Christie's Starting to Look Like Reagan

With all the crazy talk of President Barack Obama being the antichrist, it’s sort of amusing that the anti-Obama is a guy named Christie.

To understand the political force sweeping our country, one need only search the words “Chris Christie” on YouTube. The New Jersey governor’s town hall appearances have received hundreds of thousands of hits and glowing comments because the man, like Ronald Reagan before him, has an uncanny ear for what troubles Americans.

The truth is, a mensch like Christie could never have emerged in American politics if super-slick Obama had not enraged so many Americans first. If Jimmy Carter created Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama created Chris Christie.

Americans put their faith in a cocky Obama who wowed “The View” crowd in a bathing suit. But he gave us a government that didn’t know its own boundaries, defied common sense and fueled anxieties in post-financial crash America. Now the people of New Jersey have put their faith in a man who looks like the rest of us in a bathing suit.

Democrats might like to believe that the backlash embodied in the Tea Party movement is nothing more than a carnival of fools, headed for nowhere. But Christie is in touch with the national sense of unease that animates the Tea Party movement, and at town hall-type gatherings he has shown a grittiness that as drama surpasses the best reality TV shows.