{"id":40802236101,"date":"2011-07-07T16:19:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T20:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2011\/07\/07\/sweeney-or-christie-whos-more-at-risk\/"},"modified":"2021-01-25T11:22:06","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T16:22:06","slug":"sweeney-or-christie-whos-more-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2011\/07\/07\/sweeney-or-christie-whos-more-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweeney or Christie: Who\u2019s More at Risk?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at PolitickerNJ<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the story line so far.*<\/p>\n

After successfully corralling enough Democratic legislators to pass pension and benefit reforms, Senate President Steve Sweeney allows the liberal wing of his party to control the budget process in order to score political points off Governor Chris Christie.\u00a0 The governor won\u2019t be outplayed and exacts revenge by making bigger cuts than he initially proposed without giving Sweeney a heads-up.\u00a0 Sweeney knows he has to make amends with the liberal wing of his party and launches a staged tirade against the governor.<\/p>\n

I buy most of this storyline up until the final scene.\u00a0 There is no other way to put it.\u00a0 Steve Sweeney was pissed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that he is unaware of his precarious political position within his own party.\u00a0 Just that the expletive-laden rant was genuine.<\/p>\n

He was mad about two things.\u00a0 First, as he states, he feels that the cuts were punitive and landed too harshly on the poor.\u00a0 Regardless of how you view Christie\u2019s line item veto choices, I take Sweeney at his word that the cuts upset him.<\/p>\n

Secondly, he\u2019s mad not only at the governor, but at himself for misjudging the governor\u2019s willingness to play along with the political script that the Democrats had crafted for the budget process.<\/p>\n

The verdict on this drama is that Sweeney ended up the big loser in this political game.\u00a0 I disagree.<\/p>\n

Certainly, there is a chance that disgruntled Democrats could oust him as Senate President.\u00a0 But I think he will remain in his post as long he goes to his fellow legislators with a mea culpa<\/em>: \u00a0he was played by Christie, he was mistaken for assuming Christie would be more judicious in his cuts, etc. etc.<\/p>\n

Whether Sweeney stays or not, though, the bigger risk is run by Chris Christie.\u00a0 His political capital, both in the state and nationally, is built on his reputation for shaking up the system and getting big things done with bi-partisan support.<\/p>\n

The risk for Christie lies in two areas.\u00a0 First, he has given his political opponents a new epithet to use against him: “mean-spirited”.\u00a0 The \u201cbully\u201d attack never really worked<\/a>.\u00a0 Few voters who don\u2019t already disapprove of the governor\u2019s policies think of him as a bully.\u00a0 Among the remainder, bully may actually be a good thing considering what low opinion they have of the Trenton status quo.\u00a0 However, mean-spirited is another matter entirely.<\/p>\n

You can be a bully and still make decisions in the best interests of the state.\u00a0 Being mean-spirited, on the other hand, means you make decisions based on personal political calculations in spite of what may be good for the state.\u00a0 Whether or not you agree with Christie\u2019s cuts, this line of attack can have some traction among female independent voters who have been wavering in their support for the governor.\u00a0 [See blog posts from June 29 <\/a>and June 1<\/a> for a discussion of these voters.]<\/p>\n

The other risk for Christie is where this leaves his erstwhile political allies in the legislative majority.\u00a0 Steve Sweeney has been the single most important factor in the governor\u2019s legislative success.\u00a0 He has been the one thing standing between Christie and governmental deadlock.<\/p>\n

While the other South Jersey Democrats and their Hudson and Essex coalition partners have supported the governor\u2019s reforms, it is Steve Sweeney who has actually been a vocal advocate of these reforms for years.<\/p>\n

If Sweeney is ousted from the leadership, Christie can bank on a complete shutdown of his legislative agenda.\u00a0 But even if Sweeney stays on, Christie\u2019s future success, particularly with education reform, is no sure bet.<\/p>\n

The conciliatory tone of the governor\u2019s office response to Sweeney\u2019s diatribe is not part of a pre-orchestrated political gavotte, as some would have us believe.\u00a0 It is the realization that Chris Christie needs Steve Sweeney more than Sweeney needs Christie.<\/p>\n

While Steve Sweeney firmly believes in the education reforms that sit on his legislative docket, he now has little political or personal incentive to move them forward.\u00a0 If he doesn\u2019t, the big political loser in this dust-up may ultimately be Chris Christie.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0 The Record<\/em>\u2019s Charlie Stile lays out the scenario in more detail.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at PolitickerNJ Here\u2019s the story line so far.* After successfully corralling enough Democratic legislators to pass pension and benefit reforms, Senate President Steve Sweeney allows the liberal wing of his party to control the budget process in order to score political points off Governor Chris Christie.\u00a0 The governor won\u2019t be outplayed and exacts revenge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":939,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40802236101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/939"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802236101"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802248120,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236101\/revisions\/40802248120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802236101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802236101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802236101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}