Ex-Romney aide Williams breaks down Christie’s woes
Republican consultant Ryan Williams, an aide to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, offered some choice insights on embattled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” yesterday:
Q: Chris Christie shut down the beaches because of a sort of stalemate in the budget process in New Jersey and then was photographed on the beach himself.
A: Well, it seems for Chris Christie, a 15 percent approval rating is very liberating and he doesn’t need to really care about his appearance. Obviously it was a terrible move, it made him look very out of touch. I don’t think he really cares anymore. He’s turned out. His approval rating is the lowest of any governor in the nation, and this is a guy who likes the finer things associated with the politics. He likes the private jet flights to locations. We had it on the Romney campaign. He always ate at the nicest restaurants and I’m sure he felt that he was entitled to that beach house no matter what happens. So he did it and I don’t think he particularly cares about the blowback.
Q: Maybe it’s a race to the bottom, you know? How low can his numbers go before he’s out?
A: You’re down to blood relatives and friends at 15 percent, so I’m not sure how much lower it can go.
Q: So Chris Christie, when Romney asked him to come out and do an event or whatever, would make sure that he would go to the best restaurants?
A: Oh yeah. He had very specific demands. So we had a number of governors and senators who campaigned for Mitt in the 2012 campaign and some of them were in on it for the cause, they would get on a commercial flight and go to whatever state he wanted them to. Gov. Christie, it had to be a private plane flown out of Teterboro to wherever he was going, had to have, I believe, prime rib ordered on some of the flights back to New Jersey, eat at nice restaurants, stay at nice hotels. Yeah. I mean, he was a big deal back then, if you recall. He was the star, he thought about running and he declined to run. So when he made a surrogate appearance it was very costly for the campaign ... he wasn’t your stiff typical politician. That seems like a long time ago, though because that’s when Chris Christie was very popular. And of course don’t forget he got a speech at the convention, the keynote speech. I think he waited about 27 minutes before he even mentioned Mitt’s name in the speech ... but he used that speech to focus on his favorite topic, which was himself.