Chris Christie goes full Dick Cheney: How his shameless fearmongering could derail Rand Paul

[DonViejo]

The NJ guv has fallen from grace -- but his doom-and-gloom vanity campaign may yet drag down a top rival

ELIAS ISQUITH

When silver-tongued serpent and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced last week that he would be spending the next six months or so “telling it like it is” on the presidential campaign trail, the news was most relevant to two specific groups, but for opposite reasons.

For campaign reporters, Christie’s entrance into the race was icing on the cake; a race already full of supremely quotable and larger-than-life candidates, such as Ben Carson or Donald Trump, became even easier to sell as bizarro entertainment. Reporters don’t take Christie particularly seriously as a White House contender anymore. But the man remains an absurdly reliable fount of zingers, one-liners and that most important resource in all of political journalism: conflict.

The news was also a big deal for the folks running the campaign of one of Christie’s new competitors, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. But while Christie’s arrival was a gift from the gods as far as the media was concerned, for Paul, the loudmouth governor’s timing could hardly have been worse. Not only did it raise the chances that Paul’s doomed and already-struggling campaign would get less attention, but it also meant that one of Paul’s most belligerent foes would now be a consistent thorn in his side. Even worse, with his chances of actually winning so low — and his reported interest in running a vanity campaign so high — Christie’s campaigning as if he had nothing to lose was a real possibility.

Christie’s been officially campaigning for barely a week now, but he’s already given us a pristine example of these two intertwined dynamics in action. Appearing Monday at his unofficial campaign headquarters, the set of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Christie took a massive swing at Paul, launching exactly the kind of demagogic, irresponsible and sensationalistic offensive the pseudo-libertarian senator’s advisers likely feared. “[H]e should be in hearings in front of Congress if the country is attacked,” Christie said of his rival, who’s distinguished himself with opposition to the Patriot Act and the NSA.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/07/07/chris_christie_goes_full_dick_cheney_how_his_shameless_fearmongering_could_derail_rand_paul/

[geek tragedy]

1. Paul and Christie are good for each other--a couple of fringe trolls helping the other

look reasonable and garner attention.

Kind of like Likud and Hamas.

[realFedUp]

2. Can't wait for the Chris Crispy musical

In the Tighty white baseball pants, holding up the closed sign to bridge, holding a dripping ice cream cone and yelling, yelling and yelling. Pointing and lying.

[tanyev]

3. Gosh, that's just...terrible.