You're still considered a rookie politician on the East Coast until you've been involved in your first scandal.

I agree to a point. It won't hurt him a bit with primary voters....but that Sandy/Obama thing may have killed that anyway.

But if Christie gets to the general? The last successful selling of conservative agenda came wrapped in "A guy you'd like to have a beer with." How will, "I'm not sure about his policies and he seems like a major league asshole" going to go over?

Paul you forgot the first rule of politics: Don't fuck over well off white people. Repubs are usually only vindictive when the victim in their mind's eye is brown and/or poor. I remember the last knuckle bruiser, Rudy G, not getting past the gates. This is going to play horrible in Iowa/NH, and southerners vote for their own in SC. NV (like MN) is Rand Paul libertarian land, so what state will he win? N'cest pas the ads don't write themselves? Fuck even Newt used Romney's plant closings against him.

It won't ruin his chances? First, to become president one has to be able to garner votes from outside your own party. Second, unless you think the mythological "rogue staffer" is a real creature, especially at a time when any savvy pol (which Christie seems to be) knows enough not to have one aboard, then this IS the smoking gun that ties him to all this.

What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable.

BWAH!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!hahahahaha...hahaha..heh...

But seriously (heh-heh) - it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.

A 91 year old lady who's unconscious in an ambulance is usually going to die.

This is a big deal, and really really big deal in NJ. This is the thing that will bring down Christie.
The Bergen Record, aka NorthJersey.com has much better coverage of the scandal that really shows the extent of the conspiracy and the planning: http://www.northjersey.com/news/Timeline…
Christie's staff tried to cover their tracks by using their personal email accounts. They planned the gridlock weeks ahead and intentionally violated all sorts of procedures to make sure that it would cause as much disruption as possible. That's the thing that's really burning them now…Jersey drivers don't like to get stuck in traffic, and they now see that they were being fucked over directly by Christie in a petty fight with another politician.

@7:

Well, if the ambulance has to sit in a traffic jam for a couple of hours sure.

But, you'd be surprised how many little old ladies (and little old men) with no other serious medical issues are transferred from one place to another via ambulance. According to my brother who's been an EMT for nearly 30 years, that's the majority of what he does on a daily basis; the racing to the scene of an accident with sirens blaring actually represents a much smaller percentage of what they normally do.

So is he going to fire the guy he claims went behind his back with this, or is he going to hope it all goes away?

Republicans may love Christie's pettiness and he may win their primary but there is no way that this pettiness plays well in a national election where he has to win some Democratic voters and Independent voters over to his side.

D.O.A.

Christie's presidential campaign just ended, before it ever began (I never really took him seriously as there is little chance he wins in places like SC or FL).

But yeah this scandal was the lead story on NBC's Nightly News and they reminded folks that this is the busiest motor vehicle bridge in the WORLD.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ja…

Couldn't have happened to a bigger jerk, the guy who loves to yell at teachers and hates marriage equality.

Scandal or no scandal, the day Jeb Bush throws his hat into the ring for 2016, the republican primary is over. The Bush brand has a lot of institutional power with Corporate, Military, and intelligence sector as well as the GOP. He will suck up all of the money and endorsements and that will be that.

Manslaughter. Negligent homicide. Who's going to turn on whom?

@14 There SHOULD be a criminal prosecution coming out of this. I wouldn't bet much that there WILL be.

@15

I'm thinking Christie isn't going to have a lot of friends. Check out Jon Stewart's report. He showed a clip of Christie sarcastically dismissing the traffic jam by saying, sure, he did it, he was out on the road in a hard hat setting orange cones.

Hey, my dad is 90, alive and kicking sane and sensible, because of his last trip by ambulance to the hospital, so fuck you #7.

Christie better hope that that 91-year old lady didn't leave behind loving and telegenic relatives.