Chris Christie Plays Role of Greek Column for the Obama Reelection Campaign

RUSH: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has decided to play the role of a Greek column today for President Obama. Obama and Chris Christie will tour the Jersey shore. Who lives on the shoreline, Snerdley? That's exactly right. The one percent live on the beach. It isn't cheap, Rachel. I don't know if you know this or not. It isn't cheap to live on the beach anywhere. Well, there are a couple places, but, I mean, for the most part.

President Obama and the Greek column, Chris Christie, will be walking the coastline, viewing properties owned by the one-percenters, to whom Barack Obama has said, "You didn't build that. You didn't make that happen."

RUSH: To the phones we go and we're gonna start in Hoover, Alabama. It's Michelle. Great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It's an honor to talk to you for the third time, so I'm gonna try not to be nervous this time.

CALLER: Okay, well, that's good. Couple questions for you. It's kind of a two-part question. First, do you think that what Chris Christie is doing and how he's, you know, basically campaigning with Obama today, if that hurts or helps Obama or hurts or helps Romney? And, you know, the other point I wanted to ask you about is, you know, in 2008 when Obama and McCain were campaigning and McCain suspended his campaign, and Obama came out and basically said, "Look, if you can't do both, you know, as president you gotta be able to juggle both, then you don't deserve to be president." Well, he doesn't seem to be able to be juggling both.

RUSH: What Obama said in 2008 was when McCain suspended his campaign and went to Washington, Obama said, "Well, you go ahead," and said what you said, "You gotta be able to juggle a bunch of things. I'm going to Florida, you know how to reach me if you need me," and it was at that point that if McCain had any chance it vanished. Look, before I tell you about my thoughts on Christie, what do you think? You're the caller. You tell me what you think.

CALLER: Well, honestly, you're probably gonna think I'm crazy for thinking this, but in some ways I would think it would help Romney because Chris Christie's a Republican --

CALLER: -- he's doing a good job running the efforts there, and my prayers and thoughts go out to all those people, and that they're gonna say, "Okay, so the president's come here to do his meet-and-greet and look at the ground, but can we now let our Republican governor get back to work to actually helping these people." That's what I think.

RUSH: All right, let me ask you a question. What did you think of Chris Christie's Republican convention speech? You remember it? Did you see it?

CALLER: Oh, heavens yes, I saw it. At first I kind of liked his boisterous personality, but it really kind of seemed like, "let me tell you about me," and it wasn't really about how Mitt Romney would be good for this country --

RUSH: Yeah, it wasn't about that, was it? It wasn't about how good Romney was gonna be, was it?

CALLER: He basically said that this race is gonna turn on a dime once Mitt Romney debates Obama.

RUSH: Right. He is the only person in the country who thought that. You go back, everybody was scared the first debate 'cause Obama's the smooth talker, Obama's this guy that's gonna mop the floor, and nobody thought what Christie thought. He was the only guy who said Romney is gonna wipe the floor with Obama. Nobody else thought that.

RUSH: I'm asking this series of questions for a specific reason. You may have figured it out; you may have not figured it out. If you haven't, it will be up to you to figure it out. But when you sit there and you're the only guy saying that Romney's gonna clean up, what are you doing? You are raising expectations. It was thought to be unfair what Christie did. He put all kinds of pressure on Romney to mop the floor with Obama.

Remember: Before the first debate, the conventional wisdom was that Obama is just the greatest speaker ever. I'm not talking about you and I. We know he's nothing without the prompter. I'm talking about population at large in the media. So Christie goes out there, raises these expectations to a point that nobody thought Romney could possibly do that, and what if Romney hadn't done that?

What if Romney hadn't come through? Now here we are just speculating. I'm just asking some questions. Here we are a week/six days before the election. And yesterday Chris Christie said, “I don't care. The election's not important right now. I need the president of the United States here. He's been great for me and my state,” and so forth. Now, when you look at it as I have laid it out, what do you think?

