Politics

Christie Whacks White House Bid

A For Effort

Chris Christie said this week that there were no silver medals in politics and on Tuesday he barely got one for participation.

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Gretchen Ertl/Reuters

Chris Christie said he wasnā€™t going home.

It was Sunday afternoon in Exeter, New Hampshire, outside Shooterā€™s Pub, where people were drinking before the Super Bowl. Christie was standing in front of a microphone and a few dozen members of the press, trying his best to keep the focus on the previous nightā€™s Republican debate, where he had pilloried Marco Rubio to great affect, and off of his own grim outlook in the stateā€™s primary.

Earlier, at a town hall, heā€™d said, ā€œThereā€™s no silver medals in this business. If you lose, you go home, and when you go home, the country is left to Hillary Rodham Clinton.ā€

But he was talking about Rubio when he said that, not himself. When he was asked by a reporter, outside the bar, if he would go home if he lost on Tuesday, he was cagey.

ā€œIt depends on how you define lose, man, you know?ā€ he said. He added that he didnā€™t personally have a definition for the term. A volunteer nearby held a sign with his campaign slogan, ā€œTelling It Like It Is.ā€

ā€œSo, I am ready to roll right into South Carolina,ā€ Christie said, ā€œmy reservations are made. We have staff down there and weā€™re ready to go to South Carolina.ā€

I asked him if there was any circumstance in which he could see himself canceling those reservations. He answered me with his signature sarcasm, a look of total dismissiveness in his eyes.

ā€œAny circumstance?ā€ he said. ā€œI mean, I guess you could imagine a circumstance. I canā€™t think of one at the moment. Iā€™m not worried about that. South Carolina is way ahead out the windshield. Iā€™ve got another sixty hours or so in New Hampshire that Iā€™ve got to focus on really strongly, and thatā€™s what Iā€™m going to focus on.ā€

A few hours later, on Monday morning, his campaign sent out his schedule for Wednesday and Thursday, which wasnā€™t so far out the windshield after all. He had three stops planned in the Palmetto State: the College of Charleston, Blackstoneā€™s Cafe in Beaufort, and Stackā€™s Pancake House on Hilton Head Island. The campaign later added a fourth stop, at Sticky Fingers BBQ in Mount Pleasant.

But by 1:05 a.m. on Wednesday, the plans were cancelled. The campaign revised the schedule to say, ā€œToday, Governor Christie will travel to New Jersey. We will advise of any further scheduling changes.ā€

Christie had figured out the definition of losingā€”7.4% in the primary hereā€”and he was going home.

In a statement confirming the suspension of his campaign, Christie said, his ā€œmessage was heard by and stood for by a lot of people, but just not enough and thatā€™s ok.ā€

In politics, he said, ā€œyou never know what will happen.ā€

ā€œAnd so today,ā€ he said, ā€œI leave the race without an ounce of regret. Iā€™m so proud of the campaign we ran, the people that ran it with me and all those who gave us their support and confidence along the way.ā€

He had worked harder to court the people of New Hampshire than any other candidate. Sunday was his 71st day of campaigning in the state. And in the end, he had nothing to show for it. He came in sixth place, behind Donald Trump, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. He won zero delegates. Only Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson, who didnā€™t even bother to stay in the state to see his results, fared worse.

Itā€™s difficult to remember it now, but there was a time when Christie, not Trump, was the loudmouth Republican from the Northeast who made headlines with every word that he uttered.

After a rocky start in local politics in the 1990s, he was appointed the United States Attorney from New Jersey by George W. Bush, for whom he had prolifically fundraised. He spent seven years in the office and, during that time, he built a reputation for busting up political corruption in a state famous for its grifters and crooks. He also developed a knack for inviting media attention. In 2009, based on his experience as the stateā€™s top prosecutor, he was elected governor, beating Jon Corzine, a friend of President Obamaā€™s, handily.

Christie quickly became a favorite on the cable news and talk show circuits. He was a fixture on MSNBCā€™s ā€œMorning Joe,ā€ and, as his star rose, on late night. David Letterman loved to poke fun at his considerable heft (Christie once appeared on his show, eating a donut). He was covered extensively by the papers in neighboring New York as well as by publications based in Washington, like Politico. He became known for momentsā€”usually of biting sarcasm at the expense of othersā€”that his office publicized on YouTube.

By 2012, Republicans were begging Christie to run for President. Ann Coulter embarked on a campaign to convince the country that if Mitt Romney was the nominee instead of Christie, it would be fatal to the party. A group of influential Iowan conservatives flew to Drumthwacket, the governorā€™s mansion, to try to convince him. He eventually demurred, and then he chose not to be Romneyā€™s running mate.

That proved politically stupid.

Historically, the longer you remain in Jersey politics, the greater your chance of becoming embroiled in a scandal. Christieā€™s story was no different.

In 2013, one of his lackeys ordered the closure of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge as an act of political retribution against a small-town mayor. The tabloid nightmare that ensued for Christie was dubbed ā€œBridgegate,ā€ and although it didnā€™t knock him out completely, his political career has never been the same.

So Christie was already damagedā€”permanentlyā€”when he decided to run for president in 2016. He announced his candidacy in his high school gymnasium in Livingston, in front of his high school buddies. It felt, frankly, like he was running for dogcatcher.

But it seemed at least possible that he could overcome the bad press of the previous two years and reignite interest in his political career. He was just too charismatic and too gifted a retail politician to write off completely.

But those gifts didnā€™t prepare him to contend with an oversized Republican field that included Trump.

And it didnā€™t help that Christie chose not to cast himself as the no-nonsense moderate in the race, like John Kasich did, but instead chose the role of another right-winger. He tried, unconvincingly, to rewrite his recordā€”claiming, among other things, that he didnā€™t get into politics because supported a ban on assault weapons (he did) and he didnā€™t donate to Planned Parenthood (he did that, too).

Worse for Christie was the fact that he and Trump are a lot alike, at least in their demeanor. They are both mean and funny in the same New York way (Christie was born in Newark, which is close enough). But Trump takes it all a few hundred yards further. He will go where Christie wonā€™t, and he was rewarded for it while Christie was largely forgotten.

For Christie to have upstaged Trump or to have seemed more conservative than him or Cruz, he would have literally had to call, on the debate stage, for genocide on American soil.

Thinking of it in those terms, he never really had a shot.

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