i m john joined by bob engel. thank you for joining us. i want to hear about the governor s reaction last night and then we ll talk. okay. now, if they had flown that plane over that beach, and i was sitting in e to a 25-year-old blonde in that beach chair next to me, that s the story. i wasn t sitting next to a 25-year-old blonde. i was sitting next to my wife of 31 years, surrounded by my children and some of their best friends. if that s a scandal, that s a scandal i m guilty of every day of my life. we have been joking a lot about this because in a way it was funny seeing the pictures of them on the beach, when the beaches were closed and his reaction to it. but a lot of people were affected by the closures and upset about it. but that right there, that was classic christie, give us some context. we know that christie has a low rating in new jersey before this incident. how are people reacting to this
candidate after another candidate after another candidate that everybody wrote off as dead. richard nixon i think one of the most fascinating things, lost the governor s race actually had the political obituary of richard nixon. time magazine said point blank he would never ever hold office again. he s president of the united states six years later. we see it time and time again. and nixon and part of what made him endear was he always understood where the people were. or at least where just enough of them were. and so the question is does christie have that sensibility, did jeb. and i think that is the real interesting question. it s getting crowded for jeb. it is. marco rubio, chris christie it s getting crowded. it is. you wonder if that helps the brand name though. so chris christie didn t just go after the frontrunner.
watch. christie rubio, walker are talented politicians who all won races they were supposed to lose, have won repeatedly in tough states. democrats usually have taltal lebt talented politicians. i wrote about this last month, everybody said christie was dead. is this all preseason. i wrote him and i was like hey, you know what nobody knows if he can it will the curve ball until you get up to the plate and they throw you the curve ball. i think he can. i think it will be interesting if the investigation stays away from him, i think there is an interesting thing going on with jeb bush and marco rubio and chris christie. there will be a crowding out. failure of jeb bush to totally dominate and crowd out the field, that was their plan. look, he s still formidable. if you had to bet a one person,
them. you thought when he announced in december that he would be but it seems to me that train has slowed down pretty significantly from what i ve seen out and around the country. it will speed up again when it jumps full force. none of it matters, to see people perform under these lights. under some lights maybe not official campaign lights jeb bush raised 100 million$100 million in the first quarter, steve. what i suspect christie is thinking about. under the lights what he s thinking about, he s thinking about the first debate. he s thinking about being up there on the stage with jeb bush, rand paul and ted cruz and thinking about he has, always what struck me about christie, he has extraordinary confidence and well placed. he has extraordinary confidence in his ability as an off the cuff performer in exactly that kind of setting. it s how he became a political star back in 2010 when he was
starting out as governor. it was these spontaneous youtube moments he would talk to and erupt with a reporter at town hall or whatever and it became a viral sensation, national following. he thinks he will have one of those moments on that stage. looks at his rivals. do you think he can wait that long? he can do stuff between now and then but think back to 2012. newt gingrich third place in south carolina he has one of the debate moments with john king and suddenly beats mitt romney in 2012. we saw those moments, if you can connect with that raw nerve of the republican or democratic electorate, you can take off fast. i think that s probably where christie is headed on this. hillary clinton is going to be going to new hampshire monday tuesday, which surprises probably exactly no one. i guess i wonder i want to quote a line from your piece. who do you, it seems one hand that the clinton campaign would most like to run against jeb bush. on the other hand, he seems like