CALLER: Well, I just don't think Chris Christie is... I mean, there are things about him that I love and things about him that I don't like. I just don't think that Chris Christie, being such a strong Romney supporter and advocate -- especially during the primaries, out there with Romney -- you know, saying these things and putting the president up on a pedestal, so to speak... I think maybe he's just saying, “Look, you know, I need some federal money here, and I need to get it as fast as I can.” But ultimately if I'm a person in the state of New Jersey like I was a person here in Alabama when we had all those tornadoes...

RUSH: Yeah. Okay. All right, well, look. Let me share with you an e-mail that I have here. I have e-mail from the Rush 24/7 subscriber email. That's a private e-mail address. You only get that e-mail address if you're a subscriber at RushLimbaugh.com. And it's from William Ganz. He said, “Oh, my, this is great. The narcissist-in-chief took the bait. Governor Christie baited Obama to come to New Jersey to survey the damage.

“And Obama is now wasting precious time in a state that he's gonna win anyway. So Obama wastes time in New Jersey while Governor Christie's friend takes Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and, as an added bonus, Christie scores big Obama bucks for his state, which shores up his status as a good governor for the whole population of New Jersey.” So this take is, this a brilliant move by Christie. He asked Obama to come, and Obama said, “Sure.”

(interruption) Who made this request? Do we know? We don't know who made the request. So this guy's assuming that Christie called Obama and said, “Come in,” and Obama said, “Okay, I'll be glad to. I'll be there.” So Obama landed just now. Air Force One just landed in a marsh and they're gonna get together. This guy thinks that Obama's been rope-a-doped. They're together on Marine One right now. Okay, they're together on Marine One. They're flying to the devastation of one-percenters in people that live on the shore

So Obama's gonna go out and he's gonna give money to the one-percenters in New Jersey, 'cause that's where most of the damage is on the Jersey shore. And Christie has said it's unthinkable. It's unbelievable, this devastation there. So that's one take, that this is a slick move by Governor Christie. It’s really smart. It gets Obama out of the White House. It gets him out there, wasting time in a state he's gonna win anyway. Christie gets the Obama bucks.

The election isn't gonna be moved. It's gonna happen Tuesday. Of course, the opposite theory is, “What the hell is Christie doing? He's giving Obama a chance to look presidential, clean up a state, look competent, look like cares and so forth. What's a Republican doing propping up Obama?” That's the other take on this. (interruption) How long before who gets fed up? (interruption) Well, Snerdley's asking how long before New Yorkers get fed up with how long it's gonna take to restore things.

The thing is, nothing is going to get fixed by Election Day. Obama is not Superman. He can't go to New Jersey and get the water out of people's homes in the one-percenters' houses. He can't rebuild the 80 houses that went up in flames in Queens. Hundred and ten now. He can't rebuild. Do you know that Bob Turner's house is one of those? Bob Turner, Congressman Bob Turner, was the chairman/CEO of Multimedia.

I absolutely loved this fat ba$tard, hook, line and sinker until today. Today was like finding out my perfect wife is sleeping with the neighborhood pedifile.

Chris Chirstie...you are dead to me now. I do not care if you are trying to win re-election in a blue state or not. Spin it how you must...you laid down with filth to forward yourself, so now you are just as filthy.

I hope ten years from now to be gambling on the Boardwalk and feel sorry enough to throw a quarter in your begger's bucket, you fat POS!

You obviously haven't seen pictures of the TX coast after Ike came ashore. Where houses are damaged on the NJ beach, they were GONE after Ike.

I live 70 miles inland and Rita left a big pine tree on my house; seven uprooted huge trees in my yard; we had no electrcity for three weeks.

I have expericenced hurricanes all my life.

Christie is acting like a big, fat sissie!

BTW, all names are retired after being used to name a hurricane.

Obviously you are unfamiliar with the phenomenon of flood damage ~ as compared to wind damage. Your insurance agent is. Speak to him about it.

In any case, this particular cyclonic weather phenomenon was about 1000 miles wide. That's just short of 800,000 square miles, which is 3 TIMES the total area of Texas!

Ike, in comparison, was about 1/4 the size of the total area of Texas.

