English: Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Just this past week, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) passed away, and after a millisecond about remembering his life, we talked about the politics surrounding his death more than the accomplishments during his life. The media and the parties were debating what Gov. Chris Christie should do (to help them). With a special election held concurrent with the normal general election, Republicans would have been furious with him because it was have undoubtedly increased Democratic turnout. With a special election held with the 2014 federal elections, Democrats would have been mad because he would’ve have appointed a republican who would’ve served for more than a year without having been elected by the people.
By setting a special election in October, he makes both parties angry at him, and I applaud him for that. He knew that if he took action with one of the first two options, he would have seemed partisan. What he did made him seem what every politician should be like, a public servant. Although, I don’t necessarily like how it’s going to cost an extra $12 million. However, you can’t every say he’s being partisan. Looking at his past actions, he never acted like the politician we love to hate, but the politician that we want to govern us. Everything he has done always seems to be in the best interests of his constituents which cannot possibly said of very many in an elected capacity.
If he indeed runs for the presidency, I will remember all these actions he took to put New Jersey first. I just hope he won’t be like Romney and become “severely conservative”. Real Clear Politics has a much more in depth analysis on Chris Christie’s decisions with a political perspective. However, I don’t believe that we should be looking at this in a political perspective; we should be viewing his actions with what a governor is supposed to do.
Related articles
- Watch: Chris Christie Deals Out Cory Booker With Senate Special (abcnews.go.com)
- Gov. Chris Christie announces special election to fill Frank Lautenberg’s Senate seat (dailykos.com)
- Christie calls for October special election (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
- Christie calls Oct. 16 special election to replace Lautenberg (thehill.com)
- Death of U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg sets up political choices for Christie (nj.com)
- Christie: Oct. election to fill Lautenberg seat (sacbee.com)
- Chris Christie gambles with Lautenberg succession (timesunion.com)
- NJ’s Gov. Chris Christie bashed for election move (conservativeread.com)
Naive Politico 
Great post! I concur. The amount of backlash he has received for this decision and when he met up with president last week is ludicrous. Let the guy do his job.
While I agree Christie’s decision was not partisan, it was rather self-serving. By holding a special election (this is an additional cost to taxpayers) for the U.S. Senate seat three weeks before the general, he avoids the spill-over affect of Democratic voters in the gubernatorial election. It is always advantageous for Republicans running in blue states like New Jersey to face as small an electorate as possible. Christie is, after all, a politician.
I do agree with you; however, only so slightly. I do realize that he could’ve (possibly) held the election with the already-scheduled general. He probably could have scheduled the primary of the special Senate with the general and have a separate general Senate election which is what I would’ve preferred to both save money and seem non-partisan. However – and I usually do not – I have to give him the benefit of the doubt because of all politicians, he’s probably ‘less likely’ rather than ‘more likely’ to use partisan tactics. If he did anything else, there would’ve definitely been a lawsuit by either the D. or R. party.