Chris Christie's Kamikaze Campaign for President
The Corsair on why Chris Christie will never, ever be President -- or even Vice President
Chris Christie will not be the next President of the United States. Nor will he be the Vice President. Or, for that matter, the next Chief of Staff or even Attorney General to the next President of the United States. Those days and that influence in the Republican Party has long since passed. That having been said — what, precisely, is the rationale for Chris Christie’s quixotic Presidential campaign for 2024?
Just call him “Kamikaze” Chris. “Lady Vader” Liz Cheney probably doesn’t have to run this time, thanks to Christie, who is staking out the Trump destroyer lane all to himself. He plans to do what the legitimate candidates fear to do — take Trump on directly, across the country and on the big debate stages, provided he can gather enough support to even get invited. By using himself as live ordinance it looks like Christie is planning to be in the ‘24 race wholly to evaporate any chances of a viable Donald Trump candidacy. And, as a result, Christie will probably win some media points in the process. Candy Woodall in USA Today zeros in on Christie’s motivation:
Christie said Republicans need to find someone who can do to Trump what he did to Marco Rubio in a 2016 debate when Rubio awkwardly repeated talking points as Christie knocked him off his game. That's the only thing that will defeat Trump, Christie said.
"You have to be fearless because he will come right back at you," Christie said. "So you need to think about who's got the skill to do that and who's got the guts to do that because it's not going to end nicely. No matter what, his end will not be calm and quiet."
If his poor book sales in 2021 are any indication, Chris Christie does not actually have a “base” within the Republican Party. And despite an all out media blitz in late 2021, the former New Jersey Governor’s book sold 2,289 copies during its first week on shelves. It did not do any better in subsequent weeks, as you can imagine. The book was a failure so entirely absolute that even Donald Trump, not one generally to engage in literary contemplation (cough cough), felt compelled to weigh in. So did the Twittersphere, as it happens. Cue the SchadenChristie:
And don’t even get me started on the ancient Jersey blood feud between Christie and Jared Kushner. That one involves: corruption, New Jersey, sex, man-boy Jared Kushner’s dad, Charles, and — always — cashmoney. Dustin Racioppi, the Trenton Bureau Chief of NorthJersey.com sums it up thusly:
Charles Kushner had been one of Christie's most notable targets as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey before he became governor. The real estate developer had been a major Democratic donor and was former commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey when Christie took a meeting with an attorney who removed a video tape from a manila envelope and slid it across the table, Christie wrote in a book published in 2019.
The attorney represented Kushner's sister and her husband. The video showed Kushner's brother-in-law Bill having sex with a woman at the Red Bull Inn in Bridgewater.
Charles Kushner, it turned out, had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law during a family feud and sent it to his sister.
"Of all the sordid cases my office had been involved with over the past few years, this was a new one. Not what I was expecting," Christie wrote in his book, "Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey and The Power of In-Your-Face Politics."
In an interview last year, Christie called it “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he prosecuted.
Trump pardoned Charles Kushner in December 2020, right before leaving office. He got rid of Christie as his campaign chair in 2016, immediately after the governor had put in hundreds of hours of work on the transition team. Christie was fired, in a humiliating fashion — via Steve Bannon — by Jared Kushner, son of Charles. Revenge, according to the Kushner family recipe book, is a dish best served cold.
It is hard to feel sorry for sadsack Chris Christie, whose political career, once so full of promise, is at present riddled with public score-settling and the acrid flavor of ash. Character, Heraclitus once wrote, is Destiny. And Chris Christie’s character — the tough talking, in-your-face, score settler — has led him into the desolate political lane of Republican Kamikaze pilot, attempting to decimate the career of the man that only a few years ago destroyed his own upward mobility.
Christie’s road to reckoning began with Romney’s 2012 campaign. He lobbied hard to be Romney’s running mate and was ultimately rejected. The reason, in part, was the matinee-idol good looking private equity guy’s aesthetic objections to Christie’s weight. Classy, Mitt; but very exclusionary and Republican on-brand, if we are being honest.
Christie, of course, had his revenge on Romney (see a recurring theme here?). After Hurricane Sandy, on the cusp of Election Day, Christie hugged Obama, creating an unforgettable Jersey Shore photo op that boosted the President’s bipartisan, suburban messaging. They even hit the boardwalk together. It certainly didn’t help Romney’s prospects right before the election and as a result did grave damage to Christie’s career in the Republican Party. But then came Trump, a chance to resuscitate his suffocated career and possibly-maybe be Vice President — or at least Chief of Staff, or Attorney General or something.
For all his undying loyalty to Trump, what did he get in return? What did Chris Christie get for all the work on Trump’s Transition? Well, among other hits to his political future, he literally contracted COVID from the former President. Also — his Transition work was thrown in the trash, a matter that still rankles Christie to this day. Further, anti-Trumpers are distrustful of the former Jersey Governor’s intentions. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire, SEMAFOR’s Shelby Talcott captures the mood, which can only be properly construed under the category of “Christie Skeptical”:
And Christie heard them out too, particularly when one attendee lamented that the former New Jersey governor had abandoned the anti-Trump crowd during the 2016 primary to deliver arguably the most important Trump endorsement of the cycle.
“I’m glad to hear you standing up against Trump,” the person said, but “when the results came in, you jumped ship on us.”
“Let me explain. Let me explain 2016 to you,” Christie responded. “I’ll be honest with you. We all made a strategic error … I stayed with him in 2016 because I didn't want Hillary Clinton to be president.”
“None of us knew what kind of president he really would be or not,” Christie added.
“I did,” the attendee replied.
And that is why, in an nutshell, the former Governor will not be the next President of the United States. Nor will he be the Vice President. Or, for that matter, the next Chief of Staff or Attorney General to the next President of the United States.
But he just might be the perfect Kamikaze pilot to match Trump’s characteristic shamelessness on the campaign trail as on the debate stage while, in the process, entirely taking himself out of the equation.
Because — no other reason than: Character is destiny.
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