hoboken, NJ

[markpkessinger]

First, a thousand thanks to you, Mayor Zimmer, for coming forward with this. But here is my question for you. You are reported to have written in your diary:

I thought he was honest. I thought he was moral. I thought he was something very different.

But Mayor Zimmer, why on Earth would you ever think that a person, such as Christie, with his legendary reputation for his nasty, rude, dismissive bullying of anybody who has the temerity to ask an uncomfortable question of him, was an honest broker in the first place? That kind of tactic is not the personality trait of someone who is honest; It is the hallmark of someone who is trying to control a conversation and manipulate perceptions.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why more people don't grasp this simple truth of human nature.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. My thought, too.

Weird.

[flamingdem]

2. She didn't want to endorse Bueno or Christie

so I think she drank the kool-aid or has some other blind spots.

This was not just his intimidating tactics, she expressed admiration.
On the other hand she may have just been using survival tactics
considering what she did perceive about the bully.

[markpkessinger]

3. Political survival would explain her public statements of admiration . . .

. . . but here we have her recording her own, private thoughts in her journal, which suggests she really did think he was honest. I just don't get it.

[flamingdem]

6. Maybe he is very charismatic in person

and exerted his charm on her, and helped her, which he did with some projects. She may have a blindspot regarding this type of person or behavior that doesn't allow her to see the faults because that would ruin the fantasy.

Many NJ Dems were supportive of him, will be interesting to see the details in each case.

[NCarolinawoman]

9. I should have added the word "charm" to post #8 regarding John Edwards. n/t

[GP6971]

26. Well, my cousins think the world

of him after he "comforted them" after Sandy. All five of my cousins lost their homes in Mantaloking. One was bitching about how slow the recovery money being dolled out. Poor babies. One didn't like it when I commented that if you can afford to live there, then you can afford to rebuild and wait for reimbursement. And all of them can......maybe not 1 precenters, but pretty damn close.

[sheshe2]

5. Good point, flamingdem.

You don't bite the hand that feeds you. Hoboken needed aide and she wanted that for her people.



A surveillance camera captured the moment the PATH station in Hoboken, N.J. is flooded during Sandy.

http://intentblog.com/4-amazing-photos-of-hurricane-sandy-aftermath/

[flamingdem]

7. I remember that photo and the video

and it certainly freaked me out since I used to take the Path train when I lived in Hoboken!

Poor Hoboken. I can forgive Mayor Zimmer for doing what she had to do and the pressures must have been extreme on many levels, some of them subconscious, as in knowing she is dealing with a bully but making the best of it by being a "team" player.

[sheshe2]

15. Exactly! Zimmer was working for the people.

I hate CC and the Repukes. They play with lives, we are toys to them.

Time for the adults to take back our government.

Scaaaarooo them. Vote them out!

[markpkessinger]

21. I don't fault Mayor Zimmer for trying to work with the Governor at all . . .

. . . I'm just puzzled as to why she ever thought he was someone she could trust in the first place. Yes, after it became clear what the Mayor's office was doing, she expressed her disillusionment. But Christie's way of belittling and demeaning people who challenged him on anything at all should have been a red flag that, all personal charm and charisma notwithstanding, there was something much darker lurking underneath. Clearly, her diary indicates that before the Christie administration tried to shake her down, she was a true believer. At that point, she wasn't struggling to weigh consequences of crossing Christie nor was she worried about political survival (that came afterwards), but really liked the guy.

I am reminded of something I once heard the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin, long-time pastor of Riverside Church in NYC and prominent civil rights and anti-war activist, say when asked about how to deal with feelings of disillusionment: "Who the hell ever told you you had a right to illusions in the first place?"

[Beacool]

27. You used to live in Hoboken?

I live there.

[flamingdem]

30. Yes! It was a cold walk to the Path train along the Hudson everyday

I sure remember that. I left a couple of decades ago and it's certainly been fixed up since then, plus a cool mayor, and Italian bakeries, if they're still there.

[Beacool]

45. The bakeries are still there.

Antique and Marie have managed to survive, they have the best breads. Carlo's is now super famous thanks to Buddy Valastro's reality show "Cake Boss". There is a cool little Cuban restaurant near Carlo's named "La Isla" that has already appeared on Bobby Flay's "Throwdown" and Guy Fieri's "Diners Drive-ins and Dives".

The town is even more yuppie and expensive than when you lived here, but I still like it. You can't beat the views of Manhattan and the commute is fast and easy.

[pacalo]

13. I agree, sheshe. She was in survival mode.

Last edited Sun Jan 19, 2014, 01:50 AM - Edit history (1)

And she made it clear in her diary that Christie wasn't the man she had thought him to be. As the top office holder in the state, he used the same corrupt practices he once prosecuted against. I can understand what a blow that must have been for her.

[sheshe2]

16. Damn it pacalo.

I want them out, every last bagger and GOPer. They are the rudest crudest self serving A**holes!

