New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has become a media “darling” lately, due to his courage and leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which did devastation along the shoreline of New Jersey and New York, and other damage to Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Christie had the common sense to work with President Obama on surveying the damage, even though the alliance occurred a week before the Presidential Election of 2012, and caused great upset in the Mitt Romney Presidential campaign.
Also, Christie was quick to criticize the House Republicans and Speaker of the House John Boehner for their failure to pass an extensive Hurricane Sandy relief package in the waning moments of the 112th Congress, and blamed Boehner by name.
Now, Christie has become the cover of Time Magazine, named “The Boss”, and has continued to lobby publicly for quick action by the House Republicans in the 113th Congress on the disaster relief bill, pointing out that aid to Louisiana and Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina, occurred ten days after the tragedy, and now it is more than 70 days since Hurricane Sandy.
Many see Christie as the ideal GOP nominee for President in 2016, without understanding that he does not represent the core constituencies of the present day party. He speaks his mind, and in many respects, he does not match the extreme right wing tilt of the House Republicans and even many Republican Governors. He is a Northeastern Republican, who has learned within limits to work with the opposition Democrats in the New Jersey legislature, while House Republicans are on the warpath, refusing to cooperate at all with President Obama.
To believe that Chris Christie will, somehow, magically, become the Republican nominee for President in 2016, and that he will defeat the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she is, is to be willing to gamble big time.
But as this blogger and author stated last month, there are still many reasons to believe that Chris Christie is highly unlikely to be the Republican nominee in 2016, and in any case, the odds of the GOP nominee becoming President are highly remote, not worth betting money!