Watching how the world warps and sags around him, Barack Obama's not coming off too badly as president now, in my CrackdeBlackstimation. But still - when it comes to presidential style - so far, I've preferred the "Earthy" guys. Give me your George Ws or Lyndon Johnsons:

“Is this the White House? Oh, sorry. The White House? Sorry. Bird! Come over here and get me the White House,..."

My reasoning? Simple - same as any white guy's:

It's easier to forgive someone I understand.

Speaking of things I understand, conservatives get how ObamaCare's playing, all wrong.

They live in a world of media hype.

Like every other "scandal" the Right has had on Obama lately (Benghazi?) it's a, manufactured, mountain out of a molehill.

They're talking about a website - an insurance website at that.

Isn't the point, as most see it, that a lot of people never even had insurance before?

Then doesn't it figure, in the real world - which is almost everywhere but in the media - nobody will really care about this topic until they themselves get hurt?

Here, further, let me play Karl Rove and explain the psychology of entitlements - especially, especially massive ones:

People will wait, to get the website right, as long as the Dems care (and/or appear to) for those who can't.

The other party - my party - that insists on looking and acting like it's filled with stupid white racists, who want women in the kitchen and everybody in church, has nothing to compete.

But Chris Christie.

Add Scott Walker to the ticket (if he realizes what a lack of charisma he has and takes the veep spot before, foolishly, deciding to challenge) and we're "in".

Otherwise, forgetaboutit.

I do like watching the Right, going nuts over nothing, though - they look great on TV.

But then, so do cheerleaders in an empty stadium,...

 

If TMR knows your political ideas, and still tells you to "pound sand," you might want to check how far it's shifted beneath your feet:

"Christie said breathless 2016 speculation made him 'feel badly' for President Barack Obama, who famously crossed party lines to join Christie in 2012 for a tour of the storm-ravaged New Jersey shoreline. 'He just won [reelection] a year ago, and as we shove him out the door, we minimize his ability to be an effective executive,' Christie said."

I guarantee you, it could be a great deal,...

 

"Time for this feud to move back to the front burner."

“There are subtle ways to goof on Christie’s weight, there are not so subtle ways, and then there’s this. Matthews has done it before — how can you cut the budget, he wondered, if you can’t cut your portions at supper? — but I can’t remember anyone, left or right, bringing Christie’s wife into it until now.”

"Last year, Chris Christie was elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association and he officially takes over that post in Arizona in 15 days. It’s a position with a high national profile, money to spread around and a bully pulpit.

So, in way, Christie’s power just doubled…"

The NYT’s exit poll data has now been updated and it’s much more in line with CNN’s numbers. Christie’s winning 48 percent of Latinos and 20 percent of blacks now, both double-digit increases from how he did in 2009. He’s also winning … 31 percent of Democrats. If the Times’s numbers hold, he should fall just shy of 60 percent,…

...Christie will have the margins he wanted among minorities. The 2016 campaign begins tomorrow.

"People want leaders, not lawyers."

Punctuality mattered to Romney. Christie’s lateness bugged him. Mitt also cared about fitness and was prone to poke fun at those who didn’t. (“Oh, there’s your date for tonight,” he would say to male members of his traveling crew when they spied a chunky lady on the street.) Romney marveled at Christie’s girth, his difficulties in making his way down the narrow aisle of the campaign bus. Watching a video of Christie without his suit jacket on, Romney cackled to his aides, “Guys! Look at that!”

They leave me out, and leave me out, and leave me out:

   "'[T]here is a growing sense within the Republican political intelligentsia that Christie and only Christie is positioned to solve the major problems that will face the party in 2016.'

And: 'Christie is increasingly seen as the one candidate who might be able to bridge the divide between the establishment and the tea party that is in the process of ripping the party apart.'"

Go on y'all, celebrate mediocrity, I see how you do,...

 

As New Jersey's Christie Campaigns, a 2016 Strategy Emerges

Governor sees outreach to nontraditional GOP voters as national model for party

Shaq backing Chris Christie sends a message that should resonate in both the Garden State and throughout the national Republican Party.

...The latest Fairleigh-Dickinson poll shows 53 percent of non-white voters approve of Christie’s job in office, while only 34 percent disapprove–and he’s beating Buono among non-white voters by an eight-point margin. For the modern GOP, this is almost unheard of–somewhere between drawing a straight flush and adopting a unicorn.

It looks like the smarter half of Dumb & Dumber acted like it:

  A key challenge for Paul if he runs would be to make himself acceptable to — if not win over — traditional Republicans. His low-key approach to the shutdown and debt limit drama could help that cause.

“He was a reasonable voice in a very difficult time for the party,” said one top national GOP strategist. “He wasn’t as strident as Cruz. When he recognized there was no real end game in sight, he recoiled. He wasn’t on the tip of the spear. I think that did him a lot of good with a lot of Republicans, a lot of conservatives.”

Even Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) — whose budding presidential campaign is predicated upon taking on Paul and the tea party wing of the GOP — had kind words for how the Kentuckian has acquitted himself.

Paul is “a gentleman,” King said. In contrast, “Ted Cruz is totally different,” he continued. “I consider him to be a demagogue. … I’d say by comparison, Sen. Paul has gotten better. I have real problems with Sen. Paul’s positions, but Ted Cruz is in a class by himself.”

So, as the low-hanging fruit of Right-Wing "intelligence," all Cruz mostly succeeded in doing is taking himself out. Which is what Paul and King should do as well - willingly. They can't win the nomination or a national election. We coalesce around Christie for the White House:

We can turn this thing around,...

 

“What I said to any of them that I met with: Get the government reopened, stop monkeying around, and get back to work. I said, I’m out there in the field, people have no patience for this stuff. None.”

HOW THE SHUTDOWN could still hurt Democrats.

Posted at 8:15 am by Glenn Reynolds