Double Down: Game Change 2012 (32 page)

“I talked to a number of people who had picked up the phone and called
Christie to tell him they thought that he ought to run,” Rove said. “I’m starting to pick up some sort of vibrations that these kinds of conversations are causing Christie . . . to tell the people who are calling him, ‘Well, you know what, I owe it to you. I think I will take a look at it.’”

On cable, on the Web, and in the political world writ large, Rove’s vague pronouncement stirred up a fuss. Two days later, Christie was asked about it at another Trenton press event. Feigning bafflement, he replied, “I listened to that four or five times . . . because I was interested to hear what he was saying . . . [My] answer isn’t changing and I don’t see any reason why it would.”

Christie was indeed interested in hearing what Rove had to say about his entering the race. So interested that the two already had a meeting inked in their calendars. For the day after tomorrow.

Rove rolled up in a town car in front of Christie’s family home in Mendham on the evening of August 19. He came directly from Fox, where he had pretaped a segment of
The O’Reilly Factor
in which he again talked up a Christie run. Now, as he took a seat at the kitchen table at 46 Corey Lane, Rove doffed his pundit’s beanie and donned his strategist’s chapeau—and spent the next three hours with the Christies, DuHaime, and Palatucci, running the traps on a Big Boy bid.

Rove addressed the central question first: Was it too late for Christie to get in? Not at all, Rove argued. In fact, it would probably be better to wait until late September, when there was a lull after the first three Republican debates. But, look, he went on, you can’t spend the next month sitting here like a monk, cloistered in the abbey. You need to spend the time in a way that lays down a predicate: consulting policy experts, setting in the foundation for a finance operation, reaching out to players in the early states.

Beyond that, Rove explained, Christie had to do more to stoke the rising fever among his fans. “You need to keep this thing fluid,” he said. Every day that goes by, bundlers, operatives, and electeds are making commitments to other candidates; to the degree people think that you might be getting in, it keeps them from signing on with someone else. “So put a little gasoline on the campfire,” Rove counseled. “Make certain the blaze is bright enough so that people can see it back in the woods.”

Christie asked Rove about Romney point-blank: Can I take him?

I think you can, Rove said. But this won’t be about winning any one state or picking off votes here and there. For you to win, you have to galvanize people around the country. “You’ve got to blow a couple of pylons off of the edifice called Romney by being a northeastern governor who actually has confidence, consistency, compassion, and energy,” Rove said. You can do it by just being yourself: the tough-talking straight shooter who took on the teachers’ union in New Jersey. And if you pull that off, you can be credible in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida—and everywhere else.

Christie hoisted up his and Mary Pat’s reservations. Rove shot them down one by one. On fund-raising: “Langone is a bullshit artist,” Karl said affectionately, but he’s a significant guy who can raise a lot, and money’s not going to be your problem anyway. On betraying New Jersey voters by abandoning them to chase a grander ambition: Clinton did it, Bush did it, Perry’s doing it now; voters are in on that joke. On the fear that if Christie ran and lost, it would make his reelection in the Garden State tougher: Sure, Rove said, but there’s a solution to that: “Don’t run and lose!”

Rove had the sense that Mary Pat was warming to the idea, but that DuHaime and Palatucci were wary. As for Christie himself, Karl couldn’t quite tell. When Rove went to leave, the governor accompanied him to the door, and they stood talking on the porch for another half an hour. I think I understand why all this is happening, Christie said. People keep telling me that our country is at risk and I’m the one who can save it. But I gotta say, I’m not sure I’m ready.

I get that, Rove said. But we’re talking about the presidency here. “There’s a difference between feeling like you’re
ready
for the job and that you can
do
the job. Do you think you can do the job?”

“Probably,” Christie replied.

“Well, the guy we’ve got in there now is clearly not up to it,” Rove said. “And you’d be a hell of a lot better than him.”

•   •   •

T
HE LOCUS OF ROVE’S LOW
regard landed at Newark airport, disembarked from Air Force One, and met Christie on the tarmac. It was September 4, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, and Obama was in New Jersey to survey the damage from Hurricane Irene, which had torn its way up the East Coast
at the end of August. Four days earlier, the president had declared the Garden State a disaster area. More than $1 billion in damage had been inflicted on 200,000 homes and buildings, making Irene the costliest natural calamity in New Jersey history.

