Will His Comedy Routines Save Chris Christie Among GOP Voters Starved For Cheap Entertainment?

A bridge too far?

The right-wing leaning Real Clear Politics latest polling average shows Chris Christie tied with some guy named Vivek Ramaswarmy— but beating Asa Hutchinson, Larry Elder and Dog Burgum. Christie (and Vivek) are at 2.4%, about half of Pence’s 5.7% but not in the same ballpark as Señor Trumpanzee (52.4%) or even Governor Meatball of Florida (21.5%). Other than a few grumbles from a beleaguered Trump, no one is bringing up any of Christie’s shortcomings or his abysmal record in government. No one thinks it’s worth wasting their time on him because no one thinks he has a snowball’s chance in hell to become a real contender for the GOP nomination. His battle is to get on the debate stage in Milwaukee (and Fox) with the big boys at the end of next month. He’s learned how to dazzle-dazzle liberals with a litany of complaints about Trump, although Republicans have completely shut him off and don’t hear a word he says. According to an NBC News poll this month, just 13% of voters have a positive opinion of Christie; 50% have a negative opinion of him. And among Republicans only, it’s 15% positive and 43% negative— second worst of the presidential candidates, slightly ahead of Mike Pence.

Nonetheless, yesterday, reporting for the Daily Beast, Matt Lewis wrote that Christie’s is the best campaign this cycle (a pretty low bar in my opinion). Lewis tell his readers that Christie is the most interesting of the candidates and asks them to consider his “recent greatest hits. When Trump mocked Christie’s weight, Christie, appearing on Fox News’ MediaBuzz, responded, ‘Oh what, like he’s some Adonis?’ When asked about Trump diverting campaign money to pay for his legal expenses, Christie called him ‘the cheapest S.O.B. I’ve ever met in my life.’ And regarding the GOP’s performances in 2018, 2020, and 2022, Christie called the former president a ‘three-time loser.’ For better or worse, when it comes to throwing elbows, at least, he kind of sounds like…Trump… I wouldn’t be surprised if (unlike many of his GOP competitors) Christie’s trajectory is still on the rise. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, Christie is the only contender who actually realizes the 2024 election is about one question and one question only: Trump or not Trump.

This is to say, the 2024 GOP primary is not about who has the best 10-point policy plan or who is the most anti-woke. It’s simply about whether or not Republicans want Trump again.

Christie is the only candidate whose strategy and message suggest he accepts this reality— and is acting accordingly.

What this means is that Christie can get on TV at any time he wants because Trump is always in the news.

Will this allow him to gradually consolidate a larger chunk of the GOP primary and get to double digits, possibly even blowing everyone’s mind by becoming Trump’s main rival? That’s the unanswerable question.

But what I do know is that Christie is the only Republican opponent who has the correct interpretation of what the primary is about. And that is a huge advantage.

This also brings us to the second reason Christie has a chance to gain traction. He’s the only non-Trump candidate who is not only tough, but also funny and entertaining.

Perhaps it’s a commentary on our culture, but this is vitally important. In fact, I would say that Trump’s entertainment value is a wildly underrated political attribute.

A recent column in the Financial Times notes that in a 2016 paper, “...three anthropologists from the University of Colorado Boulder and University of Texas at Austin argued it was the fact that Trump was so entertaining, above all else, that won him the Republican nomination that year.”

Jemima Kelly, the FT columnist, goes on to note that “If there’s one thing the former president does have, it’s personality. It’s not that he’s likeable. No, Trump has a much rarer gift: he’s funny.”

I get that “funny” is a weird description for a guy who tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power, but let’s be honest, Trump is at least partly a stand-up comedian.

And while it might be convenient to assume that to his fans, the cruelty is the point, at least some of his fans think entertainment is the point. To them, Trump is an authentic class clown in a world full of boring rule-followers who spew scripted talking points.

This brings us back to Christie. Not only is he the only Republican who understands he is running against Trump, he’s the only candidate who comes close to matching him as an entertainer.

It might not be enough to sway Republican primary voters, but that’s on their collective conscience. Christie can’t control how voters will respond to his message. What he can control is how he delivers it.

And on that count, he’s hitting it out of the park.

Christie certainly knows how to keep Trump in the spotlight in an unflattering light. For example, he claims he can force Trump to debate on August 23, even though Trump has been hinting he won’t bring his standup routine and will sabotage it with a competing event. On Thursday, Christie told Bari Weiss that he’ll “shame” Trump into attending. “And quite frankly, he owes it to his voters and to all the voters in the Republican party to show up and debate. If he wants the honor of being the Republican nominee for President, he has an obligation to show up at those debates. But you know, ‘Oh, it’s not fair. It’s not fair to me. I’m so far ahead. Why should I let people talk about me?’ Because you decided to run for president. That’s why… You have to engage in this stuff and the American people and the Republican party voters have a right to hear you and to compare you side by side with the other people offering themselves. So we’ll continue to make that argument. And quite frankly, I think he’ll show up ’cause I don’t think his ego will permit him not to.”