Blog 11

With all of the recent terrorist attacks going on around the world and most recently in San Bernardino, California the number one thing the public should be worried about is safety. With the rise in threats and the now the new idea of organizations like ISIS taking their attention away from attacking high profile targets and now they are going after easier “soft targets”. It is crucial for our next president to have experience with foreign policy and one that is a crime fighter. This is why Chris Christie is the man that will turn America around and lead us in the right direction. Christie’s resume of being a crime fighter is an impressive one with being a lawyer for years and then being appointed United States Attorney for New Jersey by George W. Bush.

According to an article written on RawStory.com, New Jersey, under Christie, has low murder rates and this shows that Christie’s policies work. If Christie can clean up the state of New Jersey he can definitely clean up the crime that is happening way to frequently in the United States.

 Chris Christie has shown from the previous debates that he can handle the tough questions and he has never wilted under pressure, instead he thrives when put under the spotlight. Christie is a candidate who is stern and truly cares about keeping America safe. Christie is the closest republican presidential candidate to Ronald Regan. Some of Christie’s challengers say they will make America great again, but Christie is the only one that will truly make America great again.

The overall theme of Christie’s campaign is him being a crime fighter but the other theme is a presidency that would be about the people. You heard it from the man himself in one of the previous debates, Chris Christie’s presidency will be only about the American people and he wants to reward those who have been doing the right thing day in and day out. He is tired of seeing the people that get rewarded are the ones who cut corners and cheat. Chris Christie wants to close the loopholes and punish those who try to find and take the short cuts.

Chris Christie needs your help, if you want a president who will keep you and your children safe at night Chris Christie is the only candidate qualified to do so. I am asking for your support in the primaries to get Chris Christie the votes needed to be the republican presidential candidate If you are sick of seeing the government do nothing and feeling cheated out of being reward for doing the right things then Chris Christie is the man you want in office. So this coming election, elect a man with high character and one that will keep his word and be all about the American people, ELECT CHRIS CHRISTIE!     

Blog 10

When you click on the “Issues” link on Chris Christie’s website it brings you to a page where there are a total of 9 issues at the top with a link to click on to go directly to the spot on the page he lays out his plan for the issue. The nine issues highlighted are:

- Criminal Justice

- Entitlements

- Foreign Policy

- Education 

- Economy

- Border Security and Immigration

- Healthcare for America’s Veterans

It comes as no surprise that criminal justice is the first link displayed because the overall theme and image Chris Christie wants to build an image of being a crime fighter and law enforcer since that is what he has been doing for most of his life.  Foreign policy is also up there high because with Isis threating America and our allies, it is going to be crucial for the next president to have a good plan for combating Isis and keeping America safe. Also, the amount of information on different subtopics in these two categories is much greater than the other seven issues.

Chris Christie's Issues Page

The opponent of Chris Christie’s I looked at was Marco Rubio and how his “Issues” page differs from Chris Christie’s. I like Macro Rubio’s more because he lies out his plan on some many more issues than Christie does. There were a total of 32 different topics under Rubio’s issues page and I think this is better for the public because one it is easy to navigate through and find the one you are concerned about and the odds of finding the issue you want to know about is likely because the page covers just about everything. Both pages are specific with the plans they have to fix the issues America is facing. Another difference between the two is Christie does not talk about gun control while Rubio talks about the issue and talks about his plan to protect the 2^nd amendment. One difference between Rubio and Christie is when it comes to immigration, Christie spent some time talking about his plan to punish companies that hire illegal immigrants where as Rubio did not touch on this subject. Compared to Marco Rubio’s page, Chris Christie’s “Issues” page is missing a lot of details about many issues and one of those being healthcare. Christie only talks about his plans for helping senior citizens with healthcare, but he does not talk about a plan he has for the rest of America, which I thought was very shocking to see.

Marco Rubio's Issues Page

After taking the time to really analyze Chris Christie’s “Issue” page to Marco Rubio’s, it is no surprise Rubio continues to rise in the polls where as Christie continues to be near the bottom.  Many people who visit the page, just like me now, will have many questions about how he will handle a variety of different issues because he did not cover a whole lot compared to Marco Rubio. Chris Christie needs to be more in depth and cover a larger variety of issues so America’s can understand what Christie’s agenda will be if he is in fact elected to be the next President of the United States.   

                       

Blog 9

When I did a Google news search for Chris Christie, there are a lot of articles that come up that having headlines indicating conflict going on between Christie and another candidate.  ABC wrote the first article and the headline reads “ Chris Christie Explains Why GOP Voters Are Supporting Donald Trump.”  Below this main article are a list of other articles that deal with both Christie and Trump. Some of the articles that stuck out to me was one about Christie warning the public of a Trump and another one has a heading that states “Chris Christie Imitates Donald Trump”, this article will be an interesting story to follow to see how Trump responds if he feels the need to do so. PoliticusUSA wrote the next main article and the heading was “GOP Email Scandal Explodes As Chris Christie Accused of Hiding 9,428 Emails And Documents”. This is not the type of publicity Chris Christie needs right now with the way his numbers have been. A scandal like this could be detrimental to the campaign and force him to drop out of the race. This also makes Christie look really bad especially of how adamant he has been for getting Hilary Clinton to release her emails.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/chris-christie-imitate-donald-trump/story?id=35155377

 http://www.kmbz.com/Chris-Christie-Imitates-Donald-Trump/22170406

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/11/12/clinton-attack-dog-chris-christie-accused-hiding-9428-emails-documents.html

