The Obama reelection campaign is digging for ?dirt? on Republican Chris Christie, the New York Post reported Monday, despite the New Jersey governor’s repeated pronouncements that he will not be a candidate for President in 2012. The campaign team is doing “opposition research” in case Christie changes his mind, the Post said in reporting the “Obama operatives are compiling a dossier” on the governor. “Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, did not respond to messages,” the report said.
The Post said the effort has been kept under wraps, with the reelection team talking by phone to people in New Jersey and New York who know Christie from his days as U.S. attorney, as well as from his 2009 gubernatorial campaign and as governor since January of last year. Public awareness of an anti-Christie operation by the Democrats could increase support for the governor among Republicans who have already been encouraging him to run. House Speaker John Boehner and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger are among the leading Christie boosters, the Post reported. Yet Christie has consistently denied any plan to seek his party’s nomination for President and has shown frustration with repeated queries on the subject.
“Short of suicide,” he has said, “I don’t really know what I’d have to do to convince you people that I’m not running. I’m not running.”
But there continues to be talk from party leaders and GOP donors that Christie will consider a late entry into the race if he can get part of his pension reform passed this year and help Republicans this November win a majority of seats in at least one of the two houses of the Legislature now controlled by the Democrats. But speculation about a Christie run for the White House remains wishful thinking within the Grand Old Party, Mike DuHaime, a spokesman for the governor told the Post.
“He is not running and he is not cracking the door the door open eve a little bit,” DuHaime said. If the Obama team is investigating Christie, he said, it shows recognition by the Democrats that Christie is a “bold leader successfully on big challenges as governor. A governor who cuts spending and takes on the special interests tends to earn notice at the highest levels.”
Voting for Presidential candidates in recent election years has started quite early, as both Iowa with its caucuses and New Hampshire with the first primaries move the dates up to stay ahead of the competition from other states. Last year both states held their intensely watched voting in the first week of January. If Christie does plan to launch a campaign after the November elections, he will have precious little time to catch up to candidates will have been in the race for the better part of a year by then.
The Post quoted an unnamed consultant to Obama’s 2008 campaign on the need to be prepared in case Christie should decide to take the plunge. It would be irresponsible for them to not start looking at it,” the consultant said. “It would be malpractice for them not to.”
Photo: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks during Harvard University Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Mass., April 29, 2011: AP Images
