(Still) Born to Run: Don't Count Christie Out

It's a bad day for your administration when your state hero and personal idol takes the time out of his touring schedule to parody his own biggest hit just to personally criticize you. (Although, to be honest, I wouldn't mind it if Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about me.)

"You got Wall Street masters stuck cheek to cheek / With blue-collar truckers / And man, I really gotta take a leak / But I can't / I'm stuck in Governor Chris Christie's Fort Lee, New Jersey traffic jam!" -- Bruce Springsteen, "Gov. Christie Traffic Jam", The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, January 13, 2014

Six months ago, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was untouchable. He had just won a landslide re-election where no Republican had ever won a majority of the statewide vote. It was perfect for the presidential primary campaign he'd inevitably mount in about two years. The election--no, Christie himself--was proof that the Republican Party could still pursue conservative agendas in solidly blue states. He was also proof that Republicans could still appeal to Hispanics, who gave him 51% of their votes. And Christie even managed to win more than a fifth of the black vote, as well as staunchly Democratic counties like Camden and Cumberland in the south and Union and Mercer in the north.

2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election by county and margin. Yes, we are using the Republican = red / Democrat = blue convention.

Gov. Christie's cooperation with President Obama and his rising popularity as a result of the Hurricane Sandy relief effort (including the catchiest PSA song since "Do They Know It's Christmas?") earned him the support of Democratic politicians all over the state... with one unfortunate exception. Mark Sokolich, Democratic mayor of Fort Lee--the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge--refused to endorse the governor despite pressure from Christie aides. Some weeks later, Port Authority official David Wildstein received an eight-word email from the governor's deputy chief of staff, Bridget Ann Kelly: "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee." 

The story unwound rapidly from there, as Gov. Christie first denied that it had happened at all, then claimed not to know about it, then claimed to have been led to believe that it was part of a "traffic study", and then admitted that he knew about it, apologizing profusely at an hours-long press conference. Gov. Christie, re-elected by a 22-point margin, saw his approval rating plummet by 20 points in three months. Once touted as the man to beat for the Republican nomination in 2016, he's fallen behind as the media and pollsters turn their attention to other candidates.

But what we're interested in is how the scandal (which we're just going to call "Bridgegate" because we're creative) will actually affect Gov. Christie's chances come 2016. While it seemed at the outset that the scandal dashed any future political ambitions and much of the media packed up their Christie gear to move on to their next love, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, we have a couple reasons why it might not be appropriate to write him off as a contender for 2016.

The legendarily short American political attention span

There's a lot of literature out on the forgetfulness of the American public: essentially what they say is that Americans tend to become outraged at some event and proceed to forget about it gradually as other things occupy their minds. Because of this, unless it's something really serious, most elected officials can do or say whatever stupid things they want to, and they'll probably get away with it if Election Day isn't close.

Here's an example: Remember that government shutdown? Apparently most Americans either don't or don't care anymore. According to a Pew survey in late September, about a week before the shutdown, a slim plurality of adults within the margin of error said they would blame a possible shutdown more on Republicans than on President Obama. As the the shutdown dragged on, however, it became clear that Democrats were winning the PR battle, as their lead in the generic ballot widened from 1 percentage point in mid-September to more than 6 points after the shutdown had ended. Today, however, the Democratic lead is back down to about 1 point. 

This isn't a new phenomenon. Pretty much the same thing happened after the government shutdown in 1995. In fact, that winter the government shut down twice for a total of 27 days, and the public placed the blame (more) squarely on congressional Republicans. President Clinton's approval rating dipped a bit, then bounced to a new high after the shutdown had ended. But despite an easy re-election for the president that year, Republicans maintained their majority in the House and actually gained a net of two seats in the Senate. Apparently all that blame the public had toward congressional Republicans in 1995 had evaporated within the course of a year. So it's not all that unreasonable to suggest that this sordid incident will be far behind Gov. Christie by the time primary season kicks off in January 2016. 

I could be wrong; the scandal could emerge to be part of a larger pattern of behavior on the scale of Watergate and smear the rest of Gov. Christie's term. Or it might lay dormant for the next year and a half, only to awaken when debate season kicks in. Or perhaps it's best for Gov. Christie that Bridgegate came out when it did as opposed to, say, three years later, right before Election Day 2016. We've got quite a while to watch, regardless.