That makes Ike 1/12 the size of Sandy!

OK! You know more than I do about what I lived through! /s

You are grossly misinformed. Of course I know about flood damage! It's the storm surge that caused all the damage to Galveston and that coastal area with Ike. Rita had a lot more wind damage than Sandy. I have several friends who lost not only their beach houses but their beach front lots...now part of the GOM and the water is up to where the houses were. One friends' house was found across the highway with the pictures still on the walls. It wasn't blown away, it was washed away by the storm surge!

Ike covered most of TX.

Again, I guess you know more than I do because... I had to (mandatory) evacuate Rita and Ike. Between these two, we were spared evacuation from Gus...it turned.

Sandy was not that strong a storm...as hurricanes blow.

The worst part is just now coming...when shock turns to frustration and anger...when people can't get fuel or groceries.

BTW, several tank trucks of fuel from Houston have already arrived outside NYC...waiting to get in.

So, I cheated ~ I used mathematics to determine the relative sizes of Ike and Sandy ~ and Sandy won ~ huge, huge, huge storm!

Just now looking at TV shots of large swaths of New Jersey still underwater ~

BTW, I"ve been relocated myself, even lived through a tropical storm here with two weeks of rain. Then there was hurricane Hazel ~ it made it all the way to Indiana, but on a trail of destruction, and it rained for about a month. This storm was so big it was still blowing and flooding Eastern states and it too was in Indiana ~ and Illinois and Wisconsin ~ created 25 ft high waves on Lake MIchigan. Only reason you don't hear much about damage around the Great Lakes is there are only a few parts where people actually have structures down on the shoreline ~

Tornadoes are far worse. Been through several of those. Our neighborhood was hit with one 12 blocks wide that bounced from one street to another ~ and left us alone. All our neighbors to the East and West found their homes turned to trash ~ all their stuff scattered everywhere. The lucky ones simply had their roofs turned end to end. We may have lost a couple of tiles, but our good fortune in the midst of destruction was rare.

Tornadic winds are far faster and more powerful than hurricane winds, but a single tornado, unlike even a weak hurricane, is not likely to shut down a state.

Tornados are worse not only in intensity but with short notice. With hurricanes, you have days to prepare or evacuate. Of course, hurricanes spawn tornados. There were over 90 tornados with Rita...not big but distructive.

The most amazing thing to us is that the Jersy beach houses aren't on stilts...they sit on the ground.

Depends on where you are when it comes to stilts. I stayed overnight once in a friend's house that was on the beach on stilts ~ about 20 ft high. Down the way there were houses on the beach itself.

Most of these properties are owned by the 1% ~ or their friends. For most everyone really close to the Atlantic their beach houses are throw-aways.

Up the coast in Rhode Island there are mansions on/near the shoreline which their owners call "Huts".

For a variety of reasons many of the older properties on the Jersey shore are really old ~ just totally nasty too ~ and still they refuse to burn or fall in. I suspect they are constructed from oak soaked in pine tar for decades.

I'm talking about the houses on the Jersey shore...big old houses.

There are "regular" houses on Gaveston Island (Galveston has a seawall that doesn't work in a hurricane) but the beach communities are mostly houses on stilts and the new regulations are even higher stilts.

There are parts of the Jersey shore that are infrequently hit ~this time was a bit abnormal. Remember, most of our hurricanes in this area come up from the South, so they go inland at Cape Hattaras, or they simply move off East and hit New England or Canada.

This one started due South at Jamaica and went straight North which took it just East of Cape Hattaras but close enough to the shoreline to be steered by a divot in the jet stream right into Jersey and New York.

Last storm I recall running into Delaware Bay managed to cut a channel in the barrier island where Ocean City MD is located. The next big storm up to hit MD filled in that channel on the way in and opened up the old one that'd been filled in. Stuff happens.

We end up not having many fast moving high CAT storms because the Continental shelf around here is fairly broad ~ so the storms are running over shallow water. That's why they slow down and lose energy approaching New Orleans too. Appalachacola, though, gets 'em full force.

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