Just as in 2016, the Republican Party’s primary is heating up in a way that will likely only benefit former President Donald J. Trump.
Yet another of those whom Stephen K. Bannon refers to as the “Keebler Elves” has qualified to be on the first debate stage on Aug. 23. In this case, it is a candidate who previously campaigned for the presidency in 2016, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Christie has been loitering around the political scene after having missed his best moment to be president for years.
He missed his moment, but he’s still trying to force the situation. Christie made a bold play in 2016 by being the first candidate in the GOP primary to drop out and endorse a man, Donald Trump, that few others in the GOP (other than this author, of course) thought could win much of anything.
Christie didn’t do this out of the kindness of his big heart. Instead, he was making a key move for becoming Trump’s White House chief of staff.
Ultimately, Christie floundered in his support role during the Trump campaign in 2016. The former governor misread the room. He believed that the GOP voters would agree with the pro-Hillary Clinton media that the so called “Grab ‘Em by the Other Word for Cat” video from 2004, in which Donald Trump gloated to Billy Bush about his ability to grope women at will, was out of bounds.
Christie’s play-it-safe mentality was wrong. The Trump campaign gave Christie an ultimatum: Either get onboard with our defense of the video or abandon your position on the campaign. Christie believed it was all but over for Trump, so he did not join the remainder of the campaign.
This, even though Christie was nominally the head of Trump’s ill-thought transition team.
But by standing against Trump over the infamous 2004 videotape (urging the reality television star to step aside and let his running-mate, Mike Pence, take his place), Christie lost Trump’s confidence.
He had, according to multiple sources, lost Bannon’s support, which inevitably made Christie susceptible to Jared Kushner’s backroom maneuverings to remove the former New Jersey governor entirely from Trump’s orbit.
Once Trump had won, defying all the odds against him, the transition team went from being a mere afterthought on the part of the Trump Campaign in 2016, to being a source of great consternation.
Kushner, who hated Chris Christie for having prosecuted Kushner’s legitimately corrupt father while he was a prosecutor in New York, made plans to excise Christie from control over the transition team.
Bannon joined Kushner in that effort.
They were successful, and the soon-to-be Trump administration lost a man who, while deeply mismatched to Trump’s eccentricities, was also the most technocratic and competent potential chief of staff Trump ever had in his orbit.
Today, Christie is running for president again. No one really cares. Then again, though, he did just qualify to be on the debate stage with the other “Keebler Elves” in August.
The threshold the Republican National Committee put forward for making it onto the debate stage was to demonstrate a minimum of three percent support in a national poll as well as to receive 40,000 unique donations in his presidential run.
Surprisingly, Christie did that.
I’d have assumed he’d barely get one percent support. In his previous campaign in 2016, Chris Christie received around seven percent support when he finally opted to bow out of the 2016 campaign. He’s got even less today.
It’s likely that Christie wants to use the debate to generate buzz around his campaign, thereby goosing his poll numbers. And Christie has gotten to this point almost exclusively by bashing Trump.
But, given how underwhelming all the other candidates arrayed against Trump this election cycle have been, that Christie thinks he stands any chance at all is laughable.
This is especially so if the forty-fifth president refuses to even show up for the forthcoming debate, as he has threatened to do.
So, what is the otherwise coolly calculating Christie up to?
He cannot possibly be vying for a position in a future Trump administration. Yet, that is precisely what he ended up doing in 2016; Christie leveraged his seven percent support in the polls to gain favor with Trump.
Christie’s own lack of vision negated that early support.
But, Christie is a fast learner. He’s playing for a role in the next Republican administration. That’s what this is all about. Surprisingly, Christie has managed to rustle up 40,000 unique donors to give him a pot of cash so that he can basically audition to be one of Trump’s footmen.
It’s not going to end any better than it did the first time for Christie, because Trump is far too variable of an individual and Christie is too pragmatic. The time to have made it work would have been at the start of the Trump administration.
Now, there’s too much bad blood.
The “MAGA” world hates Christie, and Christie loathes them. Unlike Christie, though, Trump is dominating the polls and is unlikely to be dethroned as the GOP frontrunner anytime soon.
Even if Trump is ultimately taken down, it won’t be by Christie. So, this is all a giant waste of time (and money).
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
From 19FortyFive
Joe Biden Is Starting To Scare Everyone
