Chris Christie works with President Obama, approval rating skyrockets

Republicans will hate Chris Christie for proving President Obama isn't a toxic asset For Republicans, this might just be the worst part of Chris Christie's sinful embrace of President Obama after Hurricane Sandy:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's approval rating has leaped 19 percentage points since superstorm Sandy slammed the state, as voters by a wide margin applaud his response to the crisis, a Rutgers-Eagleton poll said on Wednesday.

The Republican governor, who will face re-election in 2013 and is considered a contender for the U.S. presidency in 2016, has a 67 percent favorability rating among registered voters in the state, up from 48 percent in October.

Why is this bound to be upsetting news for Republicans? Because it's objective proof that when a Republican works with President Obama, voters like it. And if more Republican politicians follow Chris Christie's lead and decide that working with President Obama can be good for their political careers, then the entire GOP bubble is going to burst.

Sure, this is a crazy state of affairs. Republicans ought to be thrilled that the first New Jersey governor to ever speak at Right to Life rally has an approval rating of 67 percent. Instead they are furious because they think he betrayed Mitt Romney and handed the election to President Obama. But the reality is that there's no evidence to support that belief. In fact, as this poll shows, if Christie's embrace bailed out anyone's political career, it was his own.