Zimmer indeed did what she had to do, it was called survival for her city. When you are underwater, you strive to reach the surface for air.

[markpkessinger]

22. But clearly, prior to the Lt. Gov's attempted shakedown . . .

. . . she wasn't (yet) in survival mode, but was a true believer, as her diary entry indicates. And that's what I have a hard time understanding, because there was already plenty of reason, based on the repeated reports of Christie's abusive insulting and demeaning of anybody who challenged him, to be very wary of him.

[pacalo]

28. I see what you mean -- what *did* she think of Christie when he belittled his own constituents

in public settings? I'm curious about that, too.

[CTyankee]

35. didn't she also say that if she went along with christie on the rockefeller group idea, that she

would be exposed to lawsuits by others vying for that money? I think that was what she was also fearing. But that point kinda got lost in the overall discussion...

[pacalo]

42. Yes, she said that had she gone along with it, she'd have ended up in a courthouse

testifying about it. The important thing is that she didn't go along with it. When she was first approached with the idea, Christie was at the height of his popularity, so I can understand her position of not being comfortable with coming forward until Christie's cover was blown.

[CTyankee]

43. I guess she reached her boiling point...she simply couldn't take it any more...

better to take a brave stand than to be condemned because she "went along to get along." Being a wimpy sell out is not an attractive place to find yourself and I think she found her voice at that moment...

[pacalo]

44. Candy Crowley asked her to square the fact that in Aug '13 Zimmer had praised Christie

in her diary, commenting that she was glad he was governor. And, perhaps as a NJ mayor, she thought a governor like Christie, presumed to be working to benefit all of NJ, would work in favor of Hoboken's interests.

Why didn't she come forward (when she was pressured)? "No one would have believed me", Zimmer said.

Her decision to insist that the Rockefeller Group go through the usual process of getting a state-funded study was the right way to go.

[CTyankee]

46. she was clearly afraid of what he could do to hurt her/Hoboken in retaliation. Scary, isn't it?

[pacalo]

47. Yes, it is -- after what all we're learning, she's probably still afraid.

[CTyankee]

48. Then she's best off being in the public eye. That way, he can't screw her over like he could

if she hadn't gone so public. In plain view is probably the best option for her. If anything happens to her, well, guess who will be suspect? So this was probably her best option...

[pacalo]

49. I agree, CTyankee.

[polichick]

4. I wondered too why she had ever thought such a thing.

[NCarolinawoman]

8. I think many people felt that way about John Edwards, and they were GOOD people who

felt hurt and betrayed. Sometimes inherently honest people cannot perceive all the dishonesty and plain old badness that can exist in people; particularly when these bad-asses are fed by hubris and ambition. The mayor might be one of those trusting kind of people, despite her being a politician, herself.

[markpkessinger]

19. Perhaps that's it . . .

. . . and to be clear, I'm not suggesting Mayor Zimmer isn't a good person. I just find that kind of naivete hard to wrap my head around. I mean, I think I am a fairly trusting person myself, and certainly willing to extend people the benefit of any doubt. But there are certain things that, for me, stand out as red flags, and a pattern of belittling and insulting people is certainly one of those. I have thought, from early on in Christie's administration when we started seeing repeated reports of his treatment of anybody who dared to ask him an uncomfortable question, that far too many people were willing to dismiss that behavior as being just "a matter of style." Well, whether it is someone's 'style' or not, I don't think that kind of thing, particularly when it's a pattern, is ever innocuous.

[marions ghost]

32. Good comparison--honest people often cannot perceive badness...

Many people are idealistic, believing that you can "reach across the aisles"--that we all have common goals. That things are not "that bad." And the Christie rhetoric fed that notion. Christie capitalized on the trust of people who believed he represented a compromise--an opportunity to lessen the polarization & political paralysis that we all are weary of. But it was all a lie, a front for nefarious back room tactics. How many of these examples does it take for people to wake up? To stop trusting these guys?

The mayor found out the hard way. Yeah she & her associates would be feeling just as burned as any John Edwards ally.

You can never give Narcissist manipulators ANY slack. To do that is hopelessly naive. I saw Christie for what he was a long time ago--have no problem seeing the worst in people because I've studied this behavior close up. These personality types never really recover. Politics attracts them. Buyer beware.

Christie is history.

[pnwmom]

37. Right. She projects her basically nice personality on other people,

just as nasty people project their nastiness onto others.

[CTyankee]

38. I am one of those guilty of believing in John Edwards. I liked his message on the "two

Americas" and for championing the poor. And I liked his health care plan the best. I remember having conversations with family members about which candidate we supported and for what reasons.

AFter Edwards crashed and burned, I remember telling myself NEVER AGAIN. That is, never again would I have such unreserved admiration for a candidate I liked. Now I listen and read more than I talk...

