Eric Turkwitz recently wrote me to and offer this as a short guest post:

If Gov. Christie picks a Republican to fill Lautenberg’s Senate seat, Democrats will be (rightly) pissed at him. If Gov. Christie picks a Democrat to fill Lautenberg’s Senate seat, Republicans will be (rightly) pissed at him. What’s a Governor to do if he has aspirations for the oval office and grabbing swing voters? He will pick a respected and retired judge, currently doing mediations/arbitrations to resolve litigation, that promises not to run for the seat in the special election. The politics of the judge won’t matter as much because of the (somewhat) insulating effect of the robe and the view of such individuals as relatively fair arbiters.

Interesting take, but one that has been overrun by events — because Christie has already decided, and his choice is the most selfish response possible: calling a special election in October, but setting it two weeks earlier than his own. Christie thus rejected the option of appointing someone (a retired judge, or whomever) to serve through November 2014 — which would give a GOP challenger time to raise money and campaign. As Allahpundit explains, holding an election this soon is certain to fatally hobble the GOP candidate — but will help Christie’s image, while also conveniently shielding his own re-election prospects from the ruinous spectre of the horde of Democrat voters who will turn out to support the Democrat replacement for Lautenberg:

[I]n order to protect his own ass electorally, he decided to schedule the Senate special election in October, not on election day in November. Now he gets the best of both worlds, all but handing the seat to Booker ASAP to burnish his “bipartisan” brand while ensuring that he himself doesn’t have to face the extra Democratic voters who’ll turn out to vote for Booker.

Having a separate election will cost $12 million more, we are told — but what’s $12 million when it comes to Chris Christie’s public image?

P.S. I think Christie easily could have justified picking a Republican, on the basis that this is what the system calls for. In a situation where such a vacancy arises, the governor makes the call — and the electorate, by electing a Republican governor, implicitly approves his choice.

ISN’T IT IRONIC: The irony of this, of course, is that by electing a self-centered blowhard as governor, the New Jersey public has implicitly approved the kind of choices that self-centered blowhards make — meaning that the choice Christie has made here does indeed, in a very real sense, have the blessing of New Jersey’s political system. So I’m at peace with it: New Jersey gets what it deserves, and we get more evidence of the type of President that Christie would make. If anyone was confused before about why he should be opposed, that cloud of confusion should be lifting.