‘Conservatives are very nervous about Chris Christie,’ says the leader of one activist group, with judgeships and top White House jobs potentially at stake.
But behind the scenes, there’s an insurrection-in-the-making among powerful conservative groups in Washington that are skeptical of Christie’s leadership and want to exert influence over the process of filling roughly 4,000 jobs as part of a new administration, to say nothing of top White House slots and judgeships.
.. “For his judicial nominees as the New Jersey governor, he appointed a bunch of liberals, or he treated the nominations like political payoff positions. It is the type of approach that would be devastating for Trump to have Christie, as attorney general, picking judges or applying the same approach to fill key regulatory positions in the EPA or Treasury Department.”
.. one person on the Trump transition told POLITICO that there is simmering tension between the team’s conservative and moderate Republicans, who have vastly different visions for a future Trump White House.
.. Other conservative activists say they feel best about Christie’s leadership of the transition team when he’s surrounded by conservatives, such as Becky Norton Dunlop and Ed Feulner of The Heritage Foundation.
“Looking at the totality of the transition team, I am comfortable,” another leader of a conservative activist group said.
.. Reservations about Christie persist among some in Trump’s inner circle, including with son-in-law Jared Kushner Because, as U.S. Attorney, Christie successfully prosecuted Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, for tax evasion and witness tampering.
.. Trump is a Northeasterner. He likes Christie and [Rudy] Giuliani. They talk like him. It’s a cultural thing.”
.. As far as Bridgegate is concerned, there’s a general sense in Trump world that Christie can survive the courtroom drama unfolding in New Jersey, barring any devastating revelations. “His scandal in relation to both candidates’ current issues is a walk in the park,” one Republican said. “As far as scandals go, Christie’s looks the least damaging.”
..Clay Johnson, the head of George W. Bush’s transition team, told reporters at a recent even:, “Gov. Christie is the chairman of the transition, but the person driving all of the work is Rich Bagger.”
Mike Pence’s Fantasy Running Mate
Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana faced on Tuesday night, as he labored to defend Donald Trump, a nominee with contempt for many of the principles, much of the policy agenda and all of the dignity of the Republican Party that Mr. Pence cherishes.
.. He set out to invent a new version of Donald Trump, one that he could believe in.
.. Mr. Pence simply ignored the Donald Trump we have seen on the trail for more than a year — the one who would build a wall against Mexico, the one who would disregard our security treaties and tear up our trade agreements, the one with a crush on Vladimir Putin — and instead dreamed up a more conventional, right-wing Republican, a Republican, that is, very like Mike Pence.
.. Since then, Mr. Pence has been engaged in the same compromising maneuvers that Republican leaders like Paul Ryan, the House speaker, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, have been performing almost daily since they reluctantly embraced their party’s standard-bearer.
.. Mr. Pence resorted at times to repeating some of Mr. Trump’s own thin claims, including his preposterous justification for not releasing his tax returns.
.. And he simply ducked rather than try to address questions about Mr. Trump’s egregious attacks on women and minorities; instead, he accused the Democrats of unleashing “an avalanche of insults” on his running mate.
Judge Substance, Not Style
Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana clearly made a decision before last night’s vice-presidential debate. He was going to defend Donald Trump with style rather than substance.
.. So Pence took a different approach. He used his performance skills, built up over years as a successful television host and politician.
Kaine’s plan: Turn Pence into Trump
One Senate ally calls on Kaine to make Pence ‘own every bit of Trump’s radical, racist, misogynist agenda.’
Pence will already have his talking points down on Tuesday evening — and getting him to deviate could prove nearly impossible.
.. Pence’s job is to steady the ship and remind conservatives what the Republican Party stands for: a pro-growth economic agenda and a break from the left-leaning policies of President Barack Obama.
..What’s extraordinary for Pence, however, is just how many individual topics he must be prepared to defend Trump on to get to his more orthodox pitch to Republican voters.
.. “Is Mike Pence going to aggressively defend his running mate when he hasn’t necessarily been inclined to go on full defense [in the past]?” asked a Kaine aide in an
.. Kaine’s allies are looking for Pence to either assume all of Trump’s rhetoric and positions or to publicly acknowledge disagreements with Trump. Either conclusion would be a win for Kaine and his fellow Democrats. Pence has been quick to laughingly admit he has a different “style” than Trump, but he will work hard to keep any daylight on policy from emerging between he and Trump.
.. “I hope Tim makes Pence own every bit of Trump’s radical, racist, misogynist agenda.”
.. And if Pence can weather Kaine’s Trump barbs, he’ll have a chance to stabilize the Republican ticket by simply contrasting his conservative bona fides with Clinton’s more liberal agenda.
.. Then there are Kaine’s own breaks with Clinton. He personally supports the Hyde Amendment, which bans taxpayer-funded abortions, yet says he will work with Clinton to overturn it as vice president. He praised the Trans-Pacific Partnership the same week he was selected as Clinton’s running mate, then came out against it.
.. “In any debate, he tries to be whatever the audience needs him to be,” Kilgore said of Kaine, whose raised eyebrow is a signature look.
.. more than 40 percent of voters don’t know who either Pence or Kaine is,