In The Lobby

THE THRILL IS GONE

Further proof that the Obama presidency is in trouble. Chris Matthews, host of TV's Hardball, the man who famously said that he felt a thrill going up his leg while watching Obama speak, has turned on Obama. Here's his opening monologue on Tuesday.

LATE NIGHT LAMPOONING

The measure of any political scandal is how easily the late-night comedians take off after it. Case in point: Jon Stewart, who had been defending Presidnet Barack Obama on Benghazi, has criticized the administration for two nights running. Here's Tuesday's night monologue, and here's Wednsday's. Watch them both - they are laugh out loud funny.

The boardwalk's reconstruction began on Jan. 9. It required more than a half million screws, Mayor Matt Doherty said.

“I never thought I'd be so happy about a half million screws,” said Menendez, who noted Belmar plays a special role in the lives of the state's residents. “We have preserved that New Jersey birthright.”

Insert your own joke here.

That comment caused conservative heads to implode. Now, it's true, that Christie didn't walk back his prior support for the possibility that climate change change exists, but he did express some skepticism about it.

Poll after poll has shown Christie would be a leading contender for the presidency in 2016, if he can get past of a primary. And the only way he can get past a primary is if he has conservative support -- which he currrently does not.

THese commenta slone won't solve Christie's problem with conservatives.

But it's a start.

Nor is it Bono (BON’-oh), the lead signer from the rock band U2.
But it does rhyme with Cuomo, the Democrat governor of New York.

Christie has released two television commercials, one positive and one negative, while a Democratic Super PAC has been running anti-Christie ads.

Oh dear.

Maybe this ad would have made sense back in January, or December. Maybe it would have been a fun way to get people to know who Buono is.

But in May? Six months before the election, andl lless than a month before the primary? If voters still don't know who she is, she's got alot more problems that just the fact that people don't how to pronounce her name.

And we're not the only ones who think so.

For when a popular former governor of your same party then suggests that you may want to consider dropping out of the reace, then it's doubly safe to assume that your candidacy is floundering.

From the Ledger's conversation with former Govs. Brtendyn Byrne and Tom Kean:

Q: Sen. Barbara Buono is having trouble raising enough money to qualify for matching funds. Could this bode ill for other Democrats, as well?

GOV. BYRNE: Buono is way behind. I was way behind in 1977 and I was thinking, if it gets worse, I’m going to withdraw. It didn’t get worse. As a matter fact, it got better. But at one point I thought of dropping out in favor of a better-positioned candidate. I don’t know whether that consideration would appeal to Buono, but I would advise she make that evaluation.

GOV. KEAN: You were a good candidate. She’s not. The able candidates in the Democratic party all decided not to run this year, so they were left without a strong candidate. She stepped forward and now the party is living with the consequences of that. And they may be felt up and down the ticket.

But let's be serious. Even if Buono did drop out of the race, who would the Democrats put up in her place? No prominent Democrat was willing to stop forward before Buono, and given the polls -- and the scramble to replace Gov. Chris Christie -- we doubt there are many who want the job now.

But when you add all this up, inlcluding the fact that Christie is now starring in a multimillion dollar tourism ad buy, the real problem for Buono is that she better hope that people don't start thinking of pronouncing her name as L-O-S-E-R.

Read More | Daily Muse

Did you catch the wall-to-wall coverage of Gov. Chris Christie’s lap band surgery?

If you did, that should tell you all you need to know about why state Sen. Barbara Buono is having so much trouble raising cash for her fledgling gubernatorial campaign.

Every cable network featured Christie all day long. They even carried his press conference live.

It was almost as if President Barack Obama had announced that he was undergoing Lab-Band surgery. Only in his case, it would be Lab-Expand surgery.

But that’s the point. They covered it like it was the president because all those networks believe Christie may well one day be president.

And they all saw his weight as an impediment to him ever getting there. So now that he’s taken care of that, they see Christie’s rise as inevitable.

Which means they’ve already assumed he wins re-election in November. And news flash: Democrats have made that assumption too.

There is a reason why One New Jerey is able to raise more money than Buono’s re-election campaign.

It’s because Christie keeps a naughty and nice list. And if Christie is going to win re-election, they know his power is going to extend beyond New Jersey. And one day, may even reach into Washington.

