Tag Archives: Chris Christie

We’re polling ourselves to sleep

This just in: Hillary Rodham Clinton might win Georgia’s electoral votes if the election were held today.

Got that? But here’s the kicker. The next presidential election ain’t happening until November 2016. That’s more than three years from now. As the saying goes, it might be a dozen lifetimes away from now. Heck, it might be a hundred, or a thousand lifetimes.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/georgia-2016-poll-hillary-clinton-95343.html?hp=l3

It’s all kind of interesting, I suppose, to release these polls on the spot. But they matter not one little bit in the grand scheme.

HRC might not run. I’m betting she will, though, especially when she sees polls that show her putting places like Georgia in play. President Obama lost the state in 2012, but not by landslide proportions.

So much of this polling just feeds the frustration some of us out here in Flyover Country have about the national political media. They’re obsessed with the horse race aspect of these campaigns. Yes, they do cover the issues — such as what candidates say about the economy, national defense, the environment, the big stuff.

The public seems to demand so much of this horse race coverage that the media fall into the trap of reporting on all these polls even when there still are years remaining until the next election.

Enough of the polling, already.

Perry in deep hole for 2016

Rick Perry needs to get his act together in a big hurry if he’s entertaining the idea of running for president once more in 2016.

The Republican Texas governor is lagging far behind former first lady/Sen./Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in a possible matchup for the next presidential election.

Hillary Clinton trounces Rick Perry in presidential match-up; Perry, Ted Cruz lag behind in GOP primary

Clinton trounces Perry by significant double-digit margins, according to a McClatchy-Marist poll. The closest Republicans are New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who trail Clinton by 6 and 8 points, respectively, in the poll.

Perry’s poll standing? He falls 16 points behind Clinton.

I am well aware that this is early in the cycle for the next presidential campaign. Clinton hasn’t even declared her intentions, although the smart money says she’s going to run once she catches her breath from all the globetrotting she did as secretary of state. HRC set some kind of travel record for number of countries visited and miles flown during her four years as the nation’s top diplomat.

Were she to run, my hunch is that she’ll be virtually unstoppable. That is the calculation anyone who challenges her will have to make — especially if they cannot improve on double-digit polling deficits.

Christie vs. Paul

Chris Christie scored a technical knockout in his brief putdown contest with Rand Paul.

For my money, the two Republicans offered a sneak peek into what may lie ahead for the 2016 Republican presidential primary battle.

Christie is the governor of New Jersey; Paul is the junior senator from Kentucky.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/314911-paul-cries-uncle-offers-christie-beer

Paul cried “Uncle!” recently after Christie fired back at Paul, who had criticized Christie because he was insufficiently conservative on fiscal matters. Paul jabbed at Christie for insisting that Congress should have acted with more dispatch in sending money to New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy battered the Garden State.

Christie’s retort was classic, noting that Kentucky gets back more per capita than it sends the federal government, while New Jersey receives a fraction of every dollar it sends to the nation’s capital.

I’m guessing that Christie, a member of the “Establishment Wing” of the party, and Paul, a champion of the tea party wing, will make a fine mano a mano tandem if they both seek their party’s presidential nomination three years.

My money, though, is on Christie, the man with the keen intellect and sharper tongue.