Recently, senior White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer said about the President that he “will use his executive authority, both his pen and his phone, to work with anyone to get things done — whether they be leaders in business, education, Congress, states, or local communities.” Zeus, in other words, dwells in The White House.
It will be curious to see how Obama handles himself during the upcoming State of the Union address. It was four years ago (time gets away, doesn’t it?) that the president lectured The Supreme Court during his yearly address to the nation. The subject was the Court’s recent ruling on campaign finance reform, with the President saying, “I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”
Pressuring one branch of government to undermine another will likely not result in success. But in Barack Obama’s world, he is in charge at the end of the day, other branches of government notwithstanding.
The good news is that the likely outcome of his overreach is that the Executive Branch will be beaten back to its proper place in our world.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, there’s Chris Christie, not the star that polls seem to make him out to be. What, I asked my audience, has he done that constitutes his being the next Reagan?
The answer seems to be that he’s not a wimp. He won’t back down when the press presses him. Never mind that he raised property taxes in New Jersey. And never mind that two scandals make a pattern. He stands to be at the center of others. Why do Republicans want him over, say, Rand Paul?
The answer is, like Obama on the Left, Christie, because he can out-chat the press, is a hero to some. Is he Republican toxin, though?
No, is the long and short answer. Christie will end up disappointing his base the way Obama has.
We have an election this year in Congress, and our goal should be getting conservatives elected to the Senate. We’ll worry about 2016 next year. By then, we can only hope, the irrational fixation with Christie will have gone away.
By: Will Anderson
