'I thought it was a tremendous disappointment,' said a strategist about Christie's speech. Christie's flop

TAMPA, Fla. — There is no mistaking what a successful keynote speech for Chris Christie would have looked and sounded like. There would have been an electric reaction from the crowd in the convention hall. It would have been followed by waves of effusive media commentary about how people had just heard the future of the Republican Party.

Judged by these standards, there is also no mistaking what the New Jersey governor delivered instead: A prime-time belly-flop, one that notably failed to clear either of those two high bars.


The reaction in the audience was mildly enthusiastic, and muted in comparison to the reception given to Ann Romney just minutes before Christie spoke. Political commentary about the 24-minute speech — while some of it has been favorable — has been dominated by discussion of whether Christie offered too many words about himself and too few about Romney or about the kind of original and provocative ideas that many were expecting on such a major occasion.

( Also on POLITICO: Christie’s 10 rousing keynote quotes)

The fallout on Wednesday was the talk of Tampa and left Christie on the defensive to avoid lasting damage to his political fortunes. It also revealed tensions between the Christie and Mitt Romney camps.

Several political figures close to Mitt Romney made acerbic comments to reporters, making clear they thought Christie laid an egg while also saying they didn’t much care since Ann Romney was generally perceived as performing well. Several made eye-rolling references to what they regard as signs of the New Jersey governor’s considerable ego: The number of self-references in his address and an entourage of aides who they believe is too obviously trying to promote Christie fever for the future rather than help Republicans in 2012.

Sources close to Christie noted that Mitt Romney’s team saw the speech text about two weeks ago and barely changed a word, and thus had no standing to second-guess now.

( Also on POLITICO: Full text of Chris Christie’s speech)

In one prominent example of the poor reviews for Christie, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace noted how long it took for the speech to mention Romney and called it “the most curious keynote speech I have ever heard. … For a moment, I forgot who was the nominee of the party.”

“I thought it was a tremendous disappointment,” added Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, saying the speech did nothing to advance the ball against Obama, or for Romney.

“My point is that it’s a nice [lesson] in the [tenets] of the Republican Party … but it didn’t have any purpose that served his party and his nominee,” he said. “It’s almost like he wanted to prove that he wasn’t just a guy who could turn tables over and speak truth to power.”

( PHOTOS: Chris Christie’s career)

By no means was Christie’s speech notably bad when taken strictly on its own terms. There were plenty of glimpses of the pugnacious style and no-nonsense governing message that have turned Christie into a rising star. Karl Rove, speaking on Fox, called the speech “very well done” and Time’s Mark Halperin, speaking on MSNBC, said Christie projected leadership.

The problem is that a high-profile keynote address can never be taken strictly on its own terms. Context matters, and in this case was extremely challenging for Christie.

Expectations were soaring for the speech, fanned by Christie’s own team, which put out a news release trying to stir up excitement for the address and how people could follow it on social media. Many political insiders gathered in Tampa — and everyone on Romney’s team — were well aware of a Monday New York Post story that reported Christie declined to be considered as Romney’s vice presidential nominee because he would have had to resign as governor and he thinks it is a long shot that the Republican ticket will win this time. A few weeks ago, he openly said at a town hall that he would consider running in 2016 if Romney loses — an honest answer, but certainly not a politic one.

At the same time, Christie’s and Ann Romney’s appearances did not seem to mesh well. She talked in sentimental terms about her husband and the importance of love. After a rushed break between the speeches, he came on to talk about how it is more important to be respected than loved. He didn’t show humor and for all his celebrated tough-guy image, he didn’t come off especially as the mix-it-up tough guy who is gifted at impromptu sparring with reporters and even constituents in New Jersey. Instead, he issued airy, detail-free admonitions about truth-telling, hard choices and American greatness.

Against this backdrop, Christie’s speech is being viewed through the prism of two numbers: 16 was the number of minutes that passed as Christie talked about his personal history and New Jersey record before he mentioned Mitt Romney’s name. Seven was the total number of times he referred to Romney by name.

Christie addressed this choice Wednesday at breakfast for New Hampshire and Pennsylvania delegates. With Ann Romney speaking first, Christie said in comments quoted on the BuzzFeed website, “it freed me up — remember, she was supposed to be going Monday night and because of the hurricane, it was canceled — so instead both of us were on the same night.”

“It actually freed me up to put the choice into more general terms. It allowed me to be able to let Ann Romney talk about Mitt Romney the person.”

A senior adviser to the Romney campaign told POLITICO that the New Jersey governor did fine and was on message: “Gov. Christie did exactly what we asked, which was lay out the problems facing the nation and close with Gov. Romney as the solution.”

