If you’re a Republican not named Donald Trump (or one whose default position isn’t “Let’s Lose!”), it’s truly something to let down the nerds of National Review. But in the most remarkable feat thus far of his exceptionally lame presidential campaign, Chris Christie has done just that.
“If Christie is as committed to stopping Donald Trump as he says,” NR concluded in a Friday editorial, “it’s time for him to retire to his tent.”
The once venerable magazine known these days for, really, nothing wrote, under the headline “Chris Christie Needs to Stand Down,” that the former New Jersey governor, whose campaign goal has solely been aimed at kneecapping Trump in 2024, may actually be doing the reverse. “As things stand now,” the mag said, “Christie could pull off a trick no one else would dare attempt — helping Trump win the nomination as a devoted supporter in 2016, and then turning around and helping him win the nomination as a fierce opponent in 2024.”
I don’t give Christie nearly that much credit. There are, I imagine, the same number of voters weighing what he has to say about Trump as there are cable news guests waiting at any given moment in CNN’s greenroom.
Spoiler: They’re the same people.
Christie’s campaign has targeted virtually nobody outside of TV bookers. A report in Axios on Friday said as much. Detailing his campaign’s first-ever purchase in broadcast, the report said that the content of the New Hampshire TV ad is intended to attack Trump and other Republicans who don’t do the same, specifically intended for “CNN and CNBC, along with MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.'”
Whoa! CNN and “Morning Joe,” you say?! A media strategy like that should be good for at least locking down the highly coveted Liz Cheney endorsement! It might even add Mitt Romney to the lineup of all-star backers.
Christie’s political career has long been dead, and he knows it. That’s why he now spends his days brown-nosing TV news anchors and lecturing right-wingers rather than actually doing anything to oppose the anti-American left that he once did with admirable zeal.
And if there’s any doubt, just revisit the great buildup to Christie’s show-stopping zinger at the GOP debate in September, in which he said, with great drama, directly into the camera lens: “You’re ducking these things and let me tell you what’s gonna happen. You keep doing that, no one up here’s going to call you Donald Trump anymore” — drumroll, dim the lights! — “we’re going to call you Donald Duck.”
I’ve never winced so hard.
Christie isn’t the hard-truth-teller he used to be. Dumping on Republicans while sitting on a cable news set doesn’t take bravery or risk. But it does get him a belly scratch from George Stephanopoulos.
And let’s never forget when Christie embarked on an apology tour for falling ill. In October 2020, he publicly expressed remorse for having contracted a highly contagious, airborne virus. Seriously.
“It is never comfortable to deliver real criticism that includes yourself,” wrote the media suck-up in The Wall Street Journal. “But it was a serious failure for me, as a public figure, to go maskless at the White House. I paid for it, and I hope Americans can learn from my experience.”
He then appeared in an ad to lecture “all those people who refuse to wear a mask” on “how wrong I was to remove my mask at the White House.” In that ad, he said, “You’re twice as likely to get Covid-19 if you don’t wear a mask.” (This is another way of saying — even if you wear a mask, you’re likely to catch it — thanks for the useless tip, Chris!)
Christie hasn’t been useful since 2012. But it’s not too late. He can do what his betters at National Review tell him to do and leave us all in peace, just in time for the holidays.
