As a son of New Jersey, I am none too pleased with Chris Christie for breaking the seal among prominent Republicans and coming out as a willing caddie for Donald Trump.
It’s a stain on the Garden State.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I have to say I love it: the GOPs “every man for himself” philosophy is biting them in the ass…
(Not just right now, mind you. The flustercuck that gave Trump momentum had to do with the fact that it was collectively advantageous for non-viable establishment candidates to drop out; but it was individually useful for every candidate to stay in…)
That’s Jersey republicans, fuck em with a rusty piece of rebar.
To be the first to flee the scene of the crime and don the armband of the insurgency. Loyalty you say? To thine own ambition solely and evermore.
What’s one more stain among so many for New Jersey? They’ve been cool with Trump projects in the NJ for decades and twice elected the blowhard Christie to the governor’s office. Common cause between Trump and Christie seems like a natural fit. Rick Scott has been praising Trump — will make it an official endorsement after Trump wins the FL primary — another natural fit like Trump-Christie.
Maybe its too much New York comedy writers, but my first reaction was ‘would you even notice another?’
Even if he is anticipating he’ll need a Presidential pardon there’s no sane reason for him to do this. If and when Trump loses and Christie is looking to run for political office again I would hope this endorsement is remembered by the entire Party.
Maybe Christie reckons he knows something about New Jersey voters that we’re overlooking.
Maybe he knows something about the “entire Party?”
Day after day leftie blogs project the demise of the GOP, but one GOP pol goes on the rez and lefties are like WTF is he/she thinking?
The statements about “destruction of this or that” are always retrospective, aren’t they? We are watching the R and D cakes being baked. Which will rise? Which will fall? No one knows at this time, and all references to past elections are just pissing in the dark. The Obama coalition? The Clinton coalition? I don’t believe those exist now.
I will say that Trump has a following which is unusual. They are loyal, and they vote. They are not just expressing interest on a poll.
And if it comes down to Clinton vs Trump, all bets are off. Party loyalty is highly important. Once the contest is D vs R, that will be a strong dynamic, and Trump would stand a good chance of winning.
As difficult as it is to discern the underlying ethos of Trump’s candidacy it is perhaps imprudent to dismiss it on grounds of xenophobia and nativism and ignore the righteous outrage at the ‘rigged system’ which has also animated Sanders’ impressive performance.
To run an unapologetic, establishment “business-as-usual” centrist in this context should at least give us pause.
That’s been my comment for some time. Trump has many flaws. He has however identified a bone-fide constituancy, who are pissed as hell, and rightly so in many cases.
Indeed. In Republican primary states:
In state after March 1 state, election officials are reporting increases in the number of voters who cast their ballot before election day. Alabama, Arkansas, Massachusetts — to name just a few — report upticks in absentee ballots and voter registration. In at least two of the 12 states voting Tuesday, Georgia and Tennessee, election officials report dramatic surges that have blown past previous records.
“We are seeing an upsurge. In the last couple of election cycles we’ve seen about 100,000 people early vote. Through yesterday, we’ve had about 120,000 already. And we’ve got today, tomorrow and Monday still,” Chris Powell, a spokesman in the Arkansas secretary of state’s office, said Friday. (comment at Balloon Juice)
Latest, Chris Christie has thrown his weight behind candidate Trump and would be an excellent running-mate for the slot of VP in the Trump administration. The post of Secretary of State has already been claimed by Alaska’s Sarah Palin. Ms Palin had the great advantage that she could observe Russia from her Alaskan hometown of Wasilla. Sarah is armed with her pink AR-15 and knows how to handle firearms. You’ve got to hand it to him, he knows how to select his apprentices …
[from earlier post]
A Trump-Christie ticket is like a total long-shot as far as turning NJ blue. Plus the optics are terrible. Odds for a Trump-Scott ticket turning FL blue are much better, but the optics aren’t too good there either.
