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Meet The Billionaires Who Want Chris Christie For President
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Sep 27, 2011
Modified Sep 27, 2011
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Sep 27, 2011
Modified Sep 27, 2011
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While the country fervently wrings its Chris Christie t-shirts anticipating the announcement of the New Jersey governor's 2012 run, let's take a moment to meet the noble white billionaires who would make the dream possible.
Kenneth Langone is the founder of the quaint hardware chain Home Depot, and organized a meeting with Christie and other major GOP donors in July. As the former director of the NYSE, Langone was investigated by Eliot Spitzer for awarding another former NYSE director, Dick Grasso, a $140 million golden parachute. When Spitzer's prostitution habits came to light, Langone said, "We all have our own private hells. I hope his private hell is hotter than everybody else's." He also thinks Obama is "petulant" and anti-business.
Paul Singer manages a $17 billion hedge-fund, and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to New York's same-sex marriage campaign. His son is gay and was married in Massachusetts, but Singer was most recently in the news for his 14,000-word tirade against government interference with financial markets. In it, Singer ridicules wealthy people with consciences:
“Some are consumed with guilt and cry plaintively, ‘Tax me more, it feels so good!’ But many others will take their jobs, projects and ideas elsewhere, to places where they are not just thought of as sheep to be fleeced. The world, in terms of choices available to educated, ambitious workers and entrepreneurs, is way bigger than just the United States, Japan and Europe.”
Last one to Antigua is a rotten socialist!
You may know David Koch as the billionaire who beat Mayor Bloomberg out for richest New York City resident ($25 billion to Bloomberg's measly $20 billion) but he's oh so much more. When he and his other billionaire brother Charles aren't bankrolling the Tea Party in order to make it a simulacrum of a "grassroots" movement, Koch enjoys destroying the collective bargaining rights of workers in states like Wisconsin, and invoking Saddam Hussein's "mother of all battles" quote in speeches at shadowy conservative fundraisers. Christie spoke at the most recent one in June.
There are others (FOX's Roger Ailes) but our favorite is Kathryn Wylde. She may not be a billionaire, but she's one of the public's representatives on the board of the New York Fed. Wylde tells the Times that ever since she had Christie speak to the boardmembers, "there’s been nothing but enthusiasm for him. He’s considered smart, courageous, a straight talker, kind of an antipolitician.”
And President Christie would probably do more than Obama (who has tried his best!) to stop mean New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's quest to investigate banks for illegal practices. Earlier this month she said, "Wall Street is our Main Street—love ’em or hate ’em. They are important and we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to support them unless they are doing something indefensible.” Take THAT, Occupy Wall Street!
While Chris Christie's brother, a GOP fundraiser himself, told the Star-Ledger, "I'm sure that he's not going to run." Todd Christie added, "If he's lying to me, I'll be as stunned as I've ever been in my life." That's assuming that money isn't thicker than blood.
Tagged
2012 election
billionaires
Chris Christie
Congress
corporate hegemony
Democrats
gop
president obama
republicans
tea party
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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