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Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Forget Mrs Palin, Meet Mr Christie
While the Canadian MSM delights in taking pot shots at Sarah Palin, it pays little attention to rookie New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Here are some of the Governor's ideas for fixing the state's over financed, and under performing, public schools:
And on Tuesday, the governor, a Republican, used his State of the State address to push his education agenda further by calling for an end to teacher tenure, on top of his support for merit pay for teachers based partly on student achievement and adoption of a voucherlike system that would give students in low-performing schools other options.
Poor substitutes for a purely private educational system. But at least it makes public school teachers somewhat accountable.
Posted by Richard Anderson on January 19, 2011 | Permalink
Comments
When it comes to performing Governors as potential Presidential candidates, Christie has dwarfed Sarah Palin and not just due to his size. There are numerous such candidates out there preferable to Palin. John Bolton for example, in addition to his foreign affairs savvy is a former Goldwater Republican and according to NR is testing the waters. Bolton can speak eloquently without a teleprompter or notes and would make mincemeat of Obama in debate.
I think Palin, though a nice lady, and preferable to Obama, is now, thanks to both her own actions and perception, a Republican poison pill if in the next Presidential race. There's something about her antics (her in-your-face lifestyle celebration on reality TV, for example or her bumpkin-like way of saying "in" in place of "ing") that is just unpresidential if not mildly creepy. I'm all for "citizen legislators" so perhaps she should go for a Senate Seat.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2011-01-19 12:17:57 PM
Bolton's views combine libertarianism, hawkish foreign policy, and some element of social conservatives. Bolton is pro-gay marriage and pro-life on abortion. He supports the death penalty, gun rights, and Guantanamo. He is not isolationist like Ron Paul. On economic issues, he leans libertarian. He also supports strengthening the U.S. border with Mexico.
Chris Christie is not a libertarian but a social and economic conservative. He is for less government and pro-school vouchers. He also supports the death penalty while opposing both gay marriage and abortion. He has a mixed record on guns(favors some restrictions but opposes most). Also, he ticked off animal rights activist by restoring New Jersey's black bear hunt.
The truth is that many western standard libertarian types will have trouble with these guys. They are not libertarians but conservatives. Christie and Bolton are social conservatives which plays pretty well in the U.S. Social conservatives may be viewed as a fringe by many in Canada. However, in the U.S., conservatives heavily outnumber liberals. In 2008(at the height of Obama worship), a Battleground poll showed that when asked to choose a position that social conservatives outnumber social liberals here by 56%-38%. I am betting that the gap has increased over the last two years. The point is that both are guys who hard-core libertarians won't back because they don't accept the social liberalism of many libertarians.
Posted by: Josh | 2011-01-19 7:25:42 PM
Good comments Josh, but until libertarians become numerous enough to have a pivotal moment, they can only engage politically under the banner of other parties or in the backwaters with the Libertarian Party. "Hardcore" pro choice libertarians couldn't even support Ron Paul and he was likely as close as you can get to a libertarian in real politics to date. Libertarians are a much more common element of US political dialogue than in Canadian politics. I hope Sun News changes that.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2011-01-19 10:36:46 PM
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