From one admiring flip-flopper to another, Mitt Romney to Chris Christie
Via
Jordan Fabian, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has
come out against legislation passed by the New Jersey state Senate giving in-state tuition to DREAMers even though
he said he would support such legislation during the gubernatorial campaign.
When Christie came out in favor of a DREAM Act for New Jersey, it was a flip-flop, but it was warmly received by his state and helped him win a majority of the Latino vote in November's election. Now he says that he would still be willing to sign a DREAM Act, except the part about how he opposes the one passed by the state senate, which he says is too generous.
Because the state assembly has yet to act, there's still time for Christie to flip-flop on his flip-flip-flop, but whatever happens, it's becoming increasingly clear that Christie's consistency—or lack thereof—is something to watch as he prepares to run for president.
Earlier this month, Christie gave us a smaller, less substantive example of how his mouth can get him in trouble. Three days before his re-election, he said that he wasn't running to be an "ideologue" and that he wanted to "work across the aisle." Then, on Election Day, just a few hours before polls closed, he called himself a "conservative" on CNN, saying "I'm a conservative. And I've governed as a conservative." Then, after the election, Christie reversed course another time, refusing to say whether he was a conservative while critizing people who used the very same political labels that he'd used just a few days earlier.
Taken individually, each of the three statements by Christie were appropriate for their setting, but collectively, they contradicted one another. That's not surprising given that Christie's biggest strength—his authoritative style—stems from his willingness to shoot from the hip and his knack for saying the right things, at least as long as he's able to keep his cool. But the problem for Christie is that over the course of a long and closely scrutinized presidential campaign, shooting from the hip means you're going to contradict yourself, and when your opponents figure that out, you go from seeming like a genuine straight-shooter to seeming like a bullshit artist. Just ask John McCain: Live by the mouth, die by the mouth.