Moorestown, N.J.
A Chris Christie town hall feels a little like a rock concert. In this community recreation center in South Jersey, nearly 500 people are seated on the basketball court or in bleachers, forming a semicircle around the space where the big man will speak on a chilly February afternoon. The speaker system is pumping out Springsteen song after Springsteen song (including, wink wink, “Born to Run”). One of Christie’s staff members confidently takes the microphone, does a final sound check for the 15 TV cameras, and welcomes the audience. “Have any questions for me?” the staffer asks. He pauses for a beat while the audience stays quiet. “No one ever does,” he deadpans, and the crowd laughs. As warm-up acts go, he’s not bad.
Minutes later, the hefty (but noticeably trimmer) star of the show bounds out from behind a curtain. Christie shakes a few hands and grabs the mike to begin. As governor, he’s done this 127 times already, though it’s his first town hall meeting in New Jersey since last summer. That gives the proceedings the feeling of a comeback tour. “I like doing them, I enjoy doing them,” he says of town halls. “I miss doing them.”
Christie plays plenty of crowd favorites, like mocking Democrats: “I’m from Trenton, and I’m going to raise taxes, but it’s not going to hurt you.” His Jersey-style declaration earns plenty of approving nods: “I’m not here to be loved, I’m here to be respected.” When it’s time for the Q&A, Christie takes off his jacket and blindly flings it to a roadie—sorry, staffer—behind him. “Let’s get going,” he says, to applause.
Five years into his governorship, the likable and funny Christie still puts on a terrific show. It’s one he’s considering taking on the road in the form of a presidential campaign. He’s been making frequent trips to early primary states like Iowa, whose governor-for-life Terry Branstad is a close pal. And according to New Hampshire Republican party chair Jennifer Horn, Christie’s appearance at last month’s Merrimack County GOP Lincoln Day dinner drew the largest crowd that event’s ever seen. Says Horn, who is remaining neutral in the presidential primary: “There was a lot of enthusiasm in the room for the governor and his message.” The same went for Christie’s appearance at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in late February.
But to most of the political press, the idea of a Christie presidential bid is a joke, even though just over a year ago he was declared the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. Soon after his 2013 reelection, Christie became mired in a scandal involving the closure of several lanes on the George Washington Bridge, causing a major traffic jam. The Republican was accused of ordering this as retribution against the Democratic New Jersey mayors who declined to endorse him, even though multiple investigations have turned up no evidence of Christie’s involvement. But since then, his poll numbers in New Jersey have declined. One poll has his approval rating at an appalling 39 percent. That has convinced observers that Christie is finished as a candidate before he’s even begun.
Meanwhile, the Republican presidential field has begun to take form without him. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker leads in all the early polls and has widespread admiration from conservatives in the party, while former Florida governor Jeb Bush is picking up GOP establishment donors from Christie’s New York City backyard every day. Mark Halperin of Bloomberg, one of the few national reporters to make the trek to Moorestown, asks Christie after the town hall if he’s now an underdog.
Yes, Christie admits, but he acts as if that’s right where he wants to be. “When the son and brother of a president enters the race, they’re the frontrunner, and that should be no shock to anybody,” Christie says. “And so, by definition, everyone else in the race is an underdog. That’s fine, and if I decide to run, you’ve watched me for a long time. I fight pretty well.”
Fight for what, exactly? When he ran for governor, his purpose was clear: Dishonest leadership had left the state in bad financial shape. Christie would talk straight about New Jersey’s fiscal problems and fight hard against the entrenched interests blocking reforms. Christie’s agenda in Trenton is, at best, incomplete, but a twice-elected Republican governor in a deep blue state is a compelling story. Christie, though, will need something more. Backstage after the town hall, I ask him how he’d distinguish his vision for the country from those of the other potential Republican candidates.
“The fact of the matter is we have had weak leadership in the White House for six years now, and that weak leadership has manifested itself in a weak economy and economic recovery, and in declining American prestige and influence around the world,” he says. “And I believe that America deserves much better than that. My vision would start right there.”
Most of the Republicans running to succeed Barack Obama will have a similar pitch. What separates Christie from, say, Walker or Bush?
“I’d suggest this to you,” he says. “Somebody that’s had to fight with a hostile legislature would be much better prepared to be president of the United States than someone who hasn’t.” Christie adds that he took on the teachers’ unions “before anybody else did.” Take note, Scott Walker.
Christie says when he talks to voters about the challenges facing the country, two issues keep popping up. “They’re very worried about America’s place in the world and how much more dangerous a world this is since Barack Obama’s been president. This is a much more dangerous world than I can remember in my lifetime,” he says. The second, he adds, is economic anxiety. “They worry about why it’s now been 15 years of stagnant wage growth for middle-class earners in this country,” Christie says. “It’s, like, how can they get ahead?”
Is Chris Christie, the guy who watches Dallas Cowboys games from the owner’s box, really the candidate for the middle class? A moment at the Moorestown town hall is revealing. During the Q&A, a middle-aged man says he’s concerned about having to leave New Jersey when he retires, after the state’s high taxes and cost of living forced his own parents to leave for Florida (which has no state income tax) years ago. “I don’t want to follow in my parents’ footsteps,” he says.
Christie looks around at the crowd, full of people in their fifties and sixties. Nobody, he says, wants to become “airplane grandparents,” driven by bad government policies to move away from their homes and their families. This, Christie explains, is what his reforms and his governorship are all about. When government’s finances are in order, when leaders are clear and straightforward, people can live their lives more freely, where and how they want and, as Christie puts it, be there for all the little league games and birthday parties.
“Those are the events that make life meaningful,” Christie says. “We work our whole lives to get to that point where we have a little bit of freedom, of time, and of energy, to say, ‘I’m dedicating this to my grandchildren.’ ”
It’s not a presidential platform or a fully formed rationale for a Christie candidacy. But for a guy who’s been counted out, it’s a start.
Michael Warren is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
