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The whole Chris Christie response has been fascinating to me during the Sandy aftermath. The way he completely shifted on Obama was really clear on the news clip I saw, where his agressive attack on Obama's ability to lead the country was superimposed with his really profound praise for him during FEMA. I agree with what you're saying about Sandy saying something real about the rhetoric of government spending. It's one thing to criticize government programs like FEMA during a period of calm, and much, much harder when they are being implemented effectively right in front of you. In the end, though, Christie's switch might not have been much of a switch at all. As someone mentioned in class, FEMA is already in large part state run and in large part private. He was likely showing a better understanding of it.

This is an interesting article. You could (for fun, not really as a legitimate exercise) expand this as a metaphor for the problem with conservatism: it works for the rich, or the people unaffected by the hurricane, but to the poor and the hurricane-affected liberal philosophy is clearly superior. I wonder how much Sandy and Christie actually helped Obama - I read somewhere that Obama jumped a whole percentage point the day after Christie praised him, though who really can ever explain a poll bounce with any certainty.

The conservative critics in this article are so brutal. While it is kind of funny to see their reactions, as you said, I also feel like it's pretty important to the elections cycle four years from now. I noticed something interesting in our discussion group on Wednesday when 2016 came up: names like Rubio, Ryan, and Christie were easy to come up with, but a Democrat team was much more difficult to assemble. The fact that Christie has fallen from grace and might even be blamed for Romney's loss, like you suggest, could have huge bearing on the election or, given the strength of the Republican pool, not much of one at all. It'll be interesting to see.

I feel bad for Chris Christie, as the article says, "These critics seem to believe that Christie ought to have put national-party ambitions before his state's well-being. In other words, he ought to have committed dereliction of elected duty -- hardly a good move for any official." This is a pretty great example of political desires gone astray and to blame the election on Christie, who neither deserves the criticism and should be respected for fulfilling his duties, is just ridiculous. Good point John about 2016, but I wonder how long this event will impact Christie's career?

I think this article is very very biased and warps facts to make it seem like Obama has done a better job than he has. The only statement I totally agree with in this article is that medium-skilled, high wage jobs are done. The simple fact is that regardless of what is said about education, there are still vast numbers of jobs left unfilled in the more important fields of computer science, engineering, etc. The number of computer science graduates in the country are not enough fill the number of jobs, leaving millions of positions unfilled. Also, for every engineering job filled, 3 more jobs are created and need skilled workers with degrees. In the end, if a president's best aspects are so unknown that they are considered secrets, then they cannot be that great.

The question for me is not if these claims are accurate, like Cameron questions, but why in the world Obama hasn't been presenting them in the same way the Friedman is. Whether or not the content of the column is 100% true, which I'm sure it isn't (it's a presidential race, after all), these two programs seem like a phenomenal way for Obama and his team to make the past four years look better. Above all, that's critical to his reelection. For all of the bashing of one another that's going on, all of the "jumping to conclusions" that Jonah mentions, I'm really surprised I hadn't heard more about this. I think Obama should start bragging more about programs like this, substantial in reality or not, because I'm positive I am not the only one who has heard very little about them (particularly the Race to the Top one). While I dislike the negativity in the same way as Jonah, I have no problem with the president's hyping themselves up.