NJ Governor Chris Christie gets an F!
Only one, and she is not a front-runner, has done anything to take on the thorny issue of fraud in the refugee program.
NumbersUSA has ranked some top Presidential contenders for 2012 on their immigration positions. You can see their scores here. I argued with NumbersUSA that Palin should be graded higher because she did stand up very visibly in support of Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona Law when that issue burst on the national scene. None of the others said much.
I also argued that Pawlenty, as governor of Minnesota, apparently turned a blind eye to the huge resettlement of refugees into his state, especially presiding over Minneapolis becoming the Somali (crime) capitol of the US and thus should not have gotten the highest grade (C+) of the front-runners.
Today I see that NumbersUSA has, at the behest of members, given grades to Rep. Michele Bachmann and to NJ Governor Chris Christie, here. (Neither are considered front-runners at this time.)
Bachmann got a B-. And, she got a “good” rating for being willing to tackle refugee fraud. (see all ratings here, scroll down page).* I am not surprised to see that Christie, once a favorite of mine, got an F.
Christie also has come under enormous criticism recently (especially among anti-jihadists) for his appointment of a controversial Muslim attorney to a Court position in New Jersey causing this opinion writer at the Star Ledger to question how “conservative” Christie actually is. He sums up with this:
I wish some of these radio clowns and talking heads on TV would – to put it bluntly – stop kissing his butt and ask the tough question.
If Norquist praises Christie, well then?
It also gave me pause to hear Grover Norquist play the “bigot” card and then praise Christie and former President George Bush as two politicians who court (or courted) the Muslim vote (we know where that got Bush). From Politico (Right fractures over Islam):
The Republican party chased away the Catholic vote for over a hundred years,” said Grover Norquist, an ACU board member and a tax activist who has tried to bring Muslim voters in to the GOP for more than a decade. “You chase away people politically. The thing about the political effects of bigotry — it can last generations. It’s tough to fix.” [Here Norquist sounds like he has taken the talking points of the Leftist open borders gang—oh, that’s right Norquist IS OPEN BORDERS!—ed.]
“The answer is some people are and some people aren’t,” Norquist later told POLITICO in response to a question about whether Republicans were making an effort to court Muslim voters. “Certainly, Chris Christie in New Jersey is. George W. Bush was.”
Someone needs to warn Christie to keep his distance from Norquist!
* I wonder does Rep. Michele Bachmann understand that there is an on-going effort to saturate a city in her district—St. Cloud—with refugees, especially Somali refugees? St. Cloud had been a secondary migration site but is now a primary resettlement city thanks to the US State Department and the federal contractors working there. Readers, this is how they do it!