Best optics: Trump-Ernst.
What about Trump-Martinez (Gov of NM, Hispanic, mod conservative, anti-illegal)? She is a good choice for Trump. I agree that Ernst also would be a good choice, as she is, like Trump, a brash, take-no-prisoners, pig-castrator of a politician.
Ernst seemed to me like an easier get for Trump than Martinez. Plus Iowa has one more electoral college vote than NM and based on the 2014 elections is easier to flip. It also better reinforces his “me white man” campaign. That said, Martinez and Mary Fallin wouldn’t be a bad choices, but on optics Haley would be better.
I don’t know, the endorsement press conference / Marco Rubio comedy roast was FIRE. I haven’t laughed that hard at any political event ever.
The agua rubio reference had me in stiches. HRC has no chance.
Jeez, Trump makes me go from 😀 to D: in a dozen characters.
Say what you like about Trump, the man is a master at the devastating character assessment. All of those “Celebrity Apprentice” shows have taught him how people work. He may not know much, but he will select a good team.
“he will select a good team”
Yes, his butt will be spotless after all the kissing they will be required to do on a daily basis.
This answers one question that many have raised. “How will Trump work with other Republicans?” Answer: If he becomes president, he will have a line out the door of willing helpers. So, please stop raising this objection. Christie is a politician. Once the door to his own nomination was closed, he very quickly opened the door to other ways of participating in the Trump Rumpdom.
Right on cue… The clown-car master of ceremonies from 2012 and previous South Carolina victor with an axe to grind:
That’s some mighty cold revenge he’s savouring there. The GOP’s chickens flocking home to roost.
LOL, indeed. But color me utterly UNSURPRISED.
Gingrich – what a pustulencial boil on the azz cheeks of Murka. No surprise to see “family values” thrice divorced Newt stick his tongue up Trump’s hienie. There it is… firmly in place.
Genuflect LOWER Newt. I’m sure you can dig deeper than that. Keep going down….
ptoui! hypocrite.
Completely agree and been saying ad nauseum/boredom.
It’s possible that the PTB behind the curtain are truly and honestly wringing their hands over Trump, but the politicians?? R U Kidding me?
Recall, please, that other debate in, was it Dec or January?? (there’ve been so d*mn many), where Trump refused to attend due to Megyn Kelly bleeding from her wherevers and she was mean to Trump??
Well as soon as the R Debacle ended, Santorum & Huckabee immediately exited Stage Left and hustled over to Trump’s place and gave Trump their fealty.
Once Lardazz Christie bowed out, I knew it was a matter of time before he was kissing Trump’s hienie. And here it is.
They’re all gonna genuflect and kiss Trump’s butt bc what else is there?? Trump’ll toss them some chump change at least, if not a place in his Admin.
bank on it.
Doesn’t matter that Trump’s contributed to the bankrupting of Atlantic City. Who cares about those LOSERS???
How will The Donald work with others? He is building the new GOP.
Boo, Maybe you need to get over being ‘a son of New Jersey’, whatever that means. Christie has always been despicable. Have you just noticed? He’s looking out for his own interests. What else would you expect. The Democrats need to get real now. The election (the conventions) keep getting closer and the whole thing is coalescing. Trump will be the Republican candidate. However the Republicans digest or finesse this is their dilemma. The Democratic clusterfuck is the Clintons who demand complete obedience and obeisance: money, money, money. They might even be as horrid as Christie. Think about that for a change and get over the hang up about the oh-ever-so-awful Republicans. The whole ‘progressive’ blogosphere suffers from this affliction: no self criticism. Dibby might be the most celebrated example. Clinton will lose to Trump.
Politico — Donors ask GOP consulting firm to research independent presidential bid
As there is no possible GOP “hail Mary” candidate that can win, what’s the point? To establish a GOP-rump party? To avoid the GOP base observing a GOP fix to elect Clinton?