So if Chrsitie is going to win, as now seems likely, the thinking goes, why give money to Buono?

Of course, all this puts Buono in a no-win position. She can’t win without money, but if the conventional wisdom has it that she can’t win, she won’t raise any money.

Talk about a no-win scenario.

Especially when you consider all the high-profile Democrats that Christie has been keeping time with lately.

We’re not talking Camden County powerbroker Gerogre Norcross or Essex County boss Joe DiVinccnzo either.

In the video he did for the Legislative Correspondents Clutb, he got Democratic consultant James Carville, actor Alec Baldwin and even rocker Jon Bon Jovi to star in it with him.

Earlier this week , he spent the day with former Gov. Jim McGreevey.

Not bad for a Republican seeking re-election in a blue state.

But you know, there’s likely another cliché that Buono has run against.

Everybody loves a winner.

A loser, not so much. a

In the not-quite-viral video, the governor turned actor is at first unconcerned by the news that his precious fleece has disappeared from its glass case. “The fleece was so last year,” he scoffs. “I’m back in the Time 100 most influential people in the world. Bruce is my new best friend. I’m friends with Bon Jovi and now I’m back on Morning Joe!” But he soon discovers that his newfound clout came with a fleece attached. Mika and Joe are sick of him, he can’t get into a Bruce Springsteen show, and Jon Bon Jovi won’t give him the time of day. As the seven-minute-plus video carries on, we learn that James Carville is in cahoots with Hillary Clinton, who stole the fleece but accidentally left it with Alec Baldwin, whose wife, Hilaria, adheres to the “finders keepers” rule of life. This ultimate sequence is not only funny, but it makes the point that Christie can not only take a joke, but that he’s chummy enough with some pretty public Democrats that they’d be willing to appear in this silly video of his.

The Garden State governor agreed to the operation at the urging of family and friends after turning 50 last September.

He told The Post he was thinking of his four kids and how it was time to start improving his health when he decided to have the procedure.

“I’ve struggled with this issue for 20 years,” he said. “For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them.”

He also insisted that, contrary to what observers may say, the effort to slim down was not motivated by thoughts of a presidential bid.

“It’s so much more important than that,” he said.

Christie checked in to a surgery center on Feb. 16. A source said he registered under a false name.

The operation included placing a silicone tube around the top of his stomach, where it restricts the amount of food he can eat at one time and makes him feel fuller, faster.

“A week or two ago, I went to a steakhouse and ordered a steak and ate about a third of it and I was full,” he said of his newly tamed appetite. He declined to say how much he lost, but sources said he has already shed nearly 40 pounds.

Christie has struggled with his weight for decades. He sometimes jokes about it, while other times, it’s a sensitive topic. Insiders said it was the only thing keeping the straight-talking executive from higher office.

Despite Christie’s denials, political fund-raisers say that the surgery is a clear sign that he’s going to join the 2016 race — and will do whatever it takes to win.

“This means he’s running for president. He’s showing people he can get his weight in control. It was the one thing holding him back,” a top political donor told The Post.

Sources said Christie didn’t make the decision lightly — he even had private conversations about the operation with once-rotund Jet coach Rex Ryan.

Ryan lost about 100 pounds — down from a massive 350 — after he had the same procedure done in 2010.

Christie has never revealed his weight, but estimates have run from about 300 to 350 pounds.

He hired the same ace laparoscopic and bariatric surgeon as Ryan — Dr. George Fielding, head of NYU Medical Center’s Weight Management Program.

Christie employed cloak-and-dagger tactics to hide the operation. First, he never went into Fielding’s office for medical visits — instead, the doctor came to the governor’s house in Mendham, the sources said.

The $1.2 million ad buy will run in the New York and Philadelphia TV markets.

When you get a guest appearance on a national political talk show, it's never a good sign when more people are talking about what you called the host afterward, then what you said. You can pretty much assume that your message did not get through.

It's also probably not a good sign when you have an interview with Buzzfeed, a national political website, and all anyone is talking about is the fact that you called Chris Matthews an ass in that article.

Don't get us wrong. We have often watched Chris Matthews interview guests, or wax poetic about the thrill up his leg when he hears President Obama speak, and thought the same thing.

But we're not running for governor.

And we don't need friendly interviews on friendly TV networks to get our message out.

