New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie released a new ad highlighting voters’ concerns of another government shutdown.
The video, titled “It’s About You,” includes voters asking Christie what he would do in the event of the government shutdown as president. The governor does not provide a direct answer, but indicates he will listen to the American people.
“One of the problems I see is the fact that Congress doesn’t listen to us, they seem to once they get elected, they’re off doing their own thing,” one voice asks. “If they have to shutdown everybody pays but them. Anything as president you can do to get this corrected?”
“What would you do if the government decided to shutdown again?” asks another.
“A Christie presidency won’t be about me, it will be about you,” the governor says in the ad. “Our presidency will be about enforcing the law, level the playing field for everybody and once again reward those folks who play by the rules and think that justice means more than just a word but it means a way of life.”
A congressional showdown over spending looms this winter, meaning another potential shutdown rests on the horizon. The governor likely sees the congressional squabble as an opportunity to portray himself as an outsider, and he has routinely expressed his apathy at who becomes the next speaker of the House — and the nation’s top-ranking Republican — as part of an effort to portray his candidacy as that of an outsider who has not worked in Washington, D.C.
When asked about the possibility of a federal government closure in New Hampshire last week, the governor placed the blame at the feet of Congress and President Obama.
“Anybody who closes down the government has engaged in a fundamental failure of leadership with the American people,” Christie told the New Hampshire crowd. “And if the federal government closes down some time in the next couple of weeks, that is a pox not only on the house of Congress, it’s a pox on the President of the United States because he has an obligation too to bring people in the room and get them to agree. So everyone is a failure when that happens. It hasn’t happened on my watch in New Jersey and if I’m president, it won’t happen then either.”
Christie, who ranks eighth in the Washington Examiner‘s most recent power rankings, finishes behind nine other GOP presidential candidates in RealClearPolitics’ average of national polls.
