The current government closure and state of the Republican party is a “dream” for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, argued Monday’s Morning Joe panel.
“This is just going like a dream for him. Every Republican in Washington is getting destroyed; the party is looking terrible,” the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein said. “If they manage to screw themselves up in the mid-term…at that point you might have a party that is really willing to say: ‘We just need somebody who can win.’ ”
Christie did not make the Top 5 list of Republicans in the recent presidential straw poll at the 2013 Values Voter Summit. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won with 42% of the votes. Dr. Ben Carson, former governor of Pennsylvania Rick Santorum, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida followed.
“None of those people in the Top 5 list, they’re not going to win a nomination next time,” host Joe Scarborough said, noting that Christie is the first pro-life governor of New Jersey since the landmark abortion decision, Roe v. Wade, became law in 1973.
The blue state’s governor has an almost 2 to 1 lead over his Democratic opponent, Barbara Buono, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released last week.
That contrasts with the drubbing Republicans are taking nationally — a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Americans have a 53% negative view of the GOP.
“If I was in the Senate right now, I’d kill myself,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Christie saying.
The Republican party reached its lowest favorable rating last week as only 28% percent of the country said they approve of its leaders, a Gallup poll found. That’s the lowest rating since Gallup began surveying Americans’ approval in 1992.
The gubernatorial election is set for Nov. 5.