Well I pick Door #2, as I’ve been saying it all week… so I’ll remain consistent.
If they do go “indie,” my guess is that RMoney’s being set up to take the fall. I’m sure he’s being offered boatloads of off-shore cold hard ca$h, needless to say. And I’m sure family values Bishop Mitt is only too too willing to take the fall for the right amount of grift.
Hypocrites.
I’ll do my ‘consulting’ on that notion pro bono. It only makes sense if they would rather have Hillary in the White House than Trump.
Someone’s spreadsheet must have suggested he would not only wrap up the nomination but had a reasonable shot at the presidency. It’s the same logic that had PUMAs voting for McCain; abandon this cycle to the opposition for the sake of a rematch four years hence instead of eight.
The PUMAs must have been using Rove’s math.
(Also didn’t count on Obama taking Hillary out of contention for ’12.)
Have to wonder what model they’re using? Can’t be ’92 because Trump is already occupying the Perot squared slot and it’s within the GOP. ’80? That was a faux IND campaign to boost Reagan in the general (and that wouldn’t work in ’16 at all). Mitt would get what factions? It would further enrage the Cruz-Rubio-Carson fundies.
An easier option to defeat Trump would be to boost DEM turnout.
The math ever worked in either case. Just desperate people in denial seeking a superficially plausible alternative to something emotionally threatening and unacceptable. Times ten if your livelihood is on the line.
Increased Dem turnout would hurt downticket races for Repubs, which the PTB don’t want. But a 3rd party run would help downticket Repubs, because it would bring in the conservative voters who despise Trump.
Trump’s actually a hazard to the downticket Reps even if he wins. If he wins by playing insult comic on Hillary while saying it’s an outrage to cut Social Security and go to war in the Middle East he’s going to get a lot of people splitting tickets against Republican Congressmen. President Trump + a Democratic Congress is a real nightmare scenario for them because they’re not going to be able to push their agenda but will still get the midterm blowback when Trump turns out to be a buffoon. Plus, the 2018 midterm elections will choose a majority of the governors who’ll be involved in gerrymandering in 2021.
President Hillary + a Republican Congress is the reverse effect. She’ll have little permanent effect – executive orders can always be reversed – but we’ll take the midterm hit for the mess the Congress will create. So making Trump lose while getting a Republican Congress is a very good situation for them in the long term.
Not sure I can think long and hard enough to game out all the different scenarios. But do concede that boosting DEM turnout to beat Trump may not be a good plan for the GOP.
What they need is the DEM elite ’72 plan.
Corrupt bargain. How much did Trump pay him? Or was it the promise of a Cabinet post? VP, maybe?
Oh my guess is that Trump didn’t make an offer to Doughboy Bridgegate. My speculation is that Christie genuflected to Trump and offered up his fealty. I doubt Trump could be bothered to ASK Christie to support him. Why would Trump do that? Doesn’t need it. Christie does. Ergo… Cui Bono? Christie… much more than Trump.
“Honey, last night I met this guy and I’m gonna do a little favor for him.”
Love it. Bruce.
Wait — THAT’S the stain?
CC has now demonstrated how one bend’s one’s knee. A good lesson for all. How long til Cruz and Rubio follow suit? (Guess it begs the question of what happens to Wingnut Welfare if Trump is king?)
Oh the Very Serious Pundits will not hesitate one instant to genuflect and kiss Trump’s heinie once it become obvious that is the way to continue earning their entitled keep. Never doubt it for an instant. Every single one of them will be singing Trump’s praises – and pretending that they never did otherwise – as soon as it’s no longer advisable to do otherwise.
Bank on it.
As a Jersey-centric resident of the Garden State, before this election campaign I’d have certainly agreed to the proposition that there was no greater douchebag on the US national political scene than Chris Christie, a man who you will certainly recall was constantly being bruited by our know-nothing pundit class as a “perfect” Presidential candidate. Ugh.
