Happy Holidays and Merry Christie

Chris Christie began his presidential campaign almost precisely six months ago.

One thing for sure – he hasn’t been ignored.
The former governor has been a very visible presence on virtually every TV outlet that covers politics.

Ideological slant has been immaterial. Christie has been on left wing MSNBC as well as right wing Newsmax. And every place in between.

There’s a good reason for that. Christie is, to use an old newspaper term, “good copy.”

He’s outspoken, candid, can be funny, and most important for many outlets, he trashes Donald Trump, making him quite the rarity among Republicans.

Christie’s anti-Trump crusade has not only earned him attention, it most certainly has attracted many followers.

But therein lies the problem: How many of those followers vote in Republican primaries?

Probably not enough.

The Real Clear Politics polling average regarding the GOP presidential nomination puts Christie at 2.5 percent. That covers polls taken between Nov. 9 and Dec. 3

That puts him in fifth place, trailing Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswarmy.

Now, Christie has been concentrating on New Hampshire, the first primary state. There, he is in third place with an average of 11.3 percent, according to Real Clear Politics. He is ahead of DeSantis, but trails Haley and Trump.

It’s good news for Christie that he has overtaken DeSantis, but that only goes so far.

In one of his recent and ubiquitous TV appearances, Christie said he will continue going after Trump, because he is in the lead. There is obvious logic here. If you want to win, you have to beat the guy who is now winning.

But now we are entering the “home stretch.” The New Hampshire primary is about seven week away. Is that enough time for Christie to cut into Trump’s lead?

It is true that many – or is it average – people do not start paying attention to an election until it’s just about upon them. So Christie has to hope voters who realize a primary is coming up in January swing his way.

On that score, this is a big week for the former governor.

He has scheduled four appearances on college campuses in New Hampshire for Thursday and Friday.

In typical Christie verbiage, the events are described thusly:

“Tired of the political BS and phony politicians? Then come and get real answers to your questions this week at a “Christie on Campus” town hall event. Direct questions. Direct answers.”

Before we get there, however, there is an event Wednesday night.

That is the fourth debate on the campus of the University of Alabama featuring four people – Haley, DeSantis, Ramaswarmy and Christie. Trump, of course, is not showing up.

What’s noteworthy here is that over the weekend, it was questionable if Christie would even make the cut.

To make the debate, CNN reported that candidates had to reach at least 6 percent in two qualifying national polls, or in one national poll and two polls from separate early-voting states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.

Christie makes the state threshold in New Hampshire, but not in any other of the states. And from what I could see, he only makes the 6 percent goal in one national poll over the last three months. That would be one done by the Trafalgar Group in the last week.

Whatever. Christie is going to be on stage.

Maybe, there are some phantom polls out there, or maybe he just got lucky.

Of course, he may need more than luck to take down the Trump cult.

(Visited 256 times, 1 visits today)