All week the GOP establishment (i.e people who hate Rick Perry and Mitt Romney) has been pushing Paul Ryan and Chris Christie as the real saviors of the GOP in 2012.
Nevermind the fact that Ryan would be running from the House and is the lead author of a maligned, if not well-intentioned reform plan and that Christie has only been in office since 2010, has yet to finish his state-wide reforms and saving New Jersey. So here are some thoughts on why Christie shouldn’t and won’t run:
1) He has said he won’t. A lot.
2) He would have to pull a Sarah Palin. You can’t run for President and be as an effective governor as you want to be – Perry will learn this mostly because,
3) He would be weakened at home. OneNJ, a shadow PAC run by Dem operatives and millionaire backers who won’t disclose their funding, is already hammering Christie and running for President would allow the Democrats to regain some semblance of control in NJ. Christie has already upset the status quo but it seems whenever he leaves the state everything tends to become chaotic.
4) Fundraising. Christie opted for public financing in 2009 because he simply did not have the dough like Corzine to self-fund a campaign. Christie’s national stature is quite good so Christie would be able to raise some money off this but he would have to raise over 100 million just to really even sort of be competitive. That means a lot of rubber chicken dinners and a lot of schmoozing. I don’t think Christie has the real fire in his belly for that.
5) 2013. Christie knows he will have a difficult race in 2013, regardless of his opponent. Every single union and liberal group will make NJ the key state to win seeing as VA will likely remain Republican and Christie has been sucker punching the unions every chance he gets. He knows if he is a failed candidate in 2012, that he will be fighting as a failed candidate and that will give fire to the unions and Left.
6) Experience. Christie has experienced some bumps in the road,small which are surprisingly few given his actual lack of legislative and executive experience as an elected official. The Right’s favorite hit on Obama in 2007 and 2008 was his lack of experience. Obama and the rest of the GOP could hit him on this. One issue for example, Christie has failed to get property taxes down (mostly because of Democrat obstruction and the fact that townships determine their rates, not the state).
7) His family. I suspect that asking his family to withstand the 2009 campaign was bad enough but a 2012 campaign against the Obama juggernaut? Every single part of his family’s life would be scrutinized and Christie would miss out on a lot of family activities to be a real candidate in 2012. His wife also probably isn’t thrilled with the idea of all the negative 2009 stories being thrown back at her and the Christie family on a national level. Christie has said repeatedly said this is why he isn’t running.
8 ) Not sufficiently conservative enough. A lot of conservatives have attacked Christie (often falsely and without understanding NJ politics) for his views on guns and immigration. Apparently, being pretty much on par with the opinions of New Jerseyeans on gun control makes you a RINO.
Now I don’t mean to say I know all the answers here, but I’m willing to bet that Christie wants to be judged on a full term of service to New Jersey before he moves on to other bigger and better things.
Great article! My husband is holding out for Christie to run, but I just don't think it will happen.
If he got smart on guns it would bring a lot of support for his 2013 campaign from around the US
You're wrong on#6. He could cut property taxes in a lot of towns if he agreed to give suburban homeowners back their income tax revenue that has been steered to urban districts for years. He shorts his base and panders to D's that aren't going to support him anyway. Time to get on board with Sen. Doherty's fair school funding plan.
My property taxes went up again. Promise broken.
How inspiring!