And along came Trump.
That Christie chose to announce his run only a couple of weeks after Trump’s own announcement of his candidacy shows how little understood Trump was early on. For Trump has brought everything Christie had — the pompous self-assurance, the utter emptiness of ideas, the scathing bullying — and brought it bigger. Ugh to the ugh power.
With Donald Trump around, poor grotesque Chris Christie was doomed to always be something we NJ folk could hardly imagine for him: the guy actually not-as-awful as the truly awful guy. And the GOP voters early and clearly let be known their insistence on maximum awfulness.
Trump extends his brief to amending the Bill of Rights:
Typical Trump co-mingling of Weimar rabble-rousing with malaise over the elite machinations of our dystopian society. Shorter version:
Amen. This election is going decidedly pear-shaped.
Nixon openly attacked the newspapers in this way. It really worked out well for him.
Clio, muse of history, is notoriously fickle. Nixon won big in 1972 only to be dragged kicking and screaming through his own worst nightmare of public and relentless humiliation.
We’ll see. Would an editor even run with Woodward and Bernstein today? Really? And what part of the Watergate story doesn’t depend on a secretive, elite insider pointing to the next bread-crumb in the trail? Perhaps the intelligence establishment had grown weary of Nixon by then and sick of his blame-shifting and covert, executive-branch operations. Just sayin’.
I am not in despair about the future of our country. The discussion taking place inside and outside this Presidential campaign is volatile, for sure, but is bending toward justice.
I see sunshine in our futures, and remain utterly unconvinced that a Trump juggernaut will roll through November. The general electorate is so tremendously different from the Republican primary electorate. And the Democratic primary is pushing both Sanders and Clinton hard to the left on many issues which have not been on the table in recent Presidential elections.
That’s a sound and prudent argument and I really hope you’re right. I’ve been enjoying the Trump phenomenon tear through the GOP with the enthusiastic glee of schadenfreude but it strikes me how they never saw it coming, on any level, until it was too late.
“Oh, so that is how he does with evangelicals, values voters and so forth… Uh-oh.” As he said, “…we won with everything. Tall people, short people, fat people, skinny people. Just won.” Did any pundit tweet to remind us that no-one polls for tall, short, fat or skinny cohorts? No.
I’m starting to think this election is a reality TV remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington starring a bully with a flame-thrower.
http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/188936/trump-negative-image.aspx
JANUARY 30, 2016
Trump’s Negative Image
by Frank Newport
Most political and media commentators have at this point installed Donald Trump as the GOP front-runner on the eve of the first actual voting set to begin on Monday in Iowa. But this narrative tends to obscure the fact that Trump is the most unpopular candidate of either party when the entire U.S. population is taken into account — and that he has a higher unfavorable rating than any nominated candidate from either of the two major parties going back to the 1992 election when we began to track favorability using the current format.
At this point (two-week average through Jan. 27), 33% of Americans view Trump favorably and 60% unfavorably. It’s that 60% unfavorable figure that I can focus on here.
Hillary Clinton currently has a 52% unfavorable rating among all Americans, while Jeb Bush is at 45%, Chris Christie 38%, Ted Cruz 37%, Marco Rubio 33%, Bernie Sanders 31% and Ben Carson 30%. Trump’s 60% is clearly well above all of these. Putting his favorable and unfavorable ratings together yields a net favorable of -27 for Trump, far above the -10 for Clinton and for Bush, the next lowest among the major candidates.
I wanted to see how Trump’s unfavorable played out in the context of previous elections, so I went back to look at the unfavorable ratings of the major-party candidates from 1992 through the current election. The bottom line is that Trump now has a higher unfavorable rating than any candidate at any time during all of these previous election cycles, and that conclusion takes into account the fact that unfavorable ratings tend to rise in the heat of a general election campaign as the barbs, negative ads and heightened partisanship are taken to their highest levels…”
Yes, his unfavourables are legendary. Thankfully. Small comfort that Hillary’s are apparently next worst.
