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.   

 

Blog 4

 

Just like most of the critics, I though Chris Christie did an excellent job in the second Republican Presidential debate. The first thing that went really well for Christie was he was able to talk a lot more in this debate compared to the first one. Christie was able to make the most of this opportunity, this could have gone either way but Christie came out of the gates strong, was strong all throughout the debate and had a great closing statement as well. Christie’s opening statement was unique and made him standout from the rest of the other candidates. The first thing he asked for was to take the camera off of himself and place it on the audience. Christie clearly establishes that his presidency would be about the American citizens and American citizens only. 

I would say Christie’s strongest point during the debate came when he talked about his personal experience during 9/11 and talking about how he would have responded the same way as President Bush did at the time. Christie believes and he said it during the debate that it is better to go in a fight to keep massive attacks like 9/11 from happening. Christie throughout the Q and A session stayed with the theme of his presidency being about the people. Numerous times he would interrupt candidates arguing and tell them to stop with the nonsense and focus more on the issues the American people are facing. He specifically said one time when Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina were arguing, “ You’re both successful people, congratulations. You know who’s not successful in this country, the middle class.” During this moment Christie showed strength and dominance by not letting Carly Fiorina try to interrupt him and he made Fiorina and Trump look very childish and selfish during this.

 

Christie’s closing statement created the biggest buzz out of anything he said during the debate because it created a huge spike in searches on Christie on the Internet. He stuck with is theme of the debate which was a presidency that is about the people and is campaign theme of being a crime fighting president. I loved that he appealed to the many of Americans who do all the right things, but don’t feel any sense of reward and he said he would reward those who do the right thing and I believe that is what made his closing statement by far the best. It was refreshing for Americans to hear that.

The one thing Christie could have done better was not allowing a huge gap of time to go by without him speaking. During the debate there was a 35-minute time period that went by without Christie speaking. For the next debate I would advise Christie to make sure he has his facts correct because in this debate he stated that he was appointed the U.S. attorney on September 10^th, 2001 when really he wasn’t appointed until December of 2001. This created some bad media and makes Christie’s credibility look bad. As for the future, I would encourage Christie to talk more about what his plans are for immigration and continue to build off of his two themes.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plfvlQKj5MY

Chris Christie’s closing statement: Fast Forward to 18:05

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awUiHKw4aBg