Batgate or how my mother fought the Big Boy
Monday, April 25, 2011 at 09:56PM 
“The Governor really went after you,” I said to my mom as she got off the plane from New Jersey to Los Angeles. She sort of looked at me quizzically and said “I guess that’s why I have 30 messages on my voice mail."
I glanced at the Google alert on my phone while stopping my children from going up the down escalator in the Continental terminal. The article read: In a news conference about pension policy Thursday, the New Jersey governor demanded the press go after one of his Democratic critics, state Sen. Loretta Weinberg. Or, as [Governor] Christie put it: "Can you guys please take the bat out on her for once?"
What? Even on the fifth read it still said, 'Can you guys please take the bat out on her for once?'
The controversy began when my mother, a New Jersey State Senator, answered a question from a reporter about Governor Christie having a double standard in regards to pension reform. The thin skinned Governor does not take well to criticism and strikes hard at anyone who dares to speak ill of him. If either of my children behaved in such a mean manner they would lose the dollars they get for their Wednesday ice cream treats.
I don’t know if Governor Chris Christie is so mean because he has two first names (why would his parents do that to him?), or because he has unresolved issues with his mother (because she gave him two first names). If he said the same thing on the school yard as he did in a press conference, he would’ve been picked up by the seat of his pants and sent straight to the principal’s office.
While listening to the conversation and procrastinating with her homework, my seven year old daughter wrote an open letter to the Governor asking him to "stop bulieg Eevribati!"(Stop bullying everybody). After my mother posted the letter on her Facebook page, the crowd went wild.
Democrats, women’s groups and Christie haters took the opportunity to pounce on his very poor choice of words. Thanks to the 'Big Boy' as George Bush used to call Governor Christie, my mother spent her first day in Los Angeles being interviewed on several news shows including The Ed Show on MSNBC. Click on the enclosed link to check it out.
Over the past years, much bigger men then 'Big Boy' have tried to take my mother down. Trust me, it won’t happen. She has been my mom for the last 47 years. I know first hand, he will not get the last word.
My mother is an amazing politician, smart as a whip. She began as an activist during the 1960’s. Her political leanings are left of the left. They always have been and always will be. Whether you love her views or disagree with them, no tough talking playground bully governor will change them.
In this era of hating blaming scamming and misunderstanding politicians, (coupled with short tempered desperate reality television fame seeking Americans, who proudly proclaim…”I don’t vote”), it is more important then ever to be civilized.
For my mom, she views herself as "giving a voice to those who most need one." This is a calling that comes deep in her core. Her short chubby stature and her thick skin give her the ability to not take things personally. I believe this is her key to success. Although I don’t always see eye to eye with her politically or personally, she fights tirelessly. In a weird I-can-treat-you-like-one-of-the-boys-way, it was kind of a compliment that the governor thought she should be “batted around”. He knows as well as I do that she can take it.
As politicans go, I would say my mother is probably a C+ celebrity. Maybe even a B-. She has campaigned with Presidents (present and former), Senators, and big time Union Leaders. Regardless of my celebrity grading, she, like many celebrities, maintains both a public and private persona. What the Big Boy Bully didn't get to see, and the true inspiration for Shayna's letter, was how upset she was by Governor Christie's comment after his bat remark.
My mother, along with the rest of our family, lost her life savings in the Bernard Madoff scandal. Losing her life savings was one of the reasons that my mother, at age 75, finally began collecting her pension. She could have started collecting it 15 years prior to that. Governor-two-first-names, in his press conference rant, accused my mother of "hiding behind Bernie Madoff".
My mother has been a role model for many women over her long and distinguished career. To me she has been just a mom. One of those detached housewives of the 1960's who discovered work as an escape from the exhausting grind of childrearing.
My take on motherhood came equipped with a military helicopter protecting my two little targets from anything taking aim to harm them. My mother has always had the ability to quiet the hovercraft from within me. She also taught me to let go and laugh at life's curve balls, including when our family got thrown a foul ball by Mr. Madoff. She showed the rest of us that we were not to be victims and that this financial tragedy would not "define the rest of our lives." Put that in your "to be collected pension" Mr. Governor and smoke it.
My mother starts packing her bags after a two week respite from politics. In Los Angeles her main duties are folding laundry and heading to Target. My daughter starts to cry. She doesn't want Grandma to leave. My mom, always torn sits down next to Shayna and tells her she is going back to NJ to make sure the Governor doesn't bully anyone else.
Back in NJ, my mom and I comment back and forth on her Facebook page. One of her colleagues sees this and writes:
"how folks forget that in the midst of public bantering...there are children of these officials who witness the back and forth and hurt inside." To Francine, your Mom is so loved and respected here on the East Coast. We love her and appreciate her service to the people."
I am struck when someone understands the sacrifice that families make when their loved one (especially a mom) leads a political life. Like another sibling, politics takes a lot of attention.
For Governor Christie's inappropriate behavior at the press conference, I look to Supernanny Jo Frost. A 48 minute time out (for a 48 year old man). He will need to apologize for his bad behavior. So far he has defiantly refused. Although there is buzz about his presidential run, it looks like he will be sitting in his time out chair far past the 2012 elections. My mother might add to the punishment by making him write “I will act mature and treat people with respect” one hundred times.
Reader Comments (13)
Ever since then, I've been looking for someone to agree with me, that this is troubling. I hadn't thought about him being annoyed by it. I just kept asking "What kind of people give their kid the same first and last name? That's something you'd hear on Hee Haw, or The Beverly Hillbillies."
Of course, it has turned out that his name is his least objectionable feature. You've hit the nail on the head exactly about saying that his behavior would be viewed in a much different light if he did his bullying on a playground rather than the State House.
I think he'd gone way too far the moment when he began publicly undermining children's confidence in their teachers by loudly and vociferously bad mouthing them, at every opportunity, in public forums. He even went so far as to tell a group of local school children that they were short on supplies in their school because their teachers were greedy and selfish. That was despicable. These children don't have the same option of the reputed $30,000 a year private high school Christie's daughter attends. These children are depending on their local schools.
How can a child learn from his teachers, or believe they are worthy of respect, when he continues to hear the governor of the state tell him otherwise? I don't hear enough mentioned about the fact that his comments are likely responsible for more damage to the state education system than could be inflicted by even the most incompetent teacher. And Mr. Christie's beliefs to the contrary, such teachers are really few and far between.
If there is one bright side to his comments about your mother, it is that they may just what turns the tide of public opinion against this man I've heard called a "Republican Rock Star." Saying what he did about your mother seemed to be the point at which nearly everyone decided he'd gone too far. Even the local Asbury Park Press ran an editorial to this effect.
I adored your daughter's letter to him. Out of the mouths (or pens) of babes!
Hopefully this will mark the end of his reign as NJ bully,and mark the beginning of his permanent assignment to the timeout chair. If Rolling Stone magazine still exists these days, I might suggest he be allowed to grace its cover. I suspect, however, that by the standards of today's rock stars, a man who urges taking a bat to a woman might just be considered a little too uncouth.
Love is like a butterfly. It goes where it pleases and it pleases where it goes.