In an online piece teased on the Time.com landing page as "Christie Dodged 'Bully' Bullet," Time’s Mark Halperin hyped his “EXCLUSIVE: Christie Rival Called Him ‘Bully’ In Unaired Ad.”
At issue in the January 20 piece is how State Sen. Barbara Buono produced an unaired anti-Christie ad in which the Democratic nominee for governor asserted that, “she clearly saw the very traits in Christie that have laid him low now.” The Time contributor and frequent MSNBC guest claimed in his piece that, "At the top of Buono’s list was the notion that Christie is a “bully” who lacks the temperament to be an effective leader."
Halperin suggested throughout this piece that because Ms. Buono “lacked a megaphone big enough to burn the argument in with the voters” the bully message never made its way onto the air and was unable to help the Democrat’s electoral prospects.
Halperin then attempted to push Buono’s argument where he claimed that, “The Democrat made that case on the stump, citing both the famous YouTube videos of Christie berating various constituents and the book I wrote with John Heilemann, Double Down, which features scenes of Christie acting ever-so tough.”
Buono was an extremely weak challenger to Governor Christie, and Halperin is dreaming if he thinks this one ad would have potentially tipped the scales in the Democrat’s favor.
Halperin even admitted that, “the “bully” theme didn’t have much resonance before the bridge controversy, so it isn’t clear how much the commercial would have hurt the incumbent even if it had aired. Many voters seemed to like Christie’s tough-talking ways back then.” It seems as though Halperin brings up this “bully” ad to somehow drag the “Bridgegate” story even further as well as extend the “bully” narrative as far as possible.
Halperin concluded his piece by saying:
As the investigations into Christie and his team continue, the facts of what was done by whom, when, and why will matter most. But there is no doubt that Democrats will continue to tout the notion of Christie as a bully to dovetail with the underlying facts of the latest scandal. This unaired Buono ad reflects the Democrats’ 2013 failure—and their 2014 hopes.
By running this story, Time seems perfectly content doing the bidding of both New Jersey and national Democrats, claiming that this is unaired campaign ad is yet another example of Governor Christie being a “bully.”
