US ELECTIONS/ Christie's No & What It Means

“I could vote for Christie,” a friend who has never before voted for a Republican said to me yesterday. “He doesn’t sound like a tape recording.” Alas, unless my friend intends to move to New Jersey, he won’t be voting for Gov. Christie anytime soon.

Gov. Christie’s decision not to run for president should leave most GOP leaders with a pit in the bottom of their stomachs. They look at the crop of candidates and have to ask, “Is this the best we can do?” With President Obama vulnerable on account of the still anemic economy, and the GOP base fired up, 2012 should be a good year for the Republicans but you can’t beat someone with no one and, so far, none of the GOP contenders has been able to catch fire and keep it going for more than a month. Cong. Michele Bachmann entered the race and moved up in the polls, then deflated. Gov. Rick Perry entered the race, and even shot to the top of the polls, but he, too, has plummeted in the past couple of weeks.

Voters consider several things when they go into the voting booth. Obviously, many voters think about certain issues that are especially important to them and where the candidates stand on those issues. Others, although they are disproportionately over-represented in professional campaign circles, worry about electability. But, in the end, voters cast their ballot for a person.

Long gone are the days when party platforms actually mattered. In 1948, the Democratic Party split apart not when President Harry S. Truman was re-nominated but when the convention amended the party platform to include a strong civil rights plank. These days, party platforms are used to appease special interest groups, inserting their desired language on any given issue. They are rarely referred to by the candidate and they are certainly not blueprints for governance. This is regrettable, no doubt, but in our star-studded culture, the media focus tends to shift away from particular approaches to any given issue and instead focus on the personality of the candidates.

Personality was Christie’s trump card. The man comes across as authentic. His comments yesterday about the many late night comedians who made fun of his weight were indicative of the man. Christie was not defensive. He said he thought some of the jokes were funny and, quite rightly, said that funniness is the proper criterion for judging humor, not whether or not a politician is offended. Sometimes Christie’s blunt style crosses a line and he appears like a bully, but most times he appears to be a straight shooter who is comfortable in his own skin. It was this, not his stance on the issues, that had so many Republicans pining for him to run. Indeed, on many issues, Christie would have been the most liberal candidate in the race. But, those urging him to get into the race banked on the theory that his personality would help him appeal to the GOP base even if they disagreed with him on certain issues.