Why oh why is he not gaining traction?
New Jersey governor and theoretical presidential candidate Chris Christie has a problem. No, not the latest in the string of stories theorizing that "BridgeGate" indictments could be
just around the corner, but something much dearer to Christie's heart: Trying to convince Republican voters that he really should be taken seriously as a presidential candidate.
For real, this time.
[A]fter a political winter that Christie would like to forget, the New Jersey governor and his advisers are re-calibrating for an early summer campaign launch designed to capitalize on Christie's considerable strengths as a retail campaigner and position him as a truth-telling underdog in the style of John McCain.
He begins that quest next week with a multiday "Tell it like it is" tour of New Hampshire, the launchpad primary state that rescued McCain's 2008 sputtering, low-budget primary campaign after he decided to devote his energy to winning over the state's finicky voters one intimate town hall at a time.
Part of the problem may be that Chris Christie's campaign team think they can boost their candidate by being like John McCain. John McCain has been loathed in his party ever since those 2008 campaign banners came down, and for much the same reason the same voters aren't keen on Christie: He's not "conservative" enough. He has been witnessed working with the other side, or at least making eye contact with them without spitting. He does not warn strongly enough of the Brown Menace, or the Muslim Menace, or the Liberal Menace, or the other existential threats to America that pop up whenever any Republican, anywhere finds themselves trailing in the polls.
And, of course, a "Tell it like it is" tour is just a more polite name for a "rude yelling man" tour. Chris Christie has from the beginning tried to frame his abrasive personality and frequent spats with questioners as a point to be proud of. It's not working. The most recent poll marks yet another peak in the number of voters who disapprove of his performance in the state, now at 54 percent.
In March, Christie was dogged by Sandy protestors and displaced families in state and out: Hecklers disrupted his outing at an Iowa agricultural summit in Des Moines, and a Boy Scout pleaded for assistance to move out of a trailer and back into his family's ruined home in Brick Township. Forty-four percent of voters currently disapprove his work on Sandy recovery.
So there is simply no good news for Chris Christie, only varying degrees of bad news. He's trying to court national voters, but they're not listening. The voters of the state he currently runs don't like him, and don't like him more then they've ever not-liked him before. There's still a distinct possibility that people associated with Christie are going to end up in jail.
I'm not sure how much time a candidate would need to spend in New Hampshire to turn all that around. Fortunately for Christie his home state won't miss him.