Chris Christie has the right idea on how the GOP can win | Opinion
If Christie is thinking of another run, starting in the Granite State makes sense.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is known for not shying away from a fight, and that’s precisely what he says his fellow Republicans should be doing today if they want to win in 2022 and beyond: Fight. And fight like the media fought President Donald Trump.
“[Biden] has lied about the voting bill and Georgia in order, and I want everyone to understand this: The motivation for doing this is to stoke racial divisions in our country to his political benefit,” Christie said. “We need to say that out loud and directly, that’s exactly what he’s doing.”
» READ MORE: Chris Christie says he won’t rule out 2024 White House bid — even if Trump runs again
The one-time presidential candidate made his comments to a group of New Hampshire conservative leaders and activists on Wednesday, where Christie came out guns blazing on how to best oppose President Joe Biden and the Democrats’ agenda in Washington.
“We have lie after lie after lie from Joe Biden, and here’s what I don’t understand. The rules have changed,” Christie said. “And I said this to George Stephanopoulos two weeks ago, when he stopped me and said, ‘Do you really want to say it’s a lie?’
“I said, well, you all use the term ‘lie’ and ‘liar’ about President Trump over and over again. And now, because it’s good old Joe Biden, we’re not going to use the same word for conduct that is clearly untrue?”
Christie also criticized Biden for his harsh language toward Georgia’s new voting law. Christie noted that law is much more generous than the laws in Biden’s home state of Delaware. Georgia’s new laws expanded the number of early voting days to 17 while mandating early voting to one additional Saturday, with the option for counties to open up early Sunday voting.
In contrast, Delaware currently has zero days of early voting. (A new election law that allows early voting takes effect next year.)
GOP strategist Patrick Griffin agrees with Christie that criticizing Biden is a unifying message.
“President Biden has replaced Donald Trump’s bombastic, sometimes unproductive hyperbole with complete and utter incompetence and deceit,” Griffin said. “Biden’s cognitive performance, his propensity to genuflect to the extreme left of his party, and a demonstrated inability to be truthful are both unprecedented and unsustainable.”
“Take a good look, folks — Biden is rehabilitating the GOP before our very eyes,” Griffin added.
Christie, whose allies floated a potential run for president last week, also took offense with Biden’s new infrastructure package, which he simply sees as a way for the government to line the pockets of Democrat-supporting unions.
“Now there’s a $2.25 trillion infrastructure bill under the most generous definition of infrastructure the American people understand. Only 24% of that is for infrastructure. And $400 billion is to increase pay to home health-care workers — but only if they join a union, only if it’s a unionized job,” Christie noted.
» READ MORE: How the GOP blew its chance at a 2022 working-class coalition in just 10 hours, 43 minutes | Will Bunch
As the former governor put it: “It’s time to start winning again. And the way to win is to unite behind opposing these issues. These issues that the president is bringing forward and call him out for what he is and what he’s doing,” Christie said. “The American people will like the fact that we are fighting for them on those topics, protecting their family businesses, protecting their ability to send their children to school, to learn in a class rather than kowtowing to the teachers’ unions.”
Some Republicans are uncertain that Christie, who dropped out of the 2016 GOP primary after finishing in a distant sixth place in New Hampshire, is the right person to lead the Republican charge against the Biden agenda. But if he is thinking of another run, starting in the Granite State makes sense.
Veteran GOP consultant Jim Merrill, who worked on both of Mitt Romney’s presidential bids, said, “It’s no secret that Gov. Christie will likely run for president again in 2024, and he is starting in the right place — New Hampshire. Without a unifying message, Republicans have struggled to lay a glove on President Biden during his first three months in office.”
“The Christie strategy of more clearly defining Biden along with more effectively articulating what Republicans are for makes sense, even if his ability to be that unifying messenger is open to question,” Merrill added.
Andrew Mahaleris covers politics for InsideSources, where a version of this piece first appeared.