By Joe Seldner
A delegation of prominent Iowa Republican businessmen is planning to meetwith Chris Christie at the governor’s mansion in Princeton on May 31 to tryto persuade New Jersey’s first term governor to run for president in 2012.
(Iowa’s caucus is the first meaningful event in the presidential primaryseason which is why they are making the trip to the Garden State.)
I hope they succeed in their mission. I hope so because I am a staunchObama backer.
Iowa is a lovely place. I’ve been there many times. But it’s far away fromNew Jersey, and this group of business leaders clearly knows and loves theimage they have of Christie rather than the reality.
”He’s a get-in-your-face type of guy. Real leadership and no BS,”proclaimed Gary Kirke, a Des Moines entrepreneur who will be at themeeting.
Bruce Rastetter, an Iowa energy company executive, praised Christie’s”blunt, direct leadership style. You always know where he stands, what hemeans. You don’t need an interpreter.”
You’re correct Bruce. You don’t need an interpreter. A bodyguard perhaps,but not an interpreter.
All these Republicans who yearn for Christie to get into the race areunhappy with the current field of candidates and possible candidates. Canyou blame them? Newt Gingirch. Michelle Bachmann. Ron Paul. Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain. Even Mitt Romney? These are not particularlyinspiring and sometimes comical choices on their own,and even less compelling when contrasted with a cool and accomplishedcustomer like President Obama.
So Chris Christie, with his Tony Soprano subtlety and over-rehearsedinauthentic “bluntness,” seems both refreshing when set against the GOPfield and distinctive in a campaign against the unflappable Obama. Thechoice, stylistically at least, would be clear. Here’s a governor who amongother things, believes people should blame teachers, some of the lowestpaid, hardest working people around, for many of our problems. Interestingstrategy, governor.
Christie has said repeatedly he won’t run in 2012, adding just recently,”I’m a kid from Jersey who has people asking him to run for president, I’mthrilled by it. I just don’t want to do it.”
Don’t believe it for a second. Christie loves every minute of the attentionand it’s odd that someone so “blunt” is so “aw shucks” when it comes toquestions about his political ambitions. He has a sumo-sizedego and doesn’t pull off this humble thing well. My money is squarely onhim running. Place your bets.
And as I say, I hope he does. One of the reasons Obama won in 2008 is thathe never lost his cool. When the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy swirledaround for weeks, Obama made eloquent speeches about race in America. WhenHillary Clinton then ran TV ads implying Obama couldn’t be trusted to takethat dreaded 3 .a.m national security call, whatever that was supposed tobe, he just kept on keeping on.
And when Obama orchestrated the raid that took out bin laden, that calmdetermination prevailed.
The Iowans, and many other Republicans, want someone to take on Obama onstyle as much as policy. They think that “get-in-your-face type of guy.Real leadership and no BS” will fire people up, and maybe, just maybe, makeObama lose his cool.
When compared with Bachmann’s lack of knowledge, Romney’s lack ofconviction, and so on, Christie does look good.
But can you imagine the ad Obama would run about Christie taking that 3a.m. call, screaming into the phone, blaming whatever the call is about onteachers unions?
We in Jersey elected Christie. Our bad. Some of us are watching him evolveinto a media superstar with a combination of amazement and concern.
Being confrontational and nasty plays well for a brief time. It isn’t astrategy for governing. But it seems to be working for him for now.
Christie’s bluntness will wear thin quickly. It already is here, and itwill in Iowa even faster. See how far Rudy Guiliani got employing thein-your-face approach.
Apparently this Iowa group is being likened to activists who urged GeorgeW. Bush, then the Texas governor, to run in 2000.
Now that’s a scary comparison.
But I say, run Chris. You will anyway. Go to Iowa. Go to New Hampshire. Getin their faces. It’ll be a short campaign.
Joe Seldner is a Princeton-based writer andproducer.