When it comes to who is covering Christie, it really is a variety of people and not just one new outlet. The most of one outlet I saw was the New York Times with two articles. The first set of articles about Christie and Trump come from Christie generating the news because he is making the statement and he was the one who chose to do the imitation. With the new scandal that has just came out this is all from the media. Christie’s campaign would not want this type of news to get out because of how badly this may hurt the campaign and now it is reminding people about the bridge scandal Christie was involved in earlier in his career as governor of New Jersey.

Currently the stories the media are writing about Christie are not setting him up for success in 2016. None of the top stories are about any policies or plans he has if he were to be elected president. With this new email scandal coming out about him, this is not the publicity that will boost him in the polls, it will only hurt the few supporters he has currently. The publicity Christie should be seeking moving forward should be stories about a great debate performance or about good things he has done on the campaign trail. Right now it seems like he is getting sucked into the Trump way and he is trying to use Trump’s strategy of arrogance in attacking him and it really does not look good for Christie in my opinion. He also needs to get more media attention on his policies because after doing this search, I do not believe I saw one posting in the top news stories about Christie’s policies. If people are unaware of good policies Christie may have, then it will make it harder for people to support him because they will not know about the good and the negative stories will overshadow the good.    

 

Blog #8

When I saw the prompt for this week I knew this was going to be a fun one to write about. I am a big fan of the tonight show and watch it about every night and on the show in most of the opening monologues, Jimmy Fallon loves to crack jokes about Chris Christie’s weight. In this particular episode, the Tonight Show band, “The Roots” and Fallon have fun with a story about Christie spending 82 thousand dollars at a concession stand at MetLife Stadium. This makes Christie look like someone who cannot control his eating. Now it is no secret that Christie is overweight and it has been something that has provided a lot of punch lines for late night talk shows. Many have questioned whether or not Christie could handle the stress that comes with the job of being president because of his health issues. This monologue just reinforces the beliefs many already have and continues to focus everyone’s attention on his weight and away from his messages. Chris Christie’s weight is with out a doubt going against his chances of winning. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUgn9QxBbro

 

The headline of Christie is not working in his favor by any means. Obviously he did not buy 82 thousand dollars worth of food for himself. His generosity of buying food for others is over looked though because that is not what will get the laughs.

 

When looking back at blog #2, I wrote about Chris Christie wanting to establish himself as a president who would enforce the rules and be a strong leader. He would be someone who would close the loopholes and stop letting the wealthy get away without paying their fair share. Have all of that in mind, this image pop culture is creating is taking away from the image he is trying to create. I do not know about you, but when I make an image of a strong leader in my head, one of the things I picture is someone who is in good physical shape. One thing that crossed my mind was how can we trust Christie to have the discipline to hold others accountable when he cannot even keep himself accountable and loose the weight. He has made it public that he gets annoyed with the fat jokes, but yet he has done nothing to stop them. I do not think this artifact will totally change the image Christie is trying to create. It definitely hurts it because some people may not vote for him solely because of his weight. Like I said earlier, when we think of a law enforcer and someone who is a good leader, we think of that person being in great physical shape. If Christie really wants to help his image and dodge the late night punch lines, the bets thing for him would be to go on a date and lose some of the weight.       

Blog 7

The first article I found about Chris Christie comes from the Huffington post which is traditionally a liberal magazine. The article is about a question asked in the debate that had to do with fantasy football and how Christie was appalled when they asked him a question like that and he brushed off the question and talked about other hot issues pressing the country. The article ripped Christie apart for not thinking this is a serious topic. According to the article, this issue is really important because "But despite his apparent incredulity, the reality about daily fantasy sports is that unresolved questions about the industry matter to millions of Americans. And those questions could fall squarely under the purview of Congress, federal regulators and potentially the next president" (Waldron, 2015). The article also goes on to say " While Christie might not view fantasy sports or gambling as a topic that rises to the level of a presidential debate, the next Oval Office occupant might not be able to simply brush it off" (Waldron, 2015). The tone is not as harsh as you would expect for a liberal magazine talking about a republican, but the writer has no problem pointing out that Christie is wrong for taking this issue so lightly. The writer then goes onto to talk about Christie's remark of "Let them play" referring to letting the American people play fantasy football (online gambling) is consistent with his beliefs because in New Jersey he signed a bill to legalized online gambling (Waldron, 2015).
 


