There is a certain personality type in politics that the public has come to know all too well. The politician, invariably male, rises to power with a gaudy indifference to manners and derision for all that came before. He is sarcastic and loves to lecture, sneers at special pleaders and whiners, and his caustic energy persuades fed-up voters that he is the one who can finally take a cattle prod to a fat and unresponsive government.
Once in office, however, he begins using that prod more against political enemies than problems of state, wielding his powers to punish critics, skeptics and those of questionable loyalty, while lavishly rewarding supporters. The brashness that seemed fresh and appealing in a debate loses its charm when it becomes the vengeful voice of a city or state, and voters then regret their choice. At least until the next charismatic bully comes along.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is the most current example. As Kate Zernike of The Times reported last week, he has had aides deliver obscenities to a union official who criticized him on the radio. His administration removed the police protection for one state senator (and former governor) after the senator was seen as too dilatory in approving the governor's nominees. When a Rutgers political scientist serving on the redistricting commission chose a plan favored by Democrats, Mr. Christie defunded two of his programs at the state university. And his associates have recently been accused of deliberately creating traffic jams in Fort Lee, N.J., in an act of vengeance against the city's mayor.
But the archetype goes back many years, as anyone who dared criticize Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the mid-1990s remembers. I saw it happen repeatedly as City Hall bureau chief for The Times during that period: Mr. Giuliani cut off city money to some immigrant-aid groups and directed it to groups that supported him politically. Then he used the Department of Investigation to go after city employees who might have leaked news of those cuts. He was forced to pay $5 million to Housing Works, an AIDS activist group known for its high-decibel criticism of his administration, after spitefully cutting off its city contracts. He kicked two judges off the criminal court who were appointed by his Democratic predecessors, and put someone on who had close ties to his allies. And his budget director, Joseph Lhota, tried to pressure city bond underwriters not to buy tickets to the annual fund-raising dinner of the Citizens Budget Commission, a civic fixture that was often critical of Mr. Giuliani's budgets, as it has been of budgets in virtually every mayoral administration.
The personality type is by no means restricted to Republicans. Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York demonstrated similar tendencies, harassing and insulting Republican critics, believing he could get away with anything until hubris helped lead to his fall.
These tactics invariably come to light, and they always have the same effect: exposing a once-powerful politician as petty, defensive and weak.
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