Chris Christie's Bridgegate scandal hasn't yet focused on the political favors dished out to New Jersey Democratic Mayors who did endorse Republican, Christie against Democrat, Buono for Governor. If Christie's gang were putting the organization's muscle on disloyal Fort Lee, weren't they surely elsewhere delivering on payoffs to the Democrats who supported Christie's reelection?
I started thinking about the payoff part of the story when I saw this diary and these comments in another diary on the dramatic Bridgegate news today.
* [new] What's so idiotic about this is that Fort Lee (20+ / 0-)
...has a population of 36,000 people.
New Jersey's total population is about 8.8 million.
The mayor of Fort Lee represents less than half a percent of the population, and a Democrat anyway, and Christie was THAT angry about him not endorsing him???
Who the fuck has THAT big of an ego and THAT thin of a skin???
by Brainwrap on Wed Jan 08, 2014 at 08:33:00 PM CST
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* [new] Remember that Christie wanted so badly (11+ / 0-)
to win reelection by a HUGE margin that he scheduled a separate election for the vacated NJ Senate seat so he would not have to appear on the same ballot with Cory Booker.
He garnered the endorsements of many Democratic officials. Wonder what he promised and/or threatened them with?
by More Questions Than Answers on Wed Jan 08, 2014 at 08:39:23 PM CST
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I wondered, what were they promised, those "many Democratic officials"?
Follow me out into the tall grass for where this wondering led my thoughts.
We're bound to find out, at least where real money was involved or normal practices bypassed or diverted. That's where most of the crimes are in this kind of State business. I call this the payoff side of the story, related to but different from Fort Lee, which is the payback side of the story. But for now, no one seems to be focusing on the payoff side of he story.
I also wondered at first if expectations of a Christie resignation didn't seem overblown. After digging into a sample of reporting, the single point I agree with the most is this assertion in the NY Daily News' lede, today:
In the best possible light, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie built a top staff of lying thugs who threatened lives and safety to serve his political ends. If not, Christie is a lying thug himself.
I don't necessarily agree with anything else in the Daily News article or elsewhere in that publication, but I do agree with the accuracy of this assessment, as far as it goes, based upon
other reporting in the Bridgegate Scandal story. There is sill a lot we don't know about what these lying thugs were up to, across the board.
But in the furor over the strong arm moves by Christie's people against Fort Lee, nobody seems to remember that, in New Jersey, lying thugs also regularly pay off their friends. I feel there is a big story yet to come from this, and the Democratic Mayors who endorsed Christie are going to become a focus of it.
How sad, that there is so much Jersey stereotype reflected in Christie and his mob. On the other hand, there is no shortage of top staffs of lying thugs working for top executives in various corporate, governmental and public service positions in the Greater New York New Jersey vicinity, and elsewhere, for that matter. But this particular bunch may be getting caught and their final saga has far to go.