It isn’t good that Hillary’s negatives are high. It’s a legitimate concern, and one reason I’ll be voting for Bernie.
What we can take comfort in is that, because of the extreme polarization of people’s views of Clinton and her near 100% name recognition, Hillary’s negatives appear to have a hard cap around 53%, meaningfully lower than the negatives Trump consistently receives. All the horse hockey of recent months has not driven Hillary’s negatives above previous highs.
And she’s already gone through the heat of winning Presidential and Senate campaigns. Trump has not.
Is really about turnout. Assuming Trump wins the nomination does he drive GOP turnout down and Democratic up? It seems a crapshoot to me at his point. Trump’s unfavourables notwithstanding something is pushing turnout in the GOP primaries:
Sure, primaries aren’t indicative of general election turnout and there’s probably some other good reasons not to worry about this but it strikes me as worth noting.
Yes, a lot of voters are turning out to vote in the Republican primary. Many of them are making sure to turn out so they can vote against Trump. The Donald is gaining pluralities of the early votes, not majorities.
Of all the former Republican POTUS candidates, it was predictable that Christie would be the one to support his fellow bully boy in the region.
It doesn’t feel to me that the Governor’s endorsement delivers much of anything to Trump’s general election prospects. Chris doesn’t grow Donald’s base for November; he does finish off the nearly done job of the primary, though.
Republicans still hope Rubio can pull a rabbit out of the hat. An unlikely champion for an unlikely outcome but I’m willing to bet they stake whatever they’ve got on it.
They’ve already humiliated themselves with the devolving spectacle of the debates; now comes the ninja and kamikaze attacks. We’ll see whose markers are cashed-in pretty shortly. Not Christie’s, clearly. He dodged that duty neatly.
Every single establishment Republican is terrified of many of their own constituents. At first alarmed, disbelieving, but now just plain afraid. Trump owns most of them today; and win, lose or draw the genie ain’t going back in the bottle so easily.
At some point, is somebody — anybody — going to point out that Trump and his supporters are not living on the same planet as the rest of us in terms of any realistic, adult understanding of public policy, government, Civil Rights, the American constitution, the Presidency, geopolitics, ISIS, race relations, health care — any of it? That the Republican frontrunner is getting up in front of millions of people and saying things that have nothing to do with reality or how our government works on the most basic 8th-grade-civics-class level?
Because it seems to me that we’ve got a very serious, foundational problem here; something tantamount to a failure of democracy or of basic civic norms. I know that bloggers and some columnists have made snide remarks, or have apparently decided to write off the whole question as either “obvious” or as beneath them — as not worth discussing, because “of course” nothing he’s saying makes any sense; why demean ourselves by pointing out when at some point it will be made clear.
Well, when do we reach that point? Because it’s almost Super Tuesday and Trump has been talking about bombing ISIS and “taking their oil” and forcing people to say Merry Christmas since last summer. Isn’t it about time that we face the fact that we’re in a serious situation here and that it’s long past time for public leaders — politicians, lawmakers, newspaper editors, anyone — to get up in a public forum and point out that the leading Republican presidential candidate doesn’t have a platform and doesn’t know how our government works on the most rudimentary level?
What if Trump’s supporters turn out to be an ever-so-slight majority of 2016 general election voters? Whose living on the wrong planet then?
There is going to be a powerful lust to win in the R side, and justifying support for the Donald will not take that long. The shallow dismissals of him as an idiot, and of his supporters as racists, idiots, etc, ignores the reality of the concerns of many who support him.
Dismiss him at your peril.
If it’s just Rs in the general he’s clearly doomed. It’s the ‘concerns of many’ in the Democratic edge cohorts which seems the potential problem.
