Jesus Christie, Superstar

Largely on the strength of his short-term bro-mance with President Obama a few months ago, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is now the man who can save the Republican Party from itself.  His "straight talk," coupled with his willingness to seek "bipartisan solutions" and "work across the aisle" is just the elixer to fix our dysfunctional political system.

His empathy towards storm victims and his fierce determination to get them the relief they need shows Christie has the "common touch" all great leaders -- nay, presidents -- need to demonstrate if they dare to dream of occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  His willingness to criticize anyone, even House Speaker John Boehner, for standing between him and aid to Superstorm Sandy victims caused the flutter of a million moderate hearts.

Cue Time cover story!  Chris Matthews, the thrill up your leg is back!

There's just one tiny, tiny problem with the nascent hero worship of Mr. Moderate: this tiny thing right here.

Oh, and maybe this.

Right - this, also, is probably something that people should think about, too.

From where I sit inside the beltway, Christie looks an awful lot like the shiny object we pundits and reporters tend to chase without much thought.  He made a splash with what I interpreted as genuine caring and concern of Superstorm Sandy victims, and his praise of President Obama was justified.  After all, the president put Christie first in line to alleviate the suffering, keeping in touch with him day and night, offering him a direct line to the Oval Office -- just as a president should.

I'd be surprised if some pretty influential New Yorkers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, didn't get access and a few late-night phone calls, too.  After all, Jersey wasn't the only state affected by the tragedy.

But Christie's larger-than-life personality, and the breathless, will-he-or-won't-he parlor game surrounding his potential 2012 presidential run, amped up his role in the post-storm tragedy to a higher level.  Suddenly, the man who bashed Obama like a pinata in Tampa is now openly embracing the guy who's going to help his state get back on his feet again.

That embrace was rewarded with a few perks that showed Obama playing up the relationship, as well, in what I consider one of the purest displays of bipartisanship, ever, for mutual political gain.

The underlying facts, however, haven't changed: Christie is a Republican who agrees with, say, 90 percent of his party's platform, including spending and the role of the federal government.  He made a big show of rejecting federal money for a badly-needed tunnel into New York to show how tough he is on federal spending.  And he gutted some state social welfare programs for the same reason, with at least one tragic result as a consequence.

Christie took his barbed wit and outspokenness to his own party -- and to Speaker John Boehner's hide -- only after Boehner blocked aid to his state, for obvious poltical reasons.  Like the rest of the "moderates" in his party with higher ambitions, The Big Man was mum when Republicans in DC decided to wreck the economy and play Russian roulette with the debt ceiling in the name of getting Obama out of the White House by 2012.

Still, let's say for the sake of argument that Christie's new bipartisan religion is the real thing -- that he believes the GOP has gone too far to the right, and recalibration of its relationship with Democrats is in order.  Then what?

Does anyone seriously believe that Christie could actually make it to a general election in this Republican Party?  The one that gave a serious look-see to Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain? The same party that forced Mitt Romney so far to the right that he all but disavowed his governorship of true-blue Massachusetts?  The party that pretty much created a permanent Tea Party majority in the House?

If you believe that, I've got a tunnel to New York I'd like to sell you.

Perception versus reality

This is appropriately named. 

....Aaaaand WE'RE BACK!!!

It's been a rough six months or so, with an abrupt departure, a rough landing and a few other personal issues that have kept me on the sidelines. But a new year is a good time for a new start, and there's a lot to talk about going forward.

Even so, I'm still a little shaky about blogging again - understandable because of a few Internet miscues that have made things more difficult than necessary.  But a few short posts should take care of whatever jitters there are about getting back on the field, so bear with me through a few subpar ones while things get worked out.

Which brings me to today's subject: the Fiscal Cliff, or Curb, or Slope or whatever trope is in fashion these days.

Despite all the drama, it seems like President Obama got a decent deal.  The taxes will go up on the wealthiest 1 percent, a lot of important social programs get preserved, and the GOP had a big chunk taken out of its ass.  Well played, Mr. President.

But a lot of people on the left are upset with the deal - particularly the fact that the upper-income tax floor was raised from $250,000 to $450,000.  To me, that's not such a big deal: Obama got a lot in return, and lawmakers in some districts with high costs of living - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer among them -- had pushed for a floor closer to $1 million.

And, much like the president's decision to extend the Bush tax cuts in 2010, the big picture -- extension of tax breaks for small businesses, continuation of unemployment insurance, no cuts to programs to help the poor and vulnerable -- looks like a win from where I sit.

Here's the best take I've seen so far.  There are probably more out there, but, hey, I just woke up. 

Just saw former GOP governor and professional chin artist Haley Barbour on MSNBC, arguing that Obama and the Chicago boys can't run on their record, so they vilified Mitt Romney and ran a negative campaign.