Obama and Christie hadn’t spent much time together, but they greeted each other warmly, locking arms and patting shoulders. The picture they presented was a study in physical and political contrasts. Next to Christie, Obama resembled a stick figure; next to Obama, Christie looked like a dirigible. On the heels of the debt-ceiling fracas, Obama’s popularity and potency were at low ebb; in the midst of the will-he-or-won’t-he guessing game, Christie’s were at new heights. Christie thought Obama was an atrocious chief executive, passive and disengaged, but he knew that the president’s caginess and magnetism would make him tough to beat. Obama had devoted less thought to his companion as a potential opponent, but his advisers saw the dangers in Christie’s blue-collar-friendly charisma. Though Plouffe believed that an entry this late would be absurd, Messina thought there was no harm in being prepared. From Corzine’s old team he cadged a hard drive filled with Christie oppo—and the stuff was pure gold.

As Obama and Christie toured the flood-ravaged towns of Paterson and Wayne, they fell into an easy repartee. Born a year apart, both were clever, able to charm at will, and irritated by pointless posturing. Publicly praising each other, they privately kibitzed about their kids. (Christie’s daughters, Sarah and Bridget, were close in age to Sasha and Malia.) After being ferried from spot to spot on Marine One for four hours, they returned to Newark, and Christie walked Obama to Air Force One.

“You’re not coming on there with me, too, are you?” the president inquired teasingly.

“Only if you ask,” Christie said.

“No, you can finish here,” Obama teased again, then flew back to Washington. When his aides wanted to know what he made of Christie, Obama grinned and said, “He’s a
big
man.”

The blanket coverage of the president and the governor in tandem only pumped more air into the rapidly inflating Christie boomlet. And so did Christie’s latest viral sensation: a video of him as the storm bore down, scolding seaside residents who were ignoring orders to evacuate. “Get the
hell off the beach in Asbury Park!” he commanded. “It’s four thirty—you’ve maximized your tan. Get. Off. The. Beach.”

With reporters on the lookout for any small shard of Christie-related news, a rather large one plopped into their laps: an announcement by the Reagan Library that the governor would be delivering a major speech there on September 27. The appearance, in fact, had been on Christie’s schedule since April, when he received a handwritten invitation from Nancy Reagan. But that was beside the point. Rove had advised Christie to sprinkle some gas on the campfire. With Perry stumbling through the three September debates and anti-Romney Republicans fanning the embers, Big Boy’s library address was tantamount to a hogshead of petrol.

On September 24, the
New York Post
declared that Christie was “thinking about becoming the new face in the race” and quoted a Republican source asserting, “He’ll decide this week.” Former New Jersey governor Tom Kean, who decades earlier had mentored a teenage Christie and was now one of his informal advisers, told
National Review,
“It’s real. He’s giving it a lot of thought. I think the odds are a lot better now than they were a couple weeks ago.”

The billionaires’ club was getting the same impression from its closed-door talks with Christie. A few days before the Reagan Library event, Christie sat down with Langone, Druckenmiller, and Joel Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor who was now one of Murdoch’s top lieutenants. The clock was ticking, Christie said. Given the hubbub surrounding the speech, he would need to decide soon after. The kinds of questions he was asking, his tone and body language, left his suitors feeling optimistic. Back at News Corp, Klein told Murdoch, I think he’s gonna play.

With word leaking out that Christie’s speech would be not about New Jersey but about America’s role in the world, speculation mounted that he might announce his candidacy then and there. His hosts at the library hoped that it was true. Even in her nineties, Mrs. Reagan remained a canny observer of the political scene and voracious consumer of political gossip. Christie’s strength and take-charge attitude had impressed her from afar (and she was not easily impressed). The library’s executive director, John Heubusch, a former Republican operative and Capitol Hill staffer, orchestrated the proceedings to give Christie a gentle nudge toward making news.

