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Last week we noted that Chris Christie's statewide speaking tour had, intended or not, a partisan impact that helped Republicans and hurt Democrats. Essentially, 94 percent of Christie's offices investigations from the last 15 months have been of Democrats, and Christie is giving speeches throughout the state calling for corrupt politicians to be kicked out of office.
Now, which party do you think he means when he says that?
And now, via PoliticsNJ, there's more evidence that this effort is slanted toward helping Republicans as Christie attends a town meetings sponsored by some state legislators, all belonging to the party with a pachyderm as it's mascot.
U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie will join Republican legislators in the 13th district for a Town Meeting on April 26 in Middletown. The non-political event will allow the federal prosecutor to "discuss the actions his office has taken to protect our children and neighborhoods from drugs and gang violence; to combat terrorism and ensure homeland security; to fight white collar crime; and to once and for all show that the people of New Jersey will no longer stand for public corruption," according to a press release issued by State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos' office.
Assemblyman Samuel Thompson and Assemblywoman Amy Handlin will join Christie and Kyrillos at the forum, to be held at 7:30 PM at Middletown High School North.
So we have Senator Kyrillos, a former Republican State Chair, and two Republican Assembly members inviting the US Attorney to speak. And this US Attorney - a former Republican freeholder, state campaign attorney for the Bush campaign, $100,000 plus fundraiser for Bush -- and his immediate family just happened to donate $94,000 to Kyrillos' as party chair in the six months before the prosecutor was nominated New Jersey's US Attorney in 2001.
Now we have a US Attorney investigating almost exclusively Democrats for well over a year, going to speaking events sponsored by Republican legislators he's donated tons of money to, and calling for corrupt politicians to be kicked out of office.
Nah, no politics there! Just look away and keep moving. Nothing to see!
Of course, this could be a unique situation for Christie. Except that in February this happened.
"The people who are going to change the behavior of public officials are sitting in this room," he said. "I'm not going to fix the problem for you. The problem is going to be fixed by you when you finally decide you've had enough and when you decide you are going to elect better people." ?
Christie also answered general questions about his office and advised the crowd to "be patient" in waiting for the light of day to shine on corruption.
"We can't solve this tomorrow, it's going to be a day-by-day process," he said. "Our office has now shined the light on it and hopefully the light we have shined on it will keep the conversation going."
The town meeting was sponsored by Sen. Peter Inverso and Assemblyman Bill Baroni, both Hamilton Republicans who have lobbied for extensive campaign finance reform.
Again Christie is accepting invitations to attend "non-political" town meetings sponsored exclusively by Republican legislators and calling for the crowd to elect "better people." No one in the crowd thought he was talking about Republicans like Inverso or Baroni, since the sponsored the event.
And in January 2006 Christie called for voters to "kick [politicians] out of office" while speaking at the Westfield reorganization meeting at the invitation of newly elected Mayor Andy Skibitsky. Skibitsky is, of course, a Republican
But there's nothing political going on here.
UPDATE: 50 points to anyone who can find more examples of Republican sponsored events Christie spoke at this year when he called for kicking elected officials out of office. 100 points if you can find a Democratic sponsored event Christie spoke at. You can write bjhuntsu@gmail.com or put a link in the comments. |