(Although, the fact that an on-screen chiron during that interview with Chris Matthews on "Hardball" referred to you as "Dawn Quixote" was probably a hint that the host was't all that optimistic about your chances in the first place. (Here's a link to that interview.)

That, and the fact that Matthews said this of Christie, according to Buzzfeed: "outspoken" and "no-nonsense"; he is "wildly popular"; he is "blunt" and "in-your-face"; he is, most simply, the "big guy," who seems, the host adds, "like a shoo-in" for reelection.

Here's more from the Buzzfeed article:

It may be the last interview Buono gives Hardball, but it won't be the only time she is interrupted or questioned or cast as a hopeless, forgotten cause.

In that same article, a source with the Democratic Governors Association all but says that unless Buono starts pulling better poll nubers (she's 30 point behind), some of that national funding may turn to Virginia -- the other state with a gubernatorial race, where Democrats are seen as having a better chance of winning.

Now Buono did have her cheering section among some back home, like this post on Blue Jersey. And she probably even had a cheering section among many in Washington punditry, who probably think the same thing about Matthews, but don't have the guts to say it.

But here's the thing. In her interview with Buzzfeed, Buono acknowledged that one of the reasons she was so far down in the polls is that not enough people know who she is. Going on national political talk shows is a way to get your message out, particularly to an audience that is likely receptive to your message.

Complaining publicly about the host isn't going to get you many repeat invitations on that show, or even that network. Sometimes, running for office means that you have to be the adult in the room, even when the hosts are behaving like jerks.

Don Quixote may have tilted at windmills, but even he never shot himself in the foot.

In television, that's the character, usually a guest star, who drops in to cause havoc, and represents a danger to the series regulars.

Politicians have their "Big Bads" too. In New Jersey, Republicans call him Jon Corzine.

Yes, our former governor, senator and failed head of MF Global is everywhere lately. Like Jacob Marley, who was forced to carry around the chains he forged in life, Republicans are hoping to forge Corzine into the embodiment of all that is wrong with Democrats.

They've created a website, corzinedemocrats.com, in which they use the ghost of Corzine past to try and tie blame Democratic lawmakers for blocking Gov. Chris Christie's proposed tax cuts. Louis Freeh, the trustee of MF Global, is taking care of Corzine present, announcing Tuesday that he is suing him personally for the implosion of MF Global. And as to Corzine future, there is Barbara Buono, Christie's likely opponent in the fall, who Christie will try and turn into the second coming of Corzine out on the campaign trail.

Too bad there's no Tiny Tim out there to rehabilitate Jon Corzine.

Now, it should be noted that state Sen. Joe Kyrillos tried this same tactic last year, with limited results, in his race against U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez. But the ties between Menendez and Corzine were never as clear, especially since much of what the public disliked about Crozine took place when he was in Trenton, not Washington.

But will it work this time around? And does Christie even need it?

Today's Quinnipiac Poll has Christie leading Buono by 32 points, among all groups except Democrats. Buono has raised just $890,449 so far, to Christie's $5 million. She has yet to receive the endorsement of some of the state's biggest Democrats.

All of which leads us to wonder whether the Corzine Democrats label is aimed more at lawmakers, than at Buono. Don't misunderstand: there's little doubt that Christie is going to try and paint Buono to the left of Corzine, and try to make her own Corzine's high tax, high government spending policies. Buono was chairman of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee during Corzine's term. She also opposed Christie's pensions and benefits reform legislation, which again ties her to Corzine. And we're sure it won't be long before we hear the governor say that if New Jersey wants to know what a potential Gov. Buono would do in office, they just have to remember Jon Corzine.

But even if Christie is focused on his own re-election now, he is running with the entire Legislature. And if Christie defeats Buono by a 20-point or more margin, Chtistie might be bringing a few more Republicans in with him. What better wau tp accomplish that, the GOP thinking goes, than to resurrect Corzine.

Of course, Democrats are going to try and raise the spectre of what they view as Christie's misdeeds, from the state's stubbornly high unemployment rate, his opposition to gay marriage, his pro-life views and even some of his past budget cuts.

But when 59 percent of the public say they are happy with the way things in the state are going, despite those issues, it makes it all that more difficult for Buono's mesage to break through.

Even without Jon Corzine.

