Meet The Anti-Obama: Jersey's Chris Christie

First - how bad was Obama's speech last night? So bad that my Yahoo homepage didn't have a blaring headline in praise of it, only misleading bottom stories like Poll: Democrats hold slender edge over GOP on economy that seemed more designed to distract from last night's debacle than anything else.

A few quick summaries:

Jen Rubin: Frankly, Obama was a crashing bore...
Jonah Goldberg: If we could defeat Hitler, we can hike your utility bills! If we could put a man on the moon, we can put an American manufacturing job in India! Yes, we can!
Ann Althouse: ...such embarrassing cliché rhetoric: Some say we can't do it. I say we can't not do it.

Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews:
Olbermann: “It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days.”
Olbermann: “Nothing specific at all was said.”
Matthews: “No direction.”
Olbermann: “I don’t think he aimed low, I don’t think he aimed at all. It’s startling.”
Matthews: Ludicrous that he keeps saying [Secretary of Energy] Chu has a Nobel prize. “I’ll barf if he does it one more time.”

Now folks, if you want to see the anti-Obama, a politician who tells you how it is with no pomp, preening, or politics, well...here's your man: New Jersey's Chris Christie. Via The Right Scoop - start at the beginning of this town hall video (note Republicans are not afraid to actually, you know, go out and talk with their constituents) where he talks about accountability (hello, Mr. President!), but I like the part around the :50 mark (I am partially paraphrasing below):

We know - we were taught by our parents - that you don't get something for nothing in this world... but the government over the past few years has been telling you that you can get something that someone else will pay for....and now those chickens have come home to roost...



Someone get this man into the White House....stat!


UPDATE: Via Instapundit:

Am I crazy, or is an overweight man with a thick New Jersey accent the most effective communicator of commonsense conservative principles in America today?

Chris Christie has bull rushed his way to the front of the 2012 pack of presidential contenders. I think we’ve got a great crop of potentials, but I can easily imagine the majority of moderates (even some moderate liberals) in the northeast section of the country listening to Mr. Christie and nodding their heads in agreement. If you look at the subject video, everyone in the room is hanging on his every word. People of every race are in the crowd and he’s just laying it down for them.