SUCKA NEEDS A BODYGUARD
Saw this on the front page of today's New York Daily News:
Tough-talking New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie swaggered into the heartland Friday and made an Iowa crowd an offer it couldn't refuse - support Mitt Romney, or else.
The larger-than-life governor channeled fellow Garden State tough guy Tony Soprano by threatening the hundreds of people who braved a cold, wet morning to back Romney in the state’s caucuses caucuses.
"I want to tell you something really clearly, I'm in a good mood this morning, I’m feeling happy and upbeat," quipped Christie before turning slowly and peering down at the unsuspecting crowd.
"But let me tell you, if you people disappoint me on Tuesday, if you don't do what you're supposed to do on Tuesday for Mitt Romney, I will be back - Jersey style."
To underscore his message, Christie vowed: "People, I will be back."
... That Christie hails from leafy Livingston, N.J., and now resides in millionaire-populated Mendham was lost on the West Des Moines crowd who know Jersey through the lens of the iconic HBO mobster series starring James Gandolfini as Tony Sopranio....
As a fellow Italian-American from the Northeast, I've got to say I love seeing my people reduced to a cultural stereotype. (Yes, that's sarcasm.) No, let me rephrase that: I love seeing my people volunteering to reduce themselves to a cultural stereotype, on behalf of some gazillionaire from Utah.
But this is what they want in Iowa, I guess. Do you realize that if Romney wins Iowa, he'll be the second winner in a row to finish first without seeming tough at all, but with the aid of a surrogate who was a tough guy on his behalf? (Recall how Huckabee made Chuck Norris his surrogate four years ago.) Really, Iowa? Is that what you want? Someone who can personally radiate Midwestern Nice, but who can also fly in an apparent rent-a-thug, so you can get a frisson of danger?
The party as a whole seems to prefer overgrown man-children -- George W. Bush, John McCain -- who don't radiate toughness so much as Bart Simpson childishness and irresponsibility well into middle and old age. What any of this has to do with running the country I don't know -- but more and more I'm thinking that Christie's going to be Romney's running mate, and his thug as VP if he wins. And I guess no Republican voter will care that Romney has to acquire (apparent) toughness rather than embody it (which he obviously isn't capable of doing) -- all those voters want is the sense of menace, and I guess they'll take it any way they can get it.