[Tx4obama]

10. Because Christie was the one that helped send the previous (crooked) mayor of Hoboken to prison

[Auntie Bush]

12. Christie better watch his back if they ever become cellmates.

[Cleita]

11. Well maybe this might explain it.

In my county I ran into a woman I'm acquainted with from the local democrats club, which meetings I haven't gone to for a long time due to their unwillingness to engage in activism. We chatted and the conversation came around to the subject of our assemblyman, a Republican with ties to the oil industry. I brought up if anyone had been drafted to run against him and she said, actually everyone likes him because he's doing some good things for the county. Well, duh, that's his job kinda, bringing home the pork and he has to do it for his own constituency. He's against raising the minimum wage and unions and basically anti-labor and that hasn't changed, but maybe this will give you a hint of why democrats think a certain republican office holder is okay.

[immoderate]

14. These are Reagan Democrats. They are bought by the "us vs. them" mentality.

The "good things for the county," don't specify the poor, minorities, or the disadvantaged. At least that's what I'm guessing.

--imm

[Cleita]

18. This is a very red area and affluently white so even the Democrats

are conservative in a lot of their thinking. I noticed that the Hoboken mayor was influenced a lot about what was good business for Hoboken.

[Bluenorthwest]

40. Take a look at the actual figures for Hoboken and Hudson County, all Democratic wins

almost no Republicans even running. Mayor Zimmer defeated two other Democrats for the office, no Republican challenger even bothered.
Hoboken
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mayor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One 4-year term
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

x Dawn Zimmer* (D) 5957 47%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ruben Ramos (D) 4404 35%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tim Occhipinti (D) 2225 18%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2013/11/hudson_county_election_results_2013_local_county_school_races.html

[spanone]

17. maybe she's an optimist

[markpkessinger]

20. Optimism is one thing . . .

. . . and self delusion is another. I guess the line between the two can be pretty fine sometimes.

[zentrum]

23. Oh, she grasps it....

She's talking to and for the Republicans in her town who she hopes votes for her in the next election.

She's modeling how she wants them to think, based on what she's implanting, as a meme, into their analysis. They liked CC and trusted him---she's showing them how to get out of that.

It's you who is not grasping how politicians are always selling.

[markpkessinger]

24. Good point . . .

. . . and frankly, the most plausible one I've seen in this thread! But again, that is more a matter of what she did after the attempted shakedown. Her personal diary entry -- at which point she could hardly have foreseen what was to come -- shows that she was genuinely disillusioned, that she started out as a true believer. And that's what I have a hard time wrapping my head around.

[marions ghost]

34. Your question is a good one

--how was she so naive that she ever bought Christie as an honest kind of guy, trying to bring people together and heal things? Does make you wonder.

Could her support have come from a healthy dash of fear? Maybe she sensed that if she indicated in ANY way that she did NOT trust him, Hoboken would be subject to the same treatment that happened anyway...

This is how manipulators exert control. They make you take certain positions favoring them against your better judgment. Easy to do in the guise of "a new way" in times such as these.

[FarCenter]

29. Republicans in Hoboken?

The last election results were:
Dawn Zimmer - D - 47.27%
Rueben J Ramos Jr - D - 34.94%
Timothy Occhipinti - I - 17.65%

There were no Republicans running.

[markpkessinger]

25. For the sake of clarification . . .

The point has been raised by several in this thread that Mayor Zimmer was acting out of a motive of political survival. But her diary entry, made after the Lt. Gov.'s attempted shakedown, clearly indicates that up to that point, she was a true believer and really liked Gov. Christie. Then comes the attempted shakedown, and she's shocked and disillusioned. That's what I have a hard time understanding -- how she could have been so shocked and disillusioned, and why she would have thought him to be honest in the first place. "Political survival" explains her public statements of support, but it does not explain her personal, private disillusionment.

[calimary]

31. You and me both.

Why ANYONE could fall for him is beyond my understanding. I found him thoroughly off-putting from the first time I saw him on the news. And my opinion of him has gone down steadily ever since. None of this changes my opinion of chris christie. Only confirms it.

[PCIntern]

33. Ex-actly. nt

[pnwmom]

36. She got her job because he was the crusading prosecutor who put her predecessor

in jail for corruption. I don't think he was "legendary" before he was even elected, was he?

So maybe she just needed to hope he was the real deal.

[Bluenorthwest]

39. About one third of NJ 'Democrats' voted for him. Moderate Centrists were in love with him

on DU. Buono was a bad, bad candidate they said and Christie, so charming and ultra popular that there was no reason to so much as bother to vote for the Democrat. Hard to blame a person who HAD to work with him for being optimistic when she was watching Democratic voters betray the Party for Christie in Centrist droves.

[justiceischeap]

41. I would imagine that maybe in person, he's a likable guy

I can also imagine, in person, GWB, is a likable guy. But that doesn't mean they both aren't evil bastards when it comes to politics. Maybe that's how she saw it. CC is likable and his bullying "persona" was just politics and then she found out it wasn't a persona.