A bridge (toll) too far?

Another big event I haven't been talking about is Chris Christie's debacular handling of a crisis that seems to be entirely of his own making; that being the closure of toll lanes to the George Washington Bridge, apparently as political retaliation against the Mayor of Fort Lee.

Rachel Maddow had a nice run-down of the weaknesses and failures of Christie's explanations in his long, rambling "mea culpa" (well, that's what it was supposed to be, but it ended up being more of a "woe is me; look whom I trusted").

Even if you believe everything Christie said in that statement, though, I still think Christie has to go.  Because either he cares nothing about who gets hurt by his political retaliations, or he allows his underlings to play so fast and loose that they do the same.  Either way, he needs to go.  Even if nothing comes of the Hoboken Mayor (Dawn Zimmer)'s accusations that Hurricane Sandy aid was withheld as retaliation for not supporting a particular development that Christie wanted finished (and that would surprise me, given that the person in charge of that aid (Guadagno) admitted that a meeting took place as Zimmer claims, but that the discussion went differently.  But Zimmer is the one with detailed notes).

Anyway, despite my lukewarm endorsement of Christie after his re-election, he's got to go.

Learning from history

I'm a bit bemused, hearing commentary looking at the results from last night. I keep hearing people saying that Christie's solid victory last night is a big boost for his (acknowledged) presidential aspirations, but I don't see it. There are two problems I see, with that.

One is that he's moderate. He's shown that a moderate Republican, especially one who gets things done, can win in a blue state. I think that's a strong plus for him, but I don't think it is for Republican primary voters (most of them, anyway). I think most people in "red" states will say something along the lines of, "Who cares if he can win in NJ, I want someone more conservative".

And also, he particularly goes against Tea Party and libertarian followers, because of his effectiveness. He's showing that government does actually work, which those people don't want to acknowledge.

So I see his greatest strengths (as a liberal, I'd strongly consider voting for him. And probably would, if he were running against Hillary. Nothing against either Bill or Hillary, but I think one president in the family is enough.  Although I hear that exit polling of NJ voters show that most of them disagree with that, to the point that Hillary would beat Christie, head to head, in NJ) as being detrimental to a large swath of Republican primary voters. I think he'd do fine in the general, but I just don't see him being able to get there.

I guess we'll see.