One thing people overlook is that Trump’s speech and word use is very blue-collar; he sounds like a NY fire-fighter to me. I’m guessing he seems accessible to most working-class people; many of whom aren’t rocket scientists but are justifiably sick of being looted and feeling judged.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/us/politics/donald-trump.html?mtrref=undefined&_r=0
“With his enormous online platform, Mr. Trump has badgered and humiliated those who have dared to cross him during the presidential race. He has latched onto their vulnerabilities, mocking their physical characteristics, personality quirks and, sometimes, their professional setbacks. He has made statements, like his claims about Ms. Jacobus, that have later been exposed as false or deceptive — only after they have ricocheted across the Internet.
Many recipients of Mr. Trump’s hectoring are fellow politicians, with paid staff members to help them defend themselves. But for others, the experience of being targeted by Mr. Trump is nightmarish and a form of public degradation that they believe is intended to scare off adversaries by making an example of them.
…
It is not just that Mr. Trump has a skill for zeroing in on an individual’s soft spot and hammering at it. It is that he sets a tone of aggression against the person, and his supporters echo and amplify it.
“Over and over and over again: You were rejected by him, you’re a scorned woman,” Ms. Jacobus said, paraphrasing the hundreds of online attacks she faced.
Ms. Jacobus sent a cease-and-desist letter to Mr. Trump and his top aide, citing electronic messages that showed the Trump campaign had courted her and not the other way around.”
LMAO to that one.
You write:
This is precisely what I have been saying…and often here getting lambasted for saying…for going on 8 years.
But they haven’t.
And they won’t.
Not enough of them to matter, anyway.
Why?
Because they are almost all…so-called public leaders–politicians, lawmakers, newspaper editors etc…in on the take.
That’s why.
They didn’t when Clinton I sold the country down the river to the highest international bidders.
They didn’t when Bush II/Cheney forced the U.S. into the untenable position of being NATO’s petroleum cop.
They didn’t when Obama continued the Clinton sell-out and a “kinder, gentler” form of international and domestic militarism.
Why expect them to do so now?
AG
But that’s not the same point at all. Yes, your tiresome constant refrain that 1) everything is corrupt and 2) all points being made by all other posters here are of diminished value because they’re not presented in terms of this framework of dystopian futility (with the subtext that nobody’s listening to you sufficiently) has some small overlap with what I’m saying here, but only in the most incidental and trivial way.
#1-It is the corruption that is tiresome, JO. If it wasn’t plainly there on every level of the system there would be no “refrain” to be sung.
#2-I do not disagree with “all” other posters here. That ongoing refrain is also tiresome. Like you think “everybody” agrees with you. I have heard it time and again from people here. My diaries are regularly recommended by people on this site who agree with them, and a cursory look at my own tips and recommendations would put that “we all agree” line in the garbage bin. That reeks of DailyKos bullshit, which Dkos’s Little King has encouraged for many years.
Look where that attitude has gotten us. A “peace president” who has totally failed internationally and domestically, a likely Republican presidential nominee (and equally likely winner of the whole deal) like Trump, a pretty much for-sure Dem nominee who is hopelessly mired in the mistakes of the past two Democratic presidents, and overall not a chance of any real progressive action in the Senate, House of Representatives or the White House for the next 4 to 8 years. With the exception of Bernie Sanders…who has been basically unelectable since he started his campaign…and Elizabeth Warren (who wisely refused to throw her hat into this year’s fucked-up electoral ring), who exactly of national stature is any more than a faux progressive, totally owned by Big Corp? HRC? Give me a break!!!
#3-If I thought that this system is now in a state of dystopian futility, why would I try to get through to others? I believe that it will have to break down to some degree eventually in order to get the attention of enough voters to begin a process of real change, but I do hope that total breakdown (You know,…like widespread riots in the streets and martial law?) is not going to have to occur before we wake the fuck up.
I also think that Trump is a big step towards that sort of breakdown, and will hold my nose and vote for HRC if necessary. This country could very well tip over into true fascism if he comes to power, and all hell would break loose worldwide if that were the case. Then we could start using the word “dystopia.”
