Is Christie’s presidential campaign DOA? A quick look at how he got here.

By Tamer Abouras | The Save Jersey Blog

What a difference a few years makes. When Chris Christie gave his much-acclaimed September 2011 speech at the Reagan Library, it looked for all the world that he, with the wind of the conservative movement and Republican Party establishment at his back, would swoop in as the ultimate anti-Romney and give the base a more palatable contender than its eventual nominee.

christie new hampshire town hall sign
New Hampshire establishment prepares for a Chris Christie campaign stop (via Facebook)

A kind of 2012 version of Scott Walker, Christie had spent nearly a full term in reliably blue New Jersey cutting taxes, crushing unions, and championing right-wing principles with the charisma of a mafioso.

Since declining to enter that race, however, the Christie brand has taken several hits both at home and nationally and his polling positing reflects the trauma. A prospective candidate who once looked formidable seems anything but now that he’s officially gone all-in, and the seeds of his slippage can be traced to three events in particular:

1: The Hurricane Sandy Embrace of President ObamaThere’s no need to go through a full rehashing of whether the governor hugged or didn’t hug the president. The general consensus in the court of public opinion (which, for a politician, is everything) was that Christie was needlessly effusive about something the president obviously needed to do.

obama-hugs-christie-2Media allies aside, President Obama would not have wanted to run the risk of a “heck of a job, Brownie” moment by not being right on the scene during a natural disaster. In hindsight, this (or his 2012 RNC Keynote Address) was the unofficial beginning of Christie’s 2013 reelection campaign theme, which focused heavily on his ability to be bipartisan.

The criticism wasn’t that he reached across the aisle – just that perhaps he leaned over too far.

2: The Reelection Although it may seem odd to see this spun as a negative, it capped a strange year for the governor. In little over 14 months, he’d given a self-serving keynote address at the Convention, shown himself to be stronger than the storm that ravaged his state, and romped to victory in a safe Democratic state with margins rarely seen for a Republican. The underlying truth of that year, however, was that Christie was already beginning to market himself less as Tony Soprano and more as a slightly louder, somewhat more abrasive Jon Hunstman, Jr.

As a former intern on Republican Niki Trunk’s campaign to unseat State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a persistent thorn in Christie’s side, I can remember how beguiling it was that the governor never found the time to venture down south for a rally or photo-op. It may not have been a difference-maker, but his intention to fly above the fray, in contradiction to his typically bombastic style, didn’t do the Trunk campaign any favors, either.

3: BridgegateEven though he ended up being cleared of wrongdoing, the murkiness surrounding that fiasco and the media’s harping (which led him to demand an apology) on his image as a bully or opportunist didn’t do him any favors. While he was something of a victim of circumstance in this instance, its coalescence with the aforementioned missteps and his generally slumping second term poll numbers have served as a dramatic, potentially fatal blow to his 2016 White House bid just as it begins.

George_Washington_Bridge,_HAER_NY-129-8So is Chris Christie really doomed to fail in his pursuit? Reading the tea leaves would suggest his prospects aren’t looking good right now. With other heavy-hitting moderates like Jeb Bush in the race, as well as conservatives like Walker, it’s not clear that he fits into an obvious niche? And his squabbles with Rand Paul are probably be a zero-sum game, at best.

Stranger things have happened, though, and after two terms as New Jersey’s governor, what else was this Bruce Springsteen super fan going to do? He, more than most, was born to run.

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Tamer Abouras
About Tamer Abouras 5 Articles
Tamer Abouras is a 2014 graduate of Rowan University in New Jersey. As a freelance writer and editor, his work has appeared in several trade publications including ADVANCE for Physical Therapy & Rehab Medicine, ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners, ADVANCE for Respiratory Care and Sleep Medicine, ADVANCE for Speech & Hearing, ADVANCE for Health Information Professionals, Nurse Practitioner Perspective, and Forefront Magazine. He has also served as a copywriter and blogger for Trivago, Merion Matters' Healthcare Careerist Blog, and PhillyLiving.com. Having covered various topics including HR, law, marketing, sales, finance, healthcare, real estate, travel and tourism, and restaurant dining, Tamer is finally putting his political science degree and lifelong conservative leanings to use in his work as a blogger and journalist. When he isn't writing, you can find him out riding his bike, playing with his dog, or devouring a Chipotle burrito.

7 Comments

  1. What “tax cuts” and “rightwing principles”? I missed those and so did everyone else in NJ (except welfare recipients, who just got a “tax cut.”

  2. Main factors why Christie brand is irreversibly damaged for the primaries: post-Sandy Obama hug, self-serving 2012 conference speech, and failure to fulfill his promises to the state, spoken or unspoken (decrease property taxes, open charter schools, break Abbott and COAH, rollback gun laws).

  3. All he did was bend way over for Democratic bosses like George Norcross, Joey D., Brian Stack, Stevie A. and dozens of other Democratic power brokers. He spent more time pandering to Steve Sweeney than he did listening to Conservative Leaders like Mike Doherty and Michael Patrick Carroll. Christie was able to fool the Country Club RINOs who boosted him, but he can’t fool Conservatives.

  4. So true. The property taxes on my home went up fifteen percent since he took office, and twenty percent after he took away my homestead rebate! Christie has no “rightwing principles”, the only principles he follows are pleasing his Democratic masters like Norcross and Sweeney.

  5. The re-election is right but for the wrong reason. Christie called for an expensive special election in the NJ senate race because he didn’t want to be ‘down ticket’ to Cory Booker in a general election. Cost us money and might have cost republicans a shot at Lautenberg’s senate seat. Christie is another Obama – small and insignificant resume, thin-skinned, going for gestures (lowering the flag for Whitney Houston?), abandoning his responsibilities to a state that needs strong conservative hands on measures to run around the country.

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