Late Returns: One More Reason For Chris Christie To Stay Home In 2012

Late Returns: One More Reason For Chris Christie To Stay Home In 2012

There's been a lot of discussion about the many reasons why Chris Christie and the GOP primary electorate wouldn't exactly see eye-to-eye, and that's enough reason to not be surprised that he's once again affirmed that he will not run for President in 2012. But what the heck, over at The Awl, Abe Sauer reminds us of one more of the New Jersey Governor's vulnerabilities:

Before he was flying in state helicopters to his kid's baseball games, Christie was flying on private jets as part of the law firm Dughi, Hewit & Palatucci, for whom, as a lobbyist, the future governor fought for the rights of Wall Street. In fact, one of Christie's primary lobbying projects on behalf of Wall Street was to win an exemption for securities fraud from New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act. For those Americans whose 401(k)s have been gouged in the last few years, that won't play well. (The only reason this wasn't much of an issue in his gubernatorial campaign was because his opponent was Jon Corzine, who sucked off Wall Street's teat with even more gusto than Christie.)

But it gets worse for Christie.

In a detail that practically writes its own commercial script, the Wall Street client on whose behalf Christie lobbied was the Securities Industry Association. Which, at that time, was led by one Mr. Bernard Madoff.

Sauer writes the Obama team's talking point: "As a lobbyist, Chris Christie worked to remove securities fraud from a consumer fraud act on behalf of an organization run by Bernie Madoff."

[Daily Intel @ NY Mag; The Awl]

* * * * *

Roger Cohen thinks Rick Perry is "loveable" and has a "heart," because 1) he has the guts to dislike cancer, 2) seventh-grade boys will tell you that seventh-grade girls aren't nearly slutty enough for their tastes, and 3) Cohen has obviously never heard of Cameron Todd Willingham. [Washington Post]

Wall Street donors are flocking to Mitt Romney and fleeing Obama, because of all the socialism, I guess. [Daily Intel @ NY Mag]

What does it take to get former New York Mayor Ed Koch back in the Obama camp? Surprisingly little! [Ben Smith]

Noreen Malone is getting mixed signals from President Barack Obama's emails. [Daily Intel @ NY Mag]

None of the 2012 candidates want to have anything to do with "sharia panic" enthusiast Frank Gaffney's pledge. [ThinkProgress]

If Mitch Daniels wants to take credit for being a different sort of GOP candidate, then he should have run for the GOP's candidacy. [Weigel @ Slate]

Someone must have run up to Michele Bachmann in a parking lot and told her all about how Hezbollah was going to put missiles in Cuba, because that's the latest bit of cray-cray coming from her today. [Gawker]

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