It’s over, Johnny! The Great Chris Christie kamikaze project exploded last night, wide of the mark, alas, of the Trump family crime syndicate. While the reverberations beyond the blast radius are still being felt, it is not at this point untoward to ask: Was it all worth it? Did Christie actually move any needles? Change any minds? Or was it all just borbyrigmus flatulence?
It is unfortunate but completely on-brand for Trump — hostile to the very mechanics of democracy — to avoid the Republican party debate process altogether. The voters be damned. He is, in his mind, a self-coronated monarch; his supporters, curiously enough, are intellectually attracted to despotic monarch types. His negative presence on the debate stage robbed Christie of the opportunity to contrast his own world-view against Trump’s. And so, in fine, the Christie kamikaze run was unable to get close enough to its prime target to deliver the payload (or, to be more accurate, “payback”). Christie, as a result, had to gnaw on Vivek Ramaswamy’s rawhide and, increasingly towards the final days of his campaign, Nikki Haley’s “southern strategy.”
A new CNN/University of New Hampshire poll finds that 65% of Christie’s voters in the state would migrate towards the Haley campaign in his absence. Yet, one day after his campaign collapsed, Christie still hasn’t endorsed Haley, if indeed that will ever happen. Does the fact that he believes Haley to be running for Vice President have something to do with this? Christie left the campaign saying that under no circumstances would he ever enable Trump to become President again. Further, in the campaign’s first “hot mic” moment, Christie suggested that the former United Nations Ambassador would “get smoked” by Trump.
A lot of the good will shared between the Haley and the Christie campaigns no longer exists. “The withdrawal came as a surprise if only because the day before he had called New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu a ‘liar’ for suggesting it might happen,” is how Ed Kilgore of The Intelligencer described it. “But it had become clear in recent weeks that the most generally unpopular candidate in the field had no chance of catching up with Nikki Haley in the Granite State and was simply splitting the non-Trump vote to the benefit of his nemesis.”
In Iowa, Trump dominates entirely. Trump’s victory in the Christian evangelical dominated caucus process is assured, the only question is by how much. And, ancillary to that, who gets the Silver medal — the only other ticket out of the state and into New Hampshire. If it appears strange that Trump — a thrice-married, short-fingered, insurrection-inciting, modelizer — could dominate a state party allegedly ruled by the author of the Beatitudes, you are not alone. Iowa’s Governor, under an alternative @X post, contrasted DeSantis’s family patina against Trump’s creepiness.
Governor Kim Richards, the 43rd Governor of Iowa, took a tremendous political risk in backing DeSantis, it should be noted. Trump has already attacked her, publicly airing the fact that Richards had assured him she would remain neutral in the race. It is a tradition for Iowa Governors to maintain neutrality. But of her decision to buck neutrality and put her standing in the state behind the DeSantis machine, she said of Trump: “I don’t think he can win.” DeSantis, come Monday, might not even get the Silver medal out of Iowa as Christie’s exit will certainly benefit Haley’s comet tail sweeping, at present, across the Hawkeye State. And Trump will probably run a primary challenger against the disloyal Richards in the near future. Because above all else, Trump — and the Corleones — value loyalty.
It goes beyond Iowa, where the Christie campaign footprint was less then light. The reverberations of the Christie campaign’s premature evaporation will be most felt in New Hampshire. The Granite State, you’ll remember, is decidedly not Trump country. In 2016, Trump lost to Hillary in the general with 47.25%, by a 0.4% margin or by 2,736 votes; in 2020, Biden dramatically expanded Clinton's 2016 lead to 59,267 votes (7.35%), largely with the help of white women and unmarried women voters. And only three days ago, the President, despite challenging poll numbers across the board, still beats the golf pants off of Donald J. Trump.
And so, regarding New Hampshire — whither Governor Sununu? Sununu — and his political family — have endorsed the Haley campaign. But in an interview with Kaitlan Collins of CNN, the New Hampshire Governor said that he would endorse Trump, if he won the nomination, even if that means he is a convicted felon. What gives? As was previously mentioned, New Hampshire is not Trump country. In fact, in 2022, Chris Sununu got about 15,000 votes less statewide than Trump did in the 2020 Presidential race. And yet, instead of being politically empowered to resist the Adderall rage monkey— like Romney does, somewhat — Sununu is assuming a supine position. We will not entertain the possibility that Sununu wants to remain in the good graces of the republican Establishment to make boatloads of money after public service. We will not!
Well, Christie, never one to hold back, bitchslapped Sununu’s own prematurely evaporated Presidential campaign. "I wasn't the one who went off on a fantasy trip to Iowa to pretend that I'm running for president when he didn't have the guts to do it himself," Christie told New Hampshire’s WMUR, via USA Today. "It's a shame to see Chris Sununu selling himself out. But if he wants to say something to me, he's got my number. He's had it since he ran in 2016, and he's never hesitated to use it when he's needed financial help for his campaigns... so, if he's lost it, I know he knows plenty of people who give it to him."
Governor Sununu is Nikki Haley’s most prominent backer. And although he is willing to go out on a limb to campaign for her, he is not willing to go far enough to take the final step and admit that Trump is not fit for the office of President. And neither is Haley, if we are being honest with ourselves — the Civil War slavery comments just highlighted that fact that she’s walking the tightrope at a bigot party. It is entirely understandable for Chris Christie to stop short of endorsing Haley, because they are, quite frankly, not cut from the same cloth. One wants to stop a democracy-killing event from occurring, the other is not exactly against the democracy-killing event so long as it advances her status, as long as it gets her closer to her ultimate career goal. Because climbers gonna climb …
Christie indeed might be correct that Haley, though tired of the “chaos” that a Trump Presidency might entail, would not turn down a Vice Presidential nod. And that would explain quite a bit about why Haley only ever goes just so far in criticizing the great chaos-bringer. Just so far — but never enough. So, yes, I get why Christie didn’t throw his support behind Haley. For that, Chris Christie is better off holding his endorsement for Joe Biden, who gets the danger of a second, better prepared authoritarian challenge to democracy. With that in mind, the Christie endorsement is better served and delivered at the Union Center in Chicago at the 2024 Democrat Convention.