It may be cold comfort to Christie, but history shows it is hard to specify precisely what characteristics specify convention addresses widely regarded as great — Mario Cuomo’s keynote in 1984 and Barack Obama’s in 2004 both instantly gave these Democrats national profiles — and those regarded as bombs, such as Bill Clinton’s in 1988, though Clinton’s unending oration was technically a nominating speech, not a keynote.

The distinctions may be subtle, as Mark Twain said about the difference between the right word and the almost-right word, but the results are “the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

Obama, who clearly made lightning, talked about himself a lot, just like Christie, who is dealing with the blowback from his lightning-bug speech. Obama got half-way through his call for a new brand of politics before mentioning Kerry 13 times.

Cuomo, in contrast, mentioned nominee Walter Mondale exactly zero times. His speech was primarily an attack — written in lyrical, almost elegiac language — against President Ronald Reagan. Some commentators on Wednesday were surprised Christie did not make a more aggressive case against Obama.

What Christie is facing may be something close to what Clinton faced at the Atlanta convention. Clinton, then 42, gave a perfectly fluent speech. But, like Christie’s, his appearance had been preceded by great anticipation because the Arkansas governor was being widely touted as the future of the party. It was clear that his words bored delegates in the convention hall, who were shown on TV paying no attention as Clinton droned on (for 33 minutes but it felt far longer) and mocked him with his only sustained applause line when he announced “in conclusion.”

Christie may be facing something similar to Clinton. The commentary about how poorly he did grew louder and more scathing as the media echo chamber, including late-night comedians, roared into high gear. He rescued himself from flames with a sterling performance on “The Tonight Show,” in which he joked that the speech “wasn’t my finest hour — it wasn’t even my finest hour-and-a-half.”

In Tampa, it is clear the echo chamber is once again kicking into gear.

“He doesn’t mention Mitt Romney’s name until the 16-minute mark,” screamed part of a New York Daily News headline on Christie’s speech. “Chris Christie accepts the nomination a bit early,” echoed a Salon article.

“Christie will take some (justified) criticism for spending 95 percent of his speech talking about himself and five percent talking about Mitt Romney. (And that’s being generous),” wrote The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza.

Daily Beast/Newsweek’s Howard Kurtz said the speech made it seem like the two did not even know each other. “Romney was almost an afterthought. There wasn’t a personal line about Mitt. It was as though the two had never met,” Kurtz wrote.

“Christie’s prime time address seemed as much about positioning himself for 2016 and polishing his still developing national image,” read the National Journal’s analysis on the speech, while a Yahoo News roundup on voter reactions summed the address up as “likable, honest but lacking Romney focus.”

A prominent GOP strategist told POLITICO that “if Democrats had a drinking game for every time he mentioned Romney, they all ended up sober [at] the end of the night.”

“This speech not only was a bad speech. I think this was one of the most remarkable acts of political selfishness I have ever seen,” said MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday evening. “He waited 1,800 words into a 2,600-word speech to even bring [Romney] up.”

But some people came to his rescue. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and presidential contender, said it wasn’t really Christie’s job to promote Romney.

“His role as the keynote speaker was to set the sort of background for what this campaign is going to be about: a contrast of ideas and ways of looking at government,” Giuliani said on CNN.

Some blogs on the right also rallied behind Christie, with the conservative Hot Air remarking that “the parts about him were effective and necessary, since the opposition’s plan is to dehumanize him.”

Still, even conservatives sensed a lack of hearty aggressiveness in Christie’s remarks, while excusing the governor for the deficiency as a focus on “governance” or “philosophy.”

While justifying Christie on his state’s record, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan said Republican Party faithful was left wanting more.

“They’re hungry for someone who is an elected official at a high level, and who is admired, to push back, to have fun, to stir the blood, to make the case, to get the troops going again,” Noonan wrote. “Chris Christie is a politician and there’s nothing in it for him, as a New Jersey Republican, as a guy trying to survive and prosper in a Democratic state, in really bringing it to President Obama. He stuck to thoughts on governance. This was worthy.”

Where some saw effective restraint, others saw the speech as disappointing due to Christie’s atypical lack of frankness.

The New York Times panned the speech as missing the sort of truth-telling Christie demands.

“Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, in the keynote speech, angrily demanded that the American people learn the hard truths about the two parties, but like most of those at the microphone, he failed to supply any,” read an editorial in the paper Wednesday.

The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple added that the speech was “flat and predictable. … Everyone wanted the press-conference Chris Christie to show up. You know him — he’s the guy who takes a question from someone, tells a joke and then delivers a nice verbal whipping. Everyone laughs, and he repeats the exercise.”

“I think the greater problem with the speech is that it didn’t have the kind of uplifting, optimistic tone or substance that you need to have if you’re going to do what Obama did in 2004,” said John Heilemann on MSNBC’s “Way Too Early.” “He looked kind of angry through the speech, and he looked angrier than he sounded. But there was not a lot … of happy warrior in Chris Christie.”