Despite questions about his viability Christie still seems to be gearing up for a presidential bid. 2016 Christie touts expertise, aims to be 'policy candidate'

After his sweeping re-election as governor of deep blue New Jersey in November 2013, many people considered Chris Christie the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. But that was before the warning signs started appearing like billboards on the New Jersey Turnpike: Bridgegate. Fiscal crisis. Plunging poll numbers.

Despite it all – and questions from many political observers about his viability – Christie still seems to be gearing up for a presidential bid, increasing his political appearances and laying out a series of policy proposals that have little to do with New Jersey.


“There was a lot of harping from press and media particularly on the indictments [surrounding Bridgegate]…but I never saw Chris Christie miss a beat,” said Bobbie Kilberg, a major supporter of the governor’s. “I never saw him get down by it, I saw him chugging along, saying he knows what he believes in and is just going to continue working. [Now] there’s a momentum that is slowly building.”

It is his allies’ belief that, as memories of the traffic scandal that has plagued his administration for more than a year finally fade, Christie will be able to recapture the spotlight with a series of policy speeches and his ability to work a room. He is particularly focused on New Hampshire, a place familiar with his Garden State record and brash New Jersey bravado, but he has also tapped respected political operatives in Iowa and has attended several GOP cattle calls there.

On Monday, Christie sought to burnish his commander-in-chief credentials with a hawkish foreign policy speech, which follows two other recent policy addresses, on entitlement reform and the economy — building off of proposals he recently laid out in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. He was feted at a high-dollar Washington-area fundraiser hosted by Kilberg last week, a signal that elements of his donor base are still intact. And he has started tearing into his possible 2016 opponents, inserting himself into the news cycle after a period of being largely ignored.

“I’ve given two really substantive speeches, specific speeches, and I don’t know of anybody else who’s doing it,” Christie said last week in New Hampshire after delivering his economic policy address. “You don’t see Jeb doing this. You don’t see Walker doing this.”

The policy speech series—which is expected to continue, with possible future subjects including education and energy —is designed to highlight Christie’s credentials on issues that a governor wouldn’t typically spend much time on, such as national security.

Jeff Boeyink, a senior adviser to Christie in Iowa, said he expects the governor to carve out a niche as a policy expert as he seeks to stand out in a crowded field.

“He wants to establish himself as a serious policy candidate,” said Boeyink, a well-regarded Hawkeye State strategist who is volunteering for Christie. “He understands, at some point, people are going to take a very serious look at each of the candidates, where they’re going to be on each policy issue. There hasn’t been a lot of focus on that.”

On Monday, Christie indicated in his foreign policy address that he plans on keeping up the energy.

“Today, we live in cynical times with cynical politics,” he said, according to prepared remarks. “If we’re going to keep making progress as a country, we’re going to have to fix that and get our domestic house in order. That’s a longer discussion — and one that I’m looking forward to having with all of you in the weeks and months ahead.”

At this point, Christie still faces an uphill battle. He has seen some of his top backers from previous campaigns defect to Jeb Bush; his approval numbers at home in New Jersey have plummeted and in a highly credentialed field of presidential candidates, he is no longer discussed as being part of the top tier. And some national security hawks note that Christie, as a governor of a small state, has not exactly been a longtime foreign policy wonk.

Christie saw his standing as a top contender for the White House fall apart when his aides were implicated in a plot to shut down traffic lanes, apparently for political retribution, in early 2014. The so-called Bridgegate scandal plagued Christie into this spring, when indictments came down for several of his former employees and allies.

But Christie emerged legally unscathed, and now his supporters hope that polls will prove to be fickle and that there’s plenty of time to make up for lost ground.

“Is it good the indictment time period over? Yes, obviously,” Kilberg said. “What is at the front of attention now are his policy statements. He’s taking strong positions, he’s not afraid to tackle hard issues early on. It all fits in with, ‘what you see is what you get,’ and I’m willing to bet many more people are going to like what they see than not.”