Is this the end of Chris Christie? Has the pugnacious former Governor of New Jersey’s kamikaze mission to blow up the Trump campaign prematurely evaporated? Or is his morally serious effort to use the campaign to expose the democracy extinction-level threat of a second Trump administration just catching steam?
He was the most unlikely of Kingmakers and yet there Chris Christie was, at significant moments of recent American Presidential history, assuming a significant role as if to the manner born. Even now.
Whatever the feasibility of his present Presidential run, Christie is not going quietly into the night. He was — and lets get this out of the way at the outset — never going to get the nomination and never going to be the next President. There are many reasons as to why Christie is running — revenge (largely), patriotic duty, party purity — but none of these motivations are going to overcome the party’s almost complete Trumpification. It has, however, helped to reveal the degree to which the former party of Lincoln has now become the party of a dusty New York real estate marketer. For that, we are thankful to Christie.
Christie has had what can only be properly described as an amazing run in several Presidential election cycles. His first instance of having an outsized role in Presidential politics was his Jersey Shore cameo en route to Obama’s victory over Romney, essentially putting him over with suburban voters. The images, of Obama and Christie — with matching navy windbreakers — can only be properly construed under the category of “bromantic.” A little backstory: By October 2012, Romney had closed his polling gap with the President and was gaining momentum. Deroy Murdoch remembers, for National Review, the point at which Chris Christie inserted himself into the mix, strolling beachside with the President:
“Then Hurricane Sandy hits,” one top Romney adviser remembers. After the Jersey shore was devastated on Monday, October 29, “Christie starts his bromance with Obama,” this former aide says. “At one point Pufferfish gets a ride with Obama on Marine One. That apparently made a major impression on him.” Pufferfish was the internal code name that Team Romney used while vetting Christie as a potential running mate.
Let’s unpack that astonishing paragraph a smidge. Because, quite frankly, it contains multitudes. Christie — nicknamed the insulting Pufferfish by Team Romney — was not only a pick for running mate, but a finalist. “Romney was so close to picking Christie that some top advisers at the campaign’s Boston headquarters believed the governor had been offered the job,” wrote Mike Allan and Jim Vandehei for Politico. “The campaign made tentative plans to announce a pick in late July, just before Romney headed off on his overseas trip, starting with a stop at the London Olympics.” A day after returning from London, however, Romney picked Paul Ryan. Was it, as John Heilmann in Double Down suggests, because of Christie’s weight? Whatever the case, Christie afterwards helped bury Romney’s campaign. Revenge, in the Christie household, is not only a dish served cold; revenge, in the Christie household, is a dish best served often!
It gets, of course, even twistier. Christie ran in 2016. He had “the fever,” that unquenchable thirst for the conch. How could he not, after influencing 2012? But after a disappointing finish in New Hampshire (“buried and unsung”), after spending 70 days campaigning in the state, he dropped out. However, not before destroying Marco Rubio, who was cresting at the expense of Trump, at the February 6 New Hampshire debate. Soon after, Christie resurfaced, latching onto Team Trump’s undercarriage, this time more lamprey, to be honest, than Pufferfish.
After winning the nomination, Trump, always a giver, passed on to Chris Christie a smoldering case of the COVID-19. “Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows revealed in his new book that Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on Sept. 26, 2020 — six days before it was publicly announced on Oct. 2,” Kierra Frazier wrote for Axios in 2021. “Christie tested positive for COVID-19 on Oct. 3, 2020.” There, Christie spent 7 days in the ICU.
Imagine the thoughts that must have gone through his head at the time, lying prone, wondering if he would ever see his family again. It throws quite a bit of light on the intensity with which Chris Christie campaigns. “Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hates Donald Trump and his children with the fire of ten thousand suns,” I wrote in June. That sentiment, I surmise, still burns now in the pale of Winter. We won’t even get into the sordid story of how Jared, the Stupid Prince — also motivated by revenge — had Christie fired, via Steve Bannon. There is no honor among Trump associates.
Fast forward to the present. Revenge, mixed with an understanding of how dangerous Trump is to democracy, is largely fueling the Christie campaign. I know this because if he were doing it simply for the Vice Presidency — or the possibility of attaining the Vice Presidency — he would have placed all of his marbles with Team Haley by now. Instead, he is holding onto his New Hampshire Ten, more intent on the purity of the party than political expediency. As Nick Catoggio at The Dispatch writes:
There can be no accommodation with Trump or with his Republican enablers. That’s his message. That’s why he’s refused to quit the race. It seems to have resonated with the 10 percent or so of GOP voters who still view him favorably.
Ten percent is a big share in a country where presidential elections lately tend to be decided by a few thousand votes across a few battleground states.
It wouldn’t shock me if Chris Christie ended his political career this summer by endorsing Joe Biden at the Democratic convention, giving his primary supporters one last nudge about the stakes of the coming election. He, more than any other figure, created a permission structure for “normie” Republicans to support Trump when he made his endorsement in 2016. Supporting Biden this year would be a bookend to that, offering a permission structure for the anti-Trump rump on the right to refuse to support him this time.
Christie, to his credit, seems determined to not go out like Nikki Haley’s bitch. Since right after Christmas, Christie has been hammering Haley. Almost mercilessly; almost continuously. Even more so after Haley’s Civil War gaffe in which she revealed her own profound moral emptiness.
All of this raises the question — Does Chris Christie ever want to work in this town again? Because, if he is neither going to be the nominee nor in Trump’s cabinet, where, precisely, does he expect to land? He has all but burned his bridges with Nikki Haley, with whom he seemed more than just cordial during the University of Alabama debate. So — what’s next?
If Nick Cotoggio is right and Christie endorses Biden, it is not inconceivable (but somewhat unlikely) that he lands a spot in Bidenland, somewhere. Christie, for all intents and purposes, is pretty down with Obama and could probably score a reference. And how could he not be down with Obama — after helping him win a second term. Christie would be a natural fit in a second Biden administration, where, not having to run for re-election ever again, he could project more towards bipartisan efforts.
But while it is not inconceivable that Christie lands somewhere in Bidenland, recommended by Obama, he also could fall into a comfy media situation. Both MSNBC and CNN are possible locations a “Chris Christie Show” might flourish. He is, after all, entertaining. His ability to slice through talking points — think: Rubio — like bologna is made-for-TV. Probably more CNN, to be sure, than MSNBC, but you get my meaning. His campaign, if quixotic, is also a giant in real time media rehearsal. We are seeing the goods; we are seeing the principles; we are seeing the fire. Where he actually lands, I cannot divine. But this is almost certainly Chris Christie’s last rodeo as a Presidential kingmaker.