Will Chris Christie run for president? 'Who knows?'

In his big re-election win, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) attracted many black, Hispanic, and women voters. Does that make him an attractive presidential candidate, or would the tea party wing of the GOP object?

|
Mel Evans/AP
Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie celebrates his election victory in Asbury Park, N.J., after defeating Democratic challenger Barbara Buono. A dominant re-election victory in hand, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is charging forward on a path to bolster his resume as a get-it-done Republican leader while broadening a national network of political allies.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was all over the Sunday news shows, basking in the glow of his strong re-election win this past week, pronouncing the necessary future for the Republican Party, deflecting questions about his own future regarding the 2016 presidential race.

“What I’m interested in doing is being the governor of New Jersey," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

“The fact is we’ve got a lot of things to do, a lot of things to focus on, and I know everybody’s going to be speculating on what may come on my future and lots of other people’s future in our party," Christie continued. "But the fact is: I’m focused on being the governor of New Jersey and being the chairman of the Republican Governors Association. I think those two jobs will keep me pretty busy over the next year."

Hmm. “The next year” means up until the elbowing for dominance among other 2016 presidential hopefuls begins for real. In fact, it’s already begun.

Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida were tepid in their congratulations to Christie for his recent win.

"Is a conservative in New Jersey a conservative in the rest of the country?" Texas Gov. Rick Perry (who might try again after his less-than-sterling performance in 2012) asked on ABC’s “This Week.” "We'll have that discussion at the appropriate time."

Christie beat Democratic New Jersey Sen. Barbara Buono by a whopping 22.3 percent. More significantly for national consideration by a nearly all-white GOP, exit polls show he won 21 percent of the black vote and 50 percent of the Hispanic vote – far more than Mitt Romney did when he lost his presidential bid last year. Christie did quite well (for a Republican) among women and union members too.

In the wake of last year’s party losses in the presidential and congressional races, mainstream (i.e., non-tea party) Republicans know they have to give minority voters a better reason – any reason at all – to vote for them.

"If you want to win a vote by that kind of margin, if you want to attract the majority of the Hispanic vote, if you want to nearly triple your African American vote, you need to show up, you need to go into those neighborhoods, you need to campaign in places," Christie said.

Exit polls say Christie also carried one-third of Democrats and two-thirds of independents.

In other words, the blunt-spoken Christie, who’s butted heads with some labor unions, may call himself conservative. But compared to what appears to be the dominant force in Republican politics today – the tea party (which pushed Mitt Romney to the right in 2012 and which has bumped off several traditionally conservative lawmakers) – Christie is much more moderate.

He’s willing, for example, to consider immigration reform and some gun control measures. He was opposed to the legislative and judicial approval for same-sex marriage in New Jersey, but he didn’t fall on his sword over it. In other words, he’s more like Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan than like Republican tea party conservative Ken Cuccinelli, who lost the race for Virginia governor last week.

He’s also more like another Northeasterner who stood up and stood out at a time of disaster: former New York mayor Rudy Giuilani. (For Giuilani, it was 9/11; for Christie, it was superstorm Sandy, when he worked closely with a Democratic president running for re-election.)

“The comparison rankles Christie supporters, but there is some truth to it,” writes Maggie Haberman in Politico.com. “Both are tough-talking ex-prosecutors from the tri-state area. Christie is being cast as the moderate in a potential 2016 primary, just as Giuliani was before he bowed out of the 2008 running.” 

It’s unclear, however, just how “moderate” Christie is. And whether that label would ever be seen as positive in today’s Republican Party.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Will Chris Christie run for president? 'Who knows?'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/1110/Will-Chris-Christie-run-for-president-Who-knows
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe