Politics
Christie Soars in Jersey, but Hits GOP Turbulence
The New Jersey governor may be gaining favor with home state Democrats — but with Republicans nationally? Not so much.
L BY ANDREW HENRY
ately, the garden state’s governor has been beating up on the GOP to win re-election in his blue state. As he does
so, he’s quickly losing steam for a 2016 presidential bid. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s
ardent supporters think otherwise: Now that his shift to the center has pleased many Democrats in his very blue home state, they say he’ll coast to re-election this year and remain a strong contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. But that scenario is problematic
on two counts. First, Christie is no shoo-in for re-election in the heavily Democratic state. And second, those Democrats won’t be voting in the GOP presidential primaries come 2016, and Christie has antagonized too many Republicans who view him as an unre- liable maverick. Christie fi rst angered Republicans
last year during the party’s convention in Tampa, when he used his keynote speaking slot to tout his own record and failed to promote Mitt Romney or even criticize President Obama. Republicans were further miff ed
when Christie lavished praise on Obama for his relief eff orts in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. On the day after Sandy hit, Christie
30 NEWSMAX | MARCH 2013
stood side-by-side with Obama and thanked him for his eff orts, and he also said “the president has been out- standing in this.” The quote would have been acceptable, had Obama actually done something other than show up for the press conference.
ALL THE WRONG MOVES Above, Christie strides arm in arm with President Obama during the president’s tour of hurricane-ravaged areas. At left, Christie steals the show at the RNC in 2012 — much to the dismay of Republicans.
In fact, federal agencies, including
FEMA, were later harshly criticized for their tardy response. In the days before Sandy struck,
Romney had been gaining in the polls. Many political observers, including Democrats like Bill Clinton, say Sandy and Christie’s ringing endorsement of Obama — just six days before the November election — was the decisive factor in swaying undecided voters to pull the lever for Obama. In early January, Christie again ruf-
fl ed Republican feathers when he crit- icized Speaker John Boehner, blaming
him for delaying House consideration of a Sandy relief bill and telling House Republicans to “do your job.” In mid-January he raised Repub-
licans’ ire once again by criticizing a National Rifl e Association ad refer- encing Obama’s daughters. The ad called the president an
“elitist hypocrite” for not supporting armed guards at schools even though his daughters are protected by almost a dozen privately armed guards, not to mention the Secret Service, at their elite private academy in Washington, D.C. “To talk about the president’s
OBAMA/AP IMAGES / RNC/DONNA SVENNEVIK/DISNEY ABC TELEVISION GROUP/GETTY IMAGES
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