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Armey: Christie Guilty of ‘Debilitating Stupidity’

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Photo Credit: Newsmax

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey says New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is guilty of “debilitating stupidity” in calling for a special election to replace late Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

“This is what really rankles conservatives,” Armey told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “There’s not a Democrat governor alive that wouldn’t have seized the opportunity to appoint a Democrat senator.

“All Christie had to do is appoint a Republican. Now I put it down as debilitating stupidity, because the first rule of politics is don’t lose the friends you already have for the friends you’re never going to get.”

Republicans and Democrats alike are slamming Christie for scheduling a special election in October just three weeks before the regularly scheduled general election, in which Christie will stand for re-election.

Many Republicans had hoped that Christie would have chosen to appoint a Republican to the seat and postpone an election until November 2014, and not risk losing the seat to Democrats in a state where they outnumber Republicans by 700,000 registered voters, The New York Times reported

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Tea Party Split: FreedomWorks Chair, Dick Armey, Resigns

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.In a move not publicly announced, former Rep. Dick Armey, the folksy conservative leader, has resigned as chairman of FreedomWorks, one of the main political outfits of the conservative movement and an instrumental force within the tea party.

Armey, the former House majority leader who helped develop and promote the GOP’s Contract with America in the 1990s, tendered his resignation in an memo sent to Matt Kibbe, president and CEO of FreedomWorks, on November 30. Mother Jones obtained the email on Monday, and Armey has confirmed he sent it. The tone of the memo suggests that this was not an amicable separation. (See Armey’s email below.) Armey demanded that he be paid until his contract ended on December 31; that FreedomWorks remove his name, image, or signature “from all its letters, print media, postings, web sites, videos, testimonials, endorsements, fund raising materials, and social media, including but not limited to Facebook and Twitter”; and that FreedomWorks deliver the copy of his official congressional portrait to his home in Texas.

“The top management team of FreedomWorks was taking a direction I thought was unproductive, and I thought it was time to move on with my life,” Armey tells Mother Jones. “At this point, I don’t want to get into the details. I just want to go on with my life.”

In the email, Armey indicated that he wants nothing to do with FreedomWorks anymore. He asked that all user names, passwords, and security-related data created in his name be emailed to him by the close of business on December 4. He even insisted that FreedomWorks—”effective immediately”—was “prohibited” from using a booklet he authored. Was Armey’s resignation a reaction to the recent election results? “Obviously I was not happy with the election results,” he says. “We might’ve gotten better results if we had gone in a different direction. But it isn’t that I got my nose out of line because we should’ve done better.”

Armey declined to specify his disagreements with FreedomWorks. Asked if they were ideological or tactical, he replies, “They were matters of principle. It’s how you do business as opposed to what you do. But I don’t want to be the guy to create problems.”

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