Title: Election Night big for Christie
1Election Night big for Christie
2There was little drama in many of the local
elections in Bucks County as well the major
election race closest to us in New Jersey. But
this election was important more for what it
might say about the next presidential contest in
three years. In his re-election victory speech
Tuesday night, New Jersey's blunt talking
governor, Chris Christie has become a serious
contender for the 2016 GOP presidential
nomination. With Christie's re-election campaign
seen as a tuneup or stepping stone for that
probable White House bid, a big victory over his
Democratic challenger Barbara Buono, was needed.
And Christie came though, grabbing 60 of the
vote, at last check. Another question heading
into Election Day 2013 was how Christie would
perform with voters who tend to cast ballots for
Democrats. exit polls indicate the GOP governor
grabbing 57 of the female vote, and winning all
age groups except 18 to 29, which he narrowly
lost. Christie also won the Latino vote and took
just over a fifth of the African-American vote, a
much better performance than most Republicans in
recent elections. He also won two-thirds of
independents and just over three in 10 Democrats.
The exit polls appear to bolster Christie's case
that he's among the most electable of the
potential GOP White House hopefuls heading into
2016.
3In Other News
- Authorities have found the dead bodies of a
Mississippi family that had been missing Atira
Hill, Laterry Smith and Jaidon Hill, 7. The
mother, stepfather and boy vanished last week.
They were found overnight in a wooded area. They
had been shot to death. The investigation is
ongoing. - Months after a surprise ruling from a Mexican
judge made him a free man, U.S. authorities have
placed a new bounty for the capture of accused
Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero. The U.S.
State Department says it will pay up to 5
million for information leading to Caro
Quintero's arrest or conviction. Caro Quintero,
61, once leader of Mexico's now-defunct
Guadalajara Cartel, is accused in the 1985
kidnapping and killing of DEA agent Enrique
"Kiki" Camarena and his pilot, Alfredo Zavala
Avelar. He'd served 28 years of a 40-year
sentence for the killings when a judge in
Mexico's Jalisco state overturned his conviction
in August. - Sen. Rand Paul took responsibility Tuesday for
instances of plagiarism exposed in his speeches
and writings, saying his office has been "sloppy"
and pledging to add footnotes to all of his
future material. The Washington Times, a
right-leaning newspaper, announced later Tuesday
it will drop Paul's weekly column, saying the
Senator failed to attribute a passage in one of
his September columns. The passage was originally
from Forbes. - For a big chunk of the Cold War, the U.S. Air
Force turned to the SR-71 Blackbird for many of
its most important spy missions. The jet-black
jet could fly at more than three times the speed
of sound at altitudes of 85,000 feet, faster and
higher than anything adversaries had to counter
it. The last of the Blackbirds flew in 1999. Now,
Lockheed-Martin, the maker of the SR-71, says the
"Son of the Blackbird," the SR-72, is in the
works, and it will be twice as fast as and way
more lethal because it will be designed to launch
missiles. A smaller-scale model of the SR-72
could begin testing in five years and be in the
air in 10. The full-scale SR-72 could be
operational by 2030.