Chris Christie Grows Up

Epping, N.H. — I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really like Chris Christie. Or at least I did when I caught up with him here on the trail of the first-in-the-nation Republican presidential primary.

At first I thought it was the environment. I’d been to large political rallies before, such as when then-Sen. Barack Obama filled the Hartford Civic Center during his first presidential run. But the vibe at the event I caught for Republican presidential primary candidate Christie this past Thursday night was mellower. It was held in a one-room meeting hall adjacent to a restaurant called The Holy Grail in Epping, N.H. (The food is great, by the way.) The room was packed with potential voters and a smattering of press types like myself. Christie was relaxed and affable, even opening with a joke about Nikki Haley’s Civil War blunder.

I came to New Hampshire to check out candidates people might consider worth a vote outside the presumptive major-party nominees in this dispiriting presidential election year.

As the evening went on, though, I realized that it wasn’t the room that was working Christie, but the other way around.

I have vivid memories of Christie as the pugnacious New Jersey governor who burst onto the national scene in 2009. I’m not big on bravado or braggadocio, so he rubbed me the wrong way. And with Obama essentially being a messianic figure to me at the time, his politics were quite literally evil in my eyes. To top it all off, he was the governor of New Jersey.

I mean, come on. New Jersey. 

I was glad when he disappeared from the national scene after his initial 2016 run for president, and his eventual endorsement of Donald Trump confirmed all my worst assumptions about him. When I saw that he had announced his intention to run for president again in 2024, all I could think was, ​“Why?”

So I came to New Hampshire to find out. 

What I found was a man completely different from the one I remembered from the 2010s. I’m finally old enough to appreciate how much of an impact time and experience can have on a person.

The room was standing room only, with people of all ages there to see Christie. But aside from the large American flag in the background, it was hard to tell that a campaign event was happening based on the trappings. I mingled near the handful of other reporters who filled out the rear of the room. Christie stood in the center, dressed in a dark suit and red tie.

One of the audience members remarked on the change that she saw in Christie as he spoke, describing him as having ​“matured.” I think that was the perfect way to describe how Christie came across on Thursday night. He wasn’t looking for fights anymore. But he sure as hell wasn’t backing down from any either. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. He wants a fight with Trump. He has been a rarity among Republican presidential candidates, willing to consistently call out Trump and his actions. He was passionate in his condemnation of Trump, and promised that he wouldn’t accept any job in the administration. Christie was especially damning in his remarks about Trump’s involvement on Jan. 6th, flat out calling what Trump did insurrection.

What stood out to me most about his anti-Trump tirade was that he admitted he had been wrong. It was one of the major themes of the night. He spoke briefly at the beginning of the event for about ten minutes, then took questions from the audience for the next hour.

A high school girl challenged Christie on his previous opposition to gay marriage, and Christie said it again.

“I was wrong,” he said. ​“I sincerely held those beliefs about marriage being between a man and a woman, but that doesn’t make it right.”

When another audience member pressed him on his adoration for former President Ronald Reagan, Christie said that not even the Gipper got everything right, and pointed out areas where he thought Reagan had been wrong. He was critical of Reagan for raiding Social Security and redirecting the money to the general fund. That’s almost sacrilege in the modern GOP.

I don’t want to get your hopes up that I’ve been converted to a Republican, dear reader. Christie was thoughtful, measured and conciliatory when talking about his policy proposals, and constantly stressed the need for compromise. Yet he was still coming from a fairly standard Republican view of the world, which is fine. He wants to be tough on borders. He wants strong national defense. He’s resistant to banning assault weapons. I did go to see a Republican talk, after all. It’s just not a worldview that works for me. He was a prosecutor as well, and whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat (I’m looking at you, Vice President Harris), that’s a nonstarter for me.

Still, I left the event impressed by Christie, which is again, the last thing I thought I’d say. It felt like he had been tempered by experience, and felt comfortable enough to admit that he’d been wrong, and even to admit to changing his positions. If that’s not maturity, I don’t know what is.

Meanwhile, Nikki Haley Went ... Thataway

Concord, N.H. – Anyone see Nikki Haley?

My mother, for one, would probably like to know. Like many voters critical to this year’s presidential election, she’s been looking for anyone to vote for besides the two presumptive major party nominees. My mother’s initial reaction is that the most viable, and most sane alternative is Haley. But she needs to know more, first. My mother is almost 60 years old, a Black woman who has never voted for a Republican presidential candidate in her life. She wants to know why she should vote for Haley later this year.

I went to a Haley town hall in downtown Concord last Friday to try to find out what to tell my mother.

The event was held in Phoenix Hall, a sprawling room built in 1855 which has hosted Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in the past. Despite the size of the room, it was jam packed from wall to wall. Cameras and reporters from big outlets lined the back wall, while we poor writers were relegated to a few tables set up in the back corner

Haley came out with lots of energy, wearing a cream colored sweater and dark blue jeans. She took to the stage and immediately started talking about her life story. She framed it as a standard up-by-your-bootstraps immigrant story, where she learned the value of hard work and sacrifice from her parents in their family business. She rose to become governor of her state and then U.N. ambassador.

After her personal history, she dove straight into her policy proposals. Again, her policies sounded like the standard Republican lines. She wants to shrink the government by pushing federal programs like the Department of Education down to the state level. She wants to get tougher on the border. She wants to make middle class tax cuts permanent. Her biggest applause line came after she suggested congressional term limits and mental competency tests for members of Congress over a certain age. ​“Congress has become the most privileged nursing home in America,” she said to laughs and cheers.

I found myself wondering what had happened to the Nikki Haley who as governor took down the Confederate flag from over the South Carolina statehouse in the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting in 2015. That Nikki Haley looked like a leader on the national stage because she was able to respond to a horrific moment with quick, decisive action. She showed an understanding of history, of how words and symbols carry messages, of how a gesture of reconciliation can go a long way. She burst onto the national scene then as someone who might actually be able to hold the competing ideas of the American electorate in her hands.

That version of Haley was nowhere to be found in New Hampshire. She ignited a brief firestorm by declining to name slavery as the major cause of the Civil War. Some have argued that the question was a plant. If it was, then that’s even worse, because she couldn’t recognize it as such and blew an easy slam dunk question. It wasn’t like she was answering the question in the South; she was in New Hampshire.

Even without that question under discussion at Friday’s event, any spark of originality and thoughtfulness was pretty much gone. All that stood onstage was a calculating political operator trying to sound like Donald Trump without being Donald Trump — Trumpism without the divisive drama.

When asked how she would address the national nursing shortage, she pledged to ​“open up” the healthcare system, a promise that echoes Trump’s language and contains no specifics. Another attendee asked how she would approach cyber crime. She punted that question, saying that she would ask the private sector for a solution. At every opportunity to distinguish herself, Haley dodged, obfuscated and evaded.

I texted my mom as soon as I left the event. ​“Leaving now. It was pretty disappointing honestly.” Gov. Haley is no more. All that’s left now is Candidate Haley, a Trump-lite who tries to crib from his approach without any of the charisma. Why would anyone choose the knock-off if the real thing is right there?