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chris-christie-fantasy-sports_56324609e4b0631799114717?utm_hp_ref=chris-christie

The next article is written by Fox News which has the reputation of being strong conservative views. The article is based off of the recent incident of Governor Christie being escorted out of the "quiet car" on an Amtrak train for allegedly yelling on his phone (Foxnews.com). This article has a much different tone than the Huffington post article. This article is about telling the point of view of another passenger who contradicts the original story told by someone else saying Christie was yelling at someone on his phone. The name of this woman is Katie Klabusich and she claims to have been sitting with Christie at a table on the train and according to a tweet she posted claimed " Chris Christie was super courteous & possibly the least intrusive in-public phone person ever" (Foxnews.com). This article portrays Christie has a good person and apparently was not being as obnoxious as the first article portrayed him as.

 


 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/26/fellow-amtrak-passenger-disputes-screaming-christie-story/

If someone were to of just read the first article, the Huffington Post one, people might think Christie would not be a caring president because he is over looking an issue that affects millions of Americans. After covering governor Christie he seems more like the person portrayed in the Fox News article. Some people might be less inclined to vote for him because of how he is overlooking the Fan Duel issue, but some might also look to support him because he is for online gambling. I don't think the Huffington Post article will hurt him too much, but I think the Fox News article can help him a lot.

      

Blog 6

For this blog I want to focus on the Chris Christie run for re-election of Governor in the State of New Jersey and the election occurred in 2013. I found a video on youTube that is a montage of the ads Christie used for the 2013 election. I have chosen to just examine the first three individually and break them down that way.

Prior to looking at the ads, it was important to know that Christie was running for re-election. The first commercial is a candidate positive ad and focuses on all of the great things Christie did for the state during his first term as governor. All of the images shown in the video correspond to the issues being talked about in the video. Anytime they are talking about people or issues that affect people, they show video of Christie interacting with the citizens of New Jersey and when they talk about property tax cuts and other tax cuts, they show houses from low income neighborhoods. This strategy is appealing to this who care most about the tax cuts and they will be the ones who benefit the most from it. He also appeals to parents with small children because in the commercial they highlight the great things he has done for education in the state of New Jersey and the images playing during this segment are of Christie during a school visiting interacting with the children.




In the second ad Christie's campaign goes a totally different route. In this ad they use an attack ad that points out all of the negative things his challenger, Barbara Buono has done in her political past. Right off the bat, I was able to tell this was an attack ad before any words were spoken just by the tone of the music and an image of Barbara Buono. The first thing the ad points out is Buono voting to raise taxes in the past and how she vowed to raise taxes again if elected. It is not a surprise the Christie campaign has this at the start of the video because one the the top topics the public wants to know is what the candidate will do with taxes, will they raise them or will they cut them? The commerical also gives off the impression that she is a selfish person because she raised her own salary and at the same time raised taxes and state spending.



 
 The final ad I want to take a look at is a very unique one. This is an ad that points out the qualifications of Christie, but the ad is in Spanish. The ad is strictly for the Latino community and this shows he is aware of the issues they face and is the correct person to help them and have a voice for the issues they face in their communities.

Overall, the ads displayed by Christie had a target audience in mind and that was the middle and he also appeals to the lower class. It was extremely smart of him to produce ads that target other ethnic groups and have the commercial in their native language. The advertising campaign was a successful one for the Christie campaign because he won re-election in 2013. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ShKjd21ks
(First three commercials where the ones I analyzed)

Blog 5

 

My candidate, Chris Christie, is currently in ninth place in the polls with three percent and is currently meets the cutoff to appear on the main stage for the next presidential debate. Just from looking at the polls Christie has a mountain to climb, but I am not sure if it is time to abandon the main idea of the campaign just because it is still very early in the race. Governor Christie had a solid debate in the last presidential debate, which helped to make him more relevant in the polls. Some of the candidates have tried to follow the “say what comes to your mind” Donald Trump tactic, but it has not worked out well for the others because they do not have the arrogant personality of Donald Trump. I feel Christie should definitely stay away from this tactic, but he should continue to be stern on stage like he was on the stage for the second presidential debate. In order for him to make a move in the polls he needs to capitalize of off his closing statement from the second debate. Governor Christie’s law enforcer theme is a good one to have in today’s society with the escalation in the crime in the United States and with the heighten level of threats by ISIS. I would encourage Governor Christie to develop plans on how to combat crime in America and a plan to fight ISIS so he can talk about that in the next debate. I would also encourage Governor Christie to have other plans on immigration and the economy prepared so he can use the platform of the debate to get the information out to the public.

 

The reason I think it is important to have a legitimate plan that will work to help back up his claims is because I believe this would be his best chance to get back in the race. For example, Donald Trump has been questioned a lot about how he would deport 11 millions immigrants in one year. He has not developed a credible plan to support the numbers he has been saying and this has hurt the credibility of his claim. He sounds great and easy when he first said it, but it his just empty words until he has a plan that works with the budget and can actually be achieved. Due to his lack of releasing or lack of creating a plan, his large lead in the polls has begun to shrink. 

 

Right now the polls that have been released could have a lot of errors because of how early it is in the race. According to the book, some of the possible problems that lead to unreliable poll numbers are sampling errors, question framing, ordering effects, and interviewer effects (Powell and Cowart, pg. 179). Yes the polls can help the candidate decided which direction to head in with their campaign, but we do not know the level of interest the people polled have had in the race or how many of the survey results conducted by volunteers of the various campaigns have been tainted.