There are more clues. The Star Ledger has an behind-the-door interview with the bombers' sister, who, incidentally lives in West New York in Hudson County. At the end of the interview, the husband says that his wife, the sister, hasn't talked to her brothers for years,, because the husband wasn't Muslim, and the brothers didn't accept him.

The Daily Mail also reports that Tamerlan was married to a woman who converted to Islam and dressed in the Islamic style.

Fox is reporting that the younger brother expressed anger over the war in Afghanistan.
i
The point is, this wasn't an isolated inicdent. If the brothers were radicalized, they didn't get there by themselves. Did they help? Did they have a handler? Did they act alone, or were they part of a cell?

Something happened. This evil didn't take place on its own.

We need to face it, and overcome it.

And we need to do so now.

Overall, the poll shows a slight drop, but Christie is still enjoying stellar numbers: a 65 percent approval rating among registered voters and a 59% re-elect number.

But what we found particularly interesting was how high Christie's approval rating was, not just among Republicans, but among independents, Democrats and even public sector employees: Republicans (86%), independents (64%), and Democrats (52%) alike, as well as from the state’s public workers (54%).

Even his re-elect numbers were high: Republicans (84%), independents (59%), men (59%) and women (54%). So much for a gender gap. He's upside down among Democrats (41%) and public sector workers (49%) but that's not as much as one might think.

Now the conventional wisdom has been that the expected public worker vote would go heavily for Christie's likely opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buiono, and that would help bring in the Democratic legislative slate as well. That scenario has particularly been accepted about the 14th District, long considered a swing district made up of towns in Mercer and Middlesex counties.

Most politicos have assumed that state Sen. Linda Greenstein and her running mates have the edge in the 14th District. But if Christie has a favorable rating of 54 percent among public employees, and a re-elect at 49 percent, Christie's numbers are a lot stronger than some of the rhetoric from union leaders would suggest. When you add in the fact that former state Sen. Pete Inverso has decided to rung again for his old seat, then the 14th looks more and more in play.

Of course, there's no denying that the most recent legislative map favors the Democrats. But if Christie racks up a large plurality win, it could make some Democrats more vulnerable than they would be otherwise. There is a reason, for example, why state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, says he supports Christie's call for a tax cut. And why state Sen. Jim Whelan, D-Atlantic, said he'd like a tax cut too, but only if the revenues are there to support it.

Both are in targeted districts.

But just like a rising tide lifts all boats, a risling electoral landslide can sweep in candidates who might otherwise not have a chance. And if Christie is scoring that high among Democrats and public workers in these polls, well, that boat might just be reaching higher than anyone thought.

Democrats, who control the legislature, said last year they would approve Christie’s proposal only if revenue met his targets. Tax collections missed his forecasts for five straight months before starting a rebound at the end of 2012. New Jersey is showing signs of recovery and can afford a tax cut, the governor said in a radio interview today on WKXW-FM in Ewing.

“The big excuse for not doing this before was they weren’t sure if we had the revenue,” Christie said. “Four months in a row we’ve exceeded our projections on revenue, and the economy’s really starting to come back here in New Jersey.”

Nothing like a tax cut proposal to boost a candidate's conservative fiscal credentials.

Now what has long been intriguing about this tax cut proposal has been the fact that Sweeney is pushing for one during a gubernatorial election year, when any tax cut would b3enefit Christe, and not his likely Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono.

For his part, Sweeney insisted again today that any tax cut would not necessarily hurt Buono or help Christie:

“You mean that the governor agreed to a Democrat tax cut? I don’t see it that way,” said Sweeney. “I don’t see it that way. We came up with a completely different plan than the governor. They weren’t the same. They were targeted at different groups. And at the end of the day, a Democrat tax cut, if we can afford it, is a victory for the taxpayers of the state, as well as the Democrat nominee for governor, because the governor said it: I’ve already agreed to the Democrats’ tax cut, not his.”

Of course, Sweeney knows the reality, which is that any tax cut will go to Christie's benefit, not Buono's.

But here's a thought.

There has been plenty of talk about how Christie could be heading toward a landslide victory, one that could sweep in some Republicans.

Including some Republicans in Sweeney's own legislative district.

"I never thought I'd be so happy about a half million screws,” said Robert Menendez, attending the reopening of the Belmar boardwalk.

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