Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie may have a conservative media problem.
It’s conventional wisdom that GOP candidates will always be able to find some sympathy on talk radio or Fox News, even if they are covered less favorably in the national media. But some conservative hosts indicate that may not be true for Christie, who officially declared his White House ambitions on Tuesday.
“I had a radio program, I tried to get him on,” Fox News host Andrea Tantaros said on Fox’s “The Five” after Christie’s announcement. “He has shunned friendly media. Friends I’ve talked to say his press office doesn’t even return calls. Even as recently as this week. Is he really serious about this? There’s been this sort of New Jersey-esque, sort of like blocking of friendly outlets.”
At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, where all of the Republican White House hopefuls spoke in February, popular conservative radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity said similar things.
“I was a little disappointed with Chris Christie,” Hannity said at the time. “Chris Christie, of all the candidates here, was the only one that refused to do an interview with me.”
Christie did partake in a Q&A on stage with Ingraham. But she started it by noting that Christie hadn’t been on her radio program in more than two years. “You’re not exactly a regular on the talk radio circuit,” she said to him. “What gives? Are we the ugly stepchildren in the media?”
Christie replied that he had his own radio program — a weekly show wherein he chats with his constituents who phone in — and joked that he didn’t want to “help the competition” by appearing on their shows.
He’s also unpopular with other radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh, who said in May that Christie has become a “public buffoon.” In 2013, Mark Levin said he would do everything “in my little way” to prevent Christie from locking up the GOP presidential nomination.
But Christie hasn’t entirely walled off conservative media, which serves an important role in influencing Republican primary voters.
In March, he gave an interview to the Weekly Standard, the Washington Examiner‘s sister publication.
And after Christie’s announcement that he will seek his party’s presidential nomination, his first interview will go to still one of the most important voices in conservative national politics: Sean Hannity.
A spokesperson for Christie did not return a request for comment.