On the appointed day, the Christies arrived a bit early for a tour of the museum, beaming and holding hands. Lacking time for the full circuit, Heubusch made sure to plant them in the Legacy Theater to view the three-and-a-half-minute film on Reagan—a slick and emotional distillation of his life. The fortieth president was the first Christie had voted for, as a freshman in college; his reverence for Dutch was deep. As Christie exited the theater, Heubusch was pleased to see tears in his eyes. He ushered the governor to sit with Mrs. Reagan, whose well-practiced flattery bowled her guest over.

Before the speech, Heubusch, who would moderate the Q&A afterwards, asked Christie if he should kick things off by posing the obvious query.

Nah, Christie answered after thinking for a second. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen naturally. Just let it come from the audience.

Christie’s speech, titled “Real American Exceptionalism,” was bracing and solid, including a brisk critique of Obama as “a bystander in the Oval Office.” But the Q&A session was something else. The second question was the inevitable one; Christie brushed it off, encouraging the audience to visit Politico’s website, where a video compendium of his expressions of lack of presidential interest had been compiled. The last questioner, however, raised the topic again—from the balcony, with great feeling.

“We can’t wait another four years to 2016,” said a middle-aged woman, her daughter beside her. “I really implore you, as a citizen of this country, to please, sir, to reconsider. Go home and really think about it. Please. Do it for my daughter, do it for our grandchildren, do it for our sons.”

The audience sprang to its feet and roared applause. At the podium, Christie dropped his head and faintly buckled in the face of that rarest thing in politics: a genuine, spontaneous moment.

“I hear exactly what you’re saying, and I feel the passion with which you say it, and it touches me,” Christie said. “It’s extraordinarily flattering. But by the same token, that heartfelt message you gave me is also not a reason for me to do it. That reason has to reside inside me.”

•   •   •

C
HRISTIE’S DANCE OF
the seven hundred veils was starting to wear on Boston. Nervous all along watching the Big Boy shuffle, the Romneyites had taken comfort in the judgment of Schriefer, who talked regularly with
Christie and his people and heard nothing but mollifying mewling. Now, though, between the press reports he was reading and subtle telephonic wavering from Trenton, Russ slipped into doubt. After months of maintaining regular contact, Beeson’s friend DuHaime suddenly had gone dark.

Christie’s behavior had long rankled Stevens the most, and now it was working his last nerve. A few days after the governor’s Simi Valley samba, Stuart phoned Palatucci in a huff.

What’s the governor of New Jersey doing at the Reagan Library? Stevens demanded to know.

He was asked by Mrs. Reagan, Palatucci replied. And when she asks, you have to go.

“The fuck you have to go!” cried Stevens. This is the problem with your whole operation. You’re sitting in Jim McGreevey’s seat, Christie Whitman’s seat, Jim Florio’s seat, Jon Corzine’s seat. And where are they now? “He’s the governor of
New Jersey,
” Stevens said. “There will be another governor of New Jersey.”

Stevens had been certain from the start that Christie would not run. That the flirtation was a charade, an exercise in self-pleasuring. If Christie gets in the race, Stevens told Palatucci, he’ll be out by the Super Bowl. And if he isn’t going to run, he’s doing needless damage to his brand.

“You’re killing Chris Christie,” Stevens said. You’re turning him into Mario Cuomo—Hamlet on the other side of the Hudson.

When Palatucci told the governor of Stevens’s tirade, Christie scoffed. He barely knew Stuart and didn’t much like him; Schriefer was his guy. And while Russ was also arguing, if more tactfully, that it was inadvisable for Christie to run, he dismissed those views, too.
No shit they think it’s a bad idea if I get in!
Christie thought.
They work for Romney. It’s a bad idea for
them
if I get in!

Before returning from California, Christie told Palatucci he planned to lie low for the weekend ahead, October 1–2, and think through his decision. Tell people they shouldn’t call me or bother me or ask for updates—just leave me alone, Christie said.

In measuring the pros and cons, Christie faced a divided household on Corey Lane. None of his four children were in favor of him running; only Andrew expressed even the slightest openness to it. But in the weeks since
the Langone meeting, Mary Pat’s apprehensions had abated. Early one recent morning, Chris had awoken from a sound sleep to find her wide awake, staring at him. “What’s up? What’s wrong?” he asked. And out of her mouth popped something she had never said before: if he was in, she was, too. “Don’t worry about me and the kids,” she said. “It’ll be hard, but we’ll be okay.”