Until then? We are in a sort of Purgatory.
Purgatopia.
So it goes.
Later…
AG
“At some point, is somebody — anybody — going to point out…?”
Sounds like a job for Chris Matthews.
Naw he’s far too busy hosting hour long infomercials for the t-Rumpster
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/shameless-msnbc-to-air-donald-trump-documentary-hosted-by-chris-matthews/
The morning blowhard ain’t the only talking head in the can fer teh donald.
Christie’s move was as predictable as it was transparent.
So predictable that nobody at the Pond predicted it.
Who is in the business of predicting endorsements?
Trump is the clear frontrunner. Christie has already burned the “establishment” choice and is ideologically aligned with Trump. The third guy is radioactive. Why wouldn’t Christie hitch his wagon to Trump? Where else is he going to go?
Come on. An inordinate amount of time is spent by pundits and bloggers (including folks here) predicting all sorts of moves by politicians and organizations/institutions. Most endorsements are in fact so predictable that we don’t bother articulating them. (As if John Lewis would have endorsed anyone other than Clinton.) Not many endorsements carry much weight, including this one by Christie, for the voting public. They do inform the public as to the intentions and affiliations of the endorser or reconfirm what the public should already have known.
Surprised the hell out of me, I’ll tell you. It was not forseen by many.
From what I’ve seen (admittedly a small sample), I’d change that to not foreseen by any. At least nobody is claiming to have predicted it or even not to have been surprised.
Well, just goes to show: those “I’ll never vote for Trump!” people are gonna slowly crawl back. Christie sees the writing on the wall.
I certainly didn’t see it, but it’s understandable that he did. He probably has a personally dislike for Marco Rubio, also.
Either that, or he knows something that is in the bridge scandal will eventually make it to the light and is on another suicide mission through endorsing Trump figuring his political career is over anyway.
Could be any number of reasons. Regardless whether Trump loses the nomination or general election, Christie would want to remain on Trump’s good side for business reasons. I very much suspect that he does loathe the two first term Senators as we all should considering that Cruz is loathed by all his Senate colleagues and Rubio loathes the job so much that he rarely shows up.
Considering that the GOP elite choice was already out of the race and they loathe Cruz, Christie’s options were 1) silence 2) endorse Kasich 3) Rubio or 4) endorse Trump. No gain or loss with #1. Kasich isn’t going to win; so, only loss would go with that one. Going with Rubio would curry favor with Rubio’s big money donors and the GOP elite factions that had decided to push this featherweight up the steep hill. OTOH, those donors thumbed their noses at Christie and he kissed their butts. So, endorsing Trump, who is set to win the nomination, is also a big FU to his donors and the elites who champion featherweights.
Regardless of how the GW bridge issue works out for Christie, he wouldn’t have much of a place in a GOP party with Rubio as the lead spokesperson. And nobody really knows what will be left of or what the party will look like after this election. Going out on a limb with Trump seems a better hedge than the other options (Mary Pat and not Chris may have figured this out).
Charlie Baker, (old-fashioned New England style) Republican governor of Massachusetts, had endorsed his fellow governor Christie just a week before he exited the race, and he was certainly surprised.
http://www.wbur.org/2016/02/26/baker-christie-trump
I can definitely see Baker voting for Clinton in the general if it’s her versus Trump. Not sure how he’d go if it’s Rubio.
If one has to have a Republican governor, one should devoutly pray it’s a Baker type. Highly competent, fiscally sensible, socially liberal, squeaky clean; he’s going to be governor here as long as he wants.
Isn’t Chris Christie a bigger stain on the state?
He’s angling for VP or Attorney General in a Trump Administration.
Why do you think he went after Rubio in New Hampshire rather than the leader? He was securing his bona fides as a good caporegime for the Trump Family…