The only other state with statewide elections this year is New Jersey and the contrasts between the gubernatorial candidates, Chris Christie and Ken Cuccinelli, could not be more stark. Christie, a Republican in a blue state is seemingly headed to a major victory while Cuccinelli hopefully is about to suffer a humiliating defeat. The main difference? Cuccinelli has sworn absolute fealty to the ugliset elements of the GOP and embraced an agenda that is increasingly rejected by younger and urban voters. Christie on the other hand has taken positions that are deemed heresy by the Christofascists/Tea Party inn recognition that one has to win votes from outside of the dwindling aging white racist./religious extremist base of the GOP. The Washington Post looks at Christie's apparent message to the GOP:
LIVINGSTON, N.J. — When Gov. Chris Christie’s campaign bus made its first stop last week, in front of the Ritz diner, the event had the trappings of both a victory lap and a road test.
The official victory lap can’t come until Tuesday night, . . . . The road test was for a possible campaign for president in 2016. Christie’s gubernatorial reelection campaign is about much more than winning a second term to enhance his power in New Jersey. He and his advisers hope that the outcome will send a message to a divided Republican Party about how it can win in places where its presidential candidates have been losing.
Christie is trying to win by the biggest possible margin and show that, despite his conservative positions, he can attract support from constituencies long tied to the Democrats.
But the Republican Party that will pick its next presidential nominee in three years is far different from the one that nominated Bush. Christie should emerge from Tuesday’s election as a top-tier candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, but also as one fully stamped as a favorite of the establishment wing who has not been afraid to criticize hard-liners on the right.
“I’m in this to win, because if you don’t win, you can’t govern. If you can’t govern, you can’t move the country, the state, the city — whatever you’re running for — in the direction it needs to be moved in. I think we’ve had too many people [in the Republican Party] who’ve become less interested in winning an election and more interested in winning an argument.”
Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia will highlight both strains of Republican conservatism, with Christie representing one approach and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II — a tea party favorite and underdog in his race against Democratic businessman and fundraiser Terry McAuliffe — representing the other.
A loss by a tea party favorite in a swing state and a victory by Christie in a Democratic stronghold would probably set the terms for the next phase of the debate within the Republican Party about the way forward. If Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) has become the symbol of the GOP’s tea party wing, Christie is poised to become the anti-Cruz.
To those Republicans who question whether Christie is conservative enough for their tastes, he said this: “My record speaks for itself. When people take a look at my record, it’s more than sufficiently conservative.”
Christie said there is a lesson in all this that should not be lost on others in his party. “People expect you to do the job,” he said. “They expect you to get the job done. And that’s sort of a universal truth, whether you’re a Republican, independent or Democrat. That’s what people want more than anything else. And they’re willing to put up with disagreeing with you on certain things.”
Christie’s goal Tuesday is more than just a big margin of victory. He wants to show that he can draw support from Hispanics and African Americans and from Democrats generally; he said his party has been inconsistent in its outreach to those groups. Christie said: “If we don’t get instant gratification, we walk away. I’ve worked for the last four years to build relationships with these folks. That’s the way you broaden the party, over a long period of time, to build relationships. And, ultimately, that’s the way you govern.”
I disagree with many of Christie's views. But, that said, he is clearly not a member of the Christian Taliban and has shown he will not prostitute himself to that element of the GOP on a constant basis.
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