My head ordinarily would have exploded - metaphorically, of course - at such inanity, especially on a Very Important Election Day. Fortunately, I'd taken the antidote last night, in the form of The Rachel Maddow Show's A-block.  Despite conventional wisdom, Obama had an amazing record, one that many of his predecessors (George Bush, anyone) would envy, and that history will smile upon.

I yield my time to the

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

" target="_blank">gentlewoman from the Berkshires:

Listening to NPR while chugging along on the treadmill this morning, I heard Kokie Roberts and Mara Liasson opine that, since blowing McCain out of the water in '08, Obama's lost significant ground with white male working class voters - an exploitable flaw in his already weakened armor.

Flipping the argument around, host Steve Inskeep asked about the minority vote. Both Liasson and Roberts sang it almost in stereo: Obama has locked up the minority vote, and hopes to run up huge margins that could offset the lion's share of the white vote Romney is expected to win.

Then, there's this, from my old mates at Politico, declaring that the era of Post Racial Politics is officially over. Also, Southern Strategy.

That got me thinking about this, from the summer, and comparing it to what I was hearing on NPR.

It seems to me that pointing out how Obama doesn't have blue collar whites on his side -- and that those votes "still matter" is a whistling-past-the-graveyard scenario on the part of pundits and party strategist, and misses a big point on how this elections, and future ones, will be vastly different.

First of all, no one's talking at all about how Romney has barely lifted a finger to court the black and brown electorate, and seems to have gone out of his way to offend African American voters.  Since that disastrous speech (or ingenious, depending on perspective), Romney hasn't done a single event with a high-profile African American leader.  And he's had little to say on immigration since his technicolor appearance in a Univision interview a few months back.

To get zero percent of the African American community -- just a few years after Bush racked up 11 percent -- and show up orange in a national TV interview, you almost have to be trying.

Secondly, no one disputes the fact that, within a few decades, whites will be the nation's largest minority, surpassed by Latinos but still ahead of African Americans. On its face, irritating a voting bloc you'll soon have to court seems like a losing strategy.

Unless you consider Citizens United and the Republican lockstep strategy of suppressing the minority vote.  The conservative tilt to the Supreme Court all but ensured that the wealthy will have a powerful voice in elections of the future, and the voting suppression -- ranging from strict voter ID laws to menacing billboards and mailings -- are aimed largely at communities of color.

Coincidence?

If you don't have the numbers, you change the rules, and it seems to be working so far - how else could a candidate as flawed, feckless and without gravitas as Mitt Romney come even close to a historic record many of his predecessors would envy?

But Rachel Maddow poses the real question for the GOP -- and the nation: is this really a long-term strategy?

Benghazi dispatch

This is probably the best analysis I've seen so far of the Benghazi bloodshed.

What's missing from a lot of the on-air commentary -- and Mitt Romney's bellicose attack on President Obama for sending "mixed messages" that he believes spurred the attack -- is the fact that the world, and the Middle East, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, is a "complicated and, at times, confounding."

In-depth reporting by, among others, Rachel Maddow makes it plain that there may be a lot of factors behind the devastating attack besides an obscure, really bad, blasphemous film: Islamic extremists, frustrated, angry youth idled by the slack post-revolutionary economy, and general instability in a nation that's trying to figure out its own future.

For my money, this paragraph gets to the heart of it:

No specific group claimed responsibility for the attack, which was well orchestrated and involved heavy weapons. It is thought to be the work of the same Salafi, ultra-religious groups who have perpetrated similar assaults in Benghazi. They are religious, authoritarian groups who justify their actions through very selective, corrupt, and ultimately self-serving interpretations of Islam. Under Qaddafi, they kept quiet. In the early days of the revolution some of them claimed that fighting Qaddafi was un-Islamic and conveniently issued a fatwa demanding full obedience to the ruler. This is Libya’s extreme right. And, while much is still uncertain, Tuesday’s attack appears to have been their attempt to escalate a strategy they have employed ever since the Libyan revolution overthrew Colonel Qaddafi’s dictatorship. They see in these days, in which the new Libya and its young institutions are still fragile, an opportunity to grab power. They want to exploit the impatient resentments of young people in particular in order to disrupt progress and the development of democratic institutions
.

After a day of leaving Mitt Rimney twisting in the wind over his hamfisted, callus and bellicose statements on the deaths of the US ambassador to Libya, it seems as though the GOP is taking reluctant, belated steps in bucking up their nominee.

As unrest in Tripoli and Cairo, Egypt, continues today -- and reporters sifted through evidence the attack was planned and had little to do with an offensive, provocative anti-Islam film -- Sen. John McCain blames the attacks on Obama and the perception of American military weakness.  Ditto Donald Rumsfeld, although why anyone would listen to Rummy on matters of foreigh policy is a mystery to me.

Yet the assault on Romney's assault on the administration continues to be picked apart for fallacies, errors in timing and outright lies.  And the defense of Romney, in addition to being a day late, looks to be more than a dollar short, hewing to Republican talking points issued in the wake of yesterday's debacle.

Gail Collins, the floor is yours.