A canvass of delegates at a Tea Party Patriots convention in Richmond, Virginia has produced a surprise #1 choice for US president in 2012 – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. The selection of Christie has puzzled pundits, most of whom assumed Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin was a shoo-in to get the nod of the ‘less gubmint’ crowd.
Apparently, Christie won the Tea Partiers’ hearts and (ahem) minds by cancelling a planned $8.7B rail tunnel under the Hudson River – a project that would have eased congestion on the perennially clogged arteries, but whatever. The Tea Party movement, which never uttered so much as a word about expenditures during the unprecedented deficits of the Bush administration, likes anything that pisses off those elitist heathens in New York.
While saner voices think Mike Huckabee will eventually get the 2012 GOP nod (and Christie claims he doesn’t even want the job — at least, not yet), online gaming folks will recognize that a vote for Christie would effectively put the kibosh on any change in the nation’s federal online gaming laws. Christie, after all, declined to help State Sen. Ray Lesniak and iMEGA pursue New Jersey’s case seeking to overturn the federal prohibition on sports betting, and now that the Tea Party has claimed him as their own, he’s not likely to contemplate doing anything to piss them off.
