Source: Politics<\/p>\n
WINDHAM, New Hampshire \u2014 Chris Christie tried to be the adult in the room.<\/p>\n
The former New Jersey governor launched his second presidential campaign in June with an uncharacteristic mea culpa for enabling Donald Trump\u2019s rise in 2016 and a belief that Republican voters were ready to move on in 2024. It even seemed like he had shed the righteous anger that he rode to national prominence a decade ago.<\/p>\n
But as Christie stalled out in New Hampshire, the state in which he was staking his campaign, the cracks in this persona started to show in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
He began snapping at town hall attendees for suggesting he should drop out. He slammed the state\u2019s venerated Republican governor, Chris Sununu<\/a>, as a \u201cliar\u201d for predicting the end was near for his campaign. And, after spending months chastising his rivals for focusing on each other instead of Trump, Christie began to do the same.<\/p>\n It ended on Wednesday with a return to form \u2014 Christie caught on a hot microphone<\/a> minutes before announcing his exit from the race<\/a>, eviscerating the candidate he was ostensibly stepping aside to aid, Nikki Haley, by saying she was “gonna get smoked.\u201d It was trademark Chris Christie: bluntly dragging a political opponent while pumping himself up.<\/p>\n \u201cThose of us who survived him in New Jersey know what he’s really like,\u201d said Pat Colligan, the president of the New Jersey Policemen’s Benevolent Association, which feuded with Christie when he was governor. \u201cWhen I travel the country and I see law enforcement, they say \u2018Oh, he’s a good guy,\u2019 and I’d say, \u2018Not really.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Part of what made Christie a star of the right in the Obama era was his willingness to take on public sector unions like the PBA and his gruff demeanor. But the environment around him has shifted so drastically that there seems to be no room for any of the versions of Christie that the public has seen during his two White House runs \u2014 not the elder statesman, not the truth-teller and definitely not the Trump ally-turned-critic.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a victim of his own ambitions and he obviously is functioning in a party that has no room for him or no respect for him,\u201d said Loretta Weinberg, the 88-year-old former New Jersey state Senate majority leader who often clashed with Christie during his eight years as governor \u2014 with him once asking reporters why they didn\u2019t \u201ctake the bat out<\/a>\u201d on her during a policy dispute.<\/p>\n Weinberg \u2014 who called Christie’s exit speech<\/a> \u201cexcellent\u201d \u2014 added that she enjoyed watching him take on Trump, but \u201cwith every poll I came across, people on a visceral level don\u2019t like him.\u201d<\/p>\n One of Christie\u2019s closest allies and the chair of his allied super PAC, Bill Palatucci, said in a statement that Christie will remain an honest voice not just for Republicans but for \u201ceveryone concerned about America’s place in the world, the runaway deficit and the rule of law which is the foundation of the republic.\u201d <\/p>\n Jon Bramnick, a Republican New Jersey senator and longtime ally of Christie\u2019s, said the news media attention on Christie narrowly focused on his role as a Trump critic and that overshadowed other aspects of his candidacy.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one was talking about his substantive comments about America and what had to be done,\u201d Bramnick said. \u201cThat\u2019s why it maybe looked like he was different.\u201d<\/p>\n Christie earned a reputation in New Jersey politics as a tough-talking politician who eschewed decorum. He created his own viral moments as governor, including telling a heckler to \u201csit down and shut up<\/a>,\u201d calling a Democratic lawmaker he disagreed with<\/a> \u201cnumbnuts\u201d and labeling a Navy SEAL who kept interrupting him<\/a> an \u201cidiot.\u201d<\/p>\n He was combative with the Statehouse press during his two terms \u2014 at one point pushing what critics dubbed a \u201crevenge bill<\/a>\u201d against newspapers that would have scrapped their lucrative government-mandated advertising. And he unsuccessfully attempted to oust<\/a> the Republican son of a mentor and popular former governor from his leadership position in the Legislature in a politically motivated move.<\/p>\n But the version of Christie who reappeared on the campaign trail in New Hampshire last spring appeared to be more repentant than rash. He was a Trump bludgeon. But he also seemed to regularly express self-realization.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are in search of the perfect candidate, it is time to leave,\u201d Christie said when he kicked off his campaign<\/a> at New Hampshire\u2019s Saint Anselm College in early June. \u201cI am not it.\u201d<\/p>\n Some voters were immediately wary of this new version of Christie, openly distrusting whether the former Trump ally could really function as his chief critic.<\/p>\n But others found him a refreshing voice of reason in a GOP primary where the other candidates were loath to say anything negative about Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cChristie is a voice that we need to hear and we need to continue to hear from him,\u201d Toni Pappas, the Hillsborough County Commissioner and a member of Christie\u2019s steering committee in New Hampshire, said in Windham on Wednesday. \u201cHe\u2019s a true American.\u201d<\/p>\n Christie took the role seriously \u2014 so seriously that in Trump\u2019s absence from the debate stage, the brash brawler who eight years ago publicly humiliated<\/a> Florida Sen. Marco Rubio<\/a> in front of millions of viewers ended up fading into the background without a foil.<\/p>\n But he was also a deeply unpopular candidate delivering a message that few in the GOP wanted to hear. Survey after<\/a> survey showed him<\/a> with some of the highest unfavorable ratings in the Republican field. His support among likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters never climbed out of the teens. Trump, meanwhile, remained dozens of percentage points ahead.<\/p>\n And it was Haley, who was starting to break away from the pack, who won the coveted endorsement of the popular Sununu and surged into second place \u2014 in some surveys within striking distance of Trump.<\/p>\n Soon enough, Christie was facing a dilemma: Keep training his fire solely on Trump, or acknowledge the reality that to have any shot of taking on his former friend one-on-one, he would have to go through Haley.<\/p>\n And so Christie took on split personalities \u2014 defending Haley on debate stages from personal attacks from entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy while accusing her on the campaign trail of flip-flopping on abortion and being too deferential to Trump.<\/p>\n The more Christie was backed into a corner \u2014 by polls, by the voters who saw those polls, and by the anti-Trump Republicans pleading, publicly and privately, with him to get out \u2014 the more he fought.<\/p>\n As Sununu went on network news shows and local radio programs to turn the screws on Christie, calling his campaign \u201cdead in the water\u201d and saying any ballot cast for him would be a \u201cwasted vote,\u201d the former New Jersey governor began to take bigger swings back \u2014 going so far as to tape a local television interview the night before he dropped out blasting Sununu as a \u201cliar\u201d for suggesting the end was near.<\/p>\n Those frustrations culminated on Wednesday in the hot mic moment that went viral.<\/p>\n \u201cShe spent $68 million so far, $59 million by DeSantis, and we spent $12 [million]. I mean, who\u2019s punching above their weight and who\u2019s getting a return on their investment?\u201d Christie said. The private conversation, with former New Hampshire GOP Chair Wayne MacDonald, a longtime supporter and head of his state steering committee, and Christie\u2019s wife, Mary Pat, was picked up on the live feed of his dropout speech.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s gonna get smoked,\u201d Christie said. \u201cYou and I both know it. She\u2019s not up to this.\u201d<\/p>\n