Send Chris Christie $5.
Get him on the debate stage.
Chris Christie isn't selling what a majority of GOP primary voters want to hear. Not yet. Too many of them are still in love with Trump.
That might change. Christie might change them.
Click: https://chrischristie.com/
In some ways Chris Christie and Trump are alike. Both are Republicans. As president, both would happily sign legislation that a Republican House and Senate would send for signature. Both want lower taxes for top earners. Both want more Federalist-type judges on the Supreme Court.
Stylistically, both are known for having big, booming assertive personalities. People formerly thought that Christie was the big bully in politics, but Trump took over that designation. Both Trump and Christie have political courage to say bold, maybe-unpopular things. They aren't weathervanes or hedgers. That distinguishes Christie from all the other Republican aspirants to displace Trump. They hedge. They partly defend Trump or carefully tip-toe around Trump. (Did he win in 2020? Well, a lot of people think so, and those people are sincere, and there are reasons to be concerned about election security, but we are against violent invasion of the Capitol. . . .)
Chris Christie is entirely different. He is saying aloud what 60% of Americans think, and something that -- maybe -- some portion of Republicans are ready to hear, that Donald Trump is dangerous and should not be president. That Trump is morally wrong. That he does criminal things, proudly. That he is unworthy of being our leader -- even if he does fight people we don't like and says some things we like to hear.
Christie positions himself as the frank truth-teller. I don't expect many Democrats to vote for him in a general election. He is a Republican who generally supports the Republican suite of policies. But he represents a version of a post-Trump Republican party, a GOP that cleansed itself of Trump.
The actionable thing people can do is send him a token campaign contribution. To be on the Republican presidential debate stage a candidate must have at a minimum of 40,000 unique donors to their campaign, with at least 200 unique donors per state or territory, in 20 states and territories. They must also poll at least 1% in some national polls recognized as legitimate by the RNC. Christie will get the poll results. He needs the contributions.
In my own view, the great tragedy for American democracy is not Trump. It is that Trump has been tolerated by the GOP electorate. Trump is a predictable pathogen. The Constitution-writers anticipated Trump. In a federal system constitutional checks and balances should have created antibodies to isolate and discard the pathogen. Ambition among Republicans, combined with civic virtue, should have blocked Trump. It didn't. There were multiple opportunities for ambitious GOP leaders to have displaced Trump: the 2016 nomination, the Access Hollywood tape, the 2020 election, January 6, the criminal indictments. But GOP leaders followed opinion. They didn't lead and shape it. The republican principle of people electing wiser leaders failed.
Chris Christie is a reform agent for the GOP.
I share Judith's concern. I want to avoid joining a Republican email list.
I did it. My first campaign five dollar contribution to a republican. I kind of like the new Christie. Why was he helping Trump debate Biden before the last election? Didn’t he know then what a toxic human being Trump has always been? Sorry, never going to get my vote Chris.