Man, I Like That Guy: Chris Christie's Dude Factor

From: HUMAN EVENTS

The Tea Party, which created this unexpected boom time for the conservative cause, has yet to find its ideal principled, politically incorrect and assertive candidate for the Republican nomination. While the conservative movement searches for someone with the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the liberal bullies and their nauseating coalition of assorted unions, community organizers and cynically brainwashed “minority constituencies,” the expected front-runner, Rick Perry​, is dropping in the polls as he apologizes for calling many GOP voters “heartless.”

In order to win the nomination in 2012, the Republican Party cannot afford to nominate someone like President George W. Bush, who turned the other cheek for half of his presidency, or Sen. John McCain, who wrongly calculated that his friends in the press were his political allies. This election cycle—and the prospective four to eight year cleanup job of the liberal “era of rage”—will not focus on stem cells, abortion, evolution or other business-as-usual election-year litmus tests. This election is about standing up to the bullies.

I’ve heard the arguments that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is not conservative enough, but try telling that to the people in the room at the Reagan Library last Tuesday. At the podium that night was a man who in less than two short years has exhibited strength and leadership skills conspicuously absent in the wake of a generation of pervasive political correctness. Big Labor bosses Richard Trumka and Jimmy Hoffa Jr., who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Obama, are the bullies on this playground. More than anyone in the country, Gov. Christie has stood his ground in the face of their thuggery and refused to hand over his lunch money.

I didn’t get the sense that he was playing games when he said he was not intending to run for the presidency, and I take him at his word, but I’m glad that I got to see in person the temperament and resolve that the actual GOP nominee must have if President Obama is to be defeated. After the bullies have been restrained, there is still the matter of restoring order in the school yard. The rank-and-file union members, who have been used and abused by a corrupt leadership, must be brought back into the fold. Reagan’s big tent was defined largely by its appeal to union members, but today’s GOP has lost its nerve to reach out to this critical constituency.

Except for Chris Christie. He’s told union members that their brass has conned them, negotiating contracts that could never be fulfilled. He’s gone to union conferences, telling members to their faces that governors of the past—of both parties—have lied to them, promising to increase their publicly funded benefits knowing full-well that New Jersey was broke.

At the Reagan Library, Christie told a story that captured the fighting spirit and tough love Republicans must embody. Shortly after announcing his pension-reform proposal, Christie attended the annual firefighters convention. It was no warm welcome. He was booed by the audience prior to taking the stage and even more loudly when he finally got to the podium. Christie told the crowd that he understood their anxieties about the future, but asked them this question: “Why are you booing the first guy who came into the room and actually told you the truth?”

The next Republican presidential candidate must speak that bluntly and truthfully to this group of people, and call on them to denounce their self-serving, violent and un-American leaders, who have driven them to a point of near-economic ruin. In this regard, the Republican candidate must mimic Chris Christie’s bravery and straight-talk.

One woman in the audience spoke for many in the room, myself included, when she pleaded with the self-effacing governor to rethink his decision. We are a nation that desperately needs someone like Christie, someone ready, willing and able to roll up his sleeves, man up and go after the bullies on the playground.