There’s a normal pattern to presidential campaign launches. Candidates kick off their White House bids; they make the case for why they should be elected; and folks like me examine their records, their merits, and how they are likely to fare.
As former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launches his Republican presidential campaign today, however, there’s a qualitative difference between his candidacy and that of his GOP rivals. The New York Times summarized it this way:
Chris Christie is embarking on a mission that even some of his fiercest allies must squint to see ending in the White House. But Mr. Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who is now 60 and more than five years removed from holding elected office, has been undeterred, talking up an undertaking that he frames as almost as important as winning the presidency: extricating the Republican Party from the grip of Donald J. Trump.
To be sure, the former governor is running for the GOP presidential nomination, and there’s every reason to believe he genuinely wants to prevail in the hopes of eventually taking office. But unlike every other Republican contender, Christie has abandoned all subtlety about the motivation that’s adjacent to his personal ambitions:
Christie wants to take down Trump.
The New Jersey Republican is not a fool. Christie can read the same polls as the rest of us. He can also review the details of his failed 2016 campaign as easily as anyone else — and acknowledge the fact that he’s done very little to improve his standing in the seven years that have followed. He must realize that his odds of winning can be charitably described as poor.
So why bother? Because from Christie’s perspective, there’s a crowded field of national GOP candidates, but there’s one empty lane: No one is focused almost exclusively on trying to take down the scandal-plagued, twice-impeached, currently-under-indictment frontrunner. And so, the former governor intends to fill the empty slot.
In other…
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