Christie pops up to back Trump
All camps focus on Tuesday
FORT WORTH — Donald Trump scored an endorsement Friday from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ahead of next week’s “Super Tuesday” election contests.
Christie caught the room by surprise when he stepped out to join Trump at a Fort Worth news conference.
“I’ve gotten to know all the people on that stage and there is none who is better prepared to provide America with the strong leadership that it needs both at home and around the world than Donald Trump,” Christie said. “I can guarantee you that the one person that Hillary and Bill Clinton do not want to see on that stage come next September is Donald Trump.”
Trump afterward hit upon Marco Rubio, who had focused his attacks on the businessman during the candidates’ debate the night before.
Trump called the first-term U.S. senator from Florida “a nervous basket case,” “a choke artist,” “a frightened little puppy” and joked about the size of his ears.
Earlier, Rubio had joked that Trump might have wet his pants backstage on debate night.
“This is a lowlife,” Trump said of Rubio, not leaving out U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. “Cruz lies, but at least it’s reasonable lies.”
Trump has won three consecutive nominating contests and looks strong in many of the 11 states participating in Tuesday’s round of voting.
Later in the day, Trump picked up another gubernatorial endorsement, from Maine Gov. Paul LePage. He told a radio talk show that Trump “wants to make America great again” and “is the only one doing that right now.”
Cruz said the Christie endorsement had little impact on his own focus on Super Tuesday. He suggested the development was “troubling news” for Rubio’s campaign, which had been courting the New Jersey governor since he dropped his own presidential candidacy earlier in the month.
Instead of securing a new ally, Rubio found himself on the wrong end of Christie’s attacks.
“Desperate people do desperate things,” Christie said of Rubio while standing at Trump’s side. “The idea that Marco Rubio can get inside Donald Trump’s head is an interesting proposition.”
Christie’s support marked a reversal from his previous comments on Trump: “I just don’t think he’s suited to be president of the United States,” Christie told Fox News in August. “I don’t think his temperament is suited for that and I don’t think his experience is.”
Acknowledging “a sense of urgency,” Rubio continued where he left off Thursday night as he campaigned in Oklahoma.
“We have a con artist as the front-runner in the Republican Party,” Rubio charged during an Oklahoma City rally. He also described a backstage encounter with Trump the night before during which Trump requested a full-length mirror “maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet.”
At roughly the same time in Texas, Trump drew cheers after sharing his own backstage encounter with Rubio: “He was putting on makeup with a trowel,” Trump said. “I will not say that he was trying to cover up his ears.”
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton claimed new headway on the eve of a South Carolina Democratic primary that she’s expected to win handily.
“I think it does take me a little bit longer to get into the rhythm of campaigning,” she said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. ”We hit our stride in Nevada. Our message of breaking all barriers is really beginning to take hold. I really felt we were on an upward trajectory.”
Even if the Republican-backed Trump attacks don’t work in the short term, Clinton suggested he’d be vulnerable as the GOP nominee in the fall.
“When it moves to the general election, I think you’re going to see a real seriousness,” she said, “with people turning and saying, ‘What do we know about this man?’”
There was little sign that
Trump’s stock was falling at the Fort Worth rally where supporters gathered.
“They come prepared to attack Trump at all costs,” said Arlene Smart, 58, of Liberty, Texas. “I’m sick of lying in Washington. Trump is the man. That’s all there is to it.”
“I think most people see it as Washington’s crooked attacks,” she added.
DEMOCRATS AIM FOR SOUTH
For the Democrats, the week was a time to gear up for Super Tuesday but also home in on South Carolina, which holds its primary today.
As Clinton barnstormed across the state this week, Bernie Sanders was on a tour of middle America in preparation for Super Tuesday. He popped back for a few events ahead of polling but was set to end today in Minnesota by the time polling finishes. He will stop off in Texas today on his way to Minnesota.
“There are some states that we are going to lose. But the race goes on,” Sanders said. “We are closing the gap very, very significantly.”
Preference polls suggest Clinton has an advantage in the South among black voters. Similar electorates will vote in Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas on Tuesday, in Louisiana on March 5 and in Mississippi on March 8.
Sanders’ radio and television ads highlight his civil-rights work as a college student in the 1960s, when he was arrested for protesting segregated housing in Chicago. This week, while leaving South Carolina largely to Clinton, he visited the majority black city of Flint, Mich., where he listened to residents’ stories of living with a lead-poisoned water system.
Of a previous Flint visit, he said this week, “It was almost impossible for me to believe that I was listening to people in the United States of America in the year 2016.” And during a rally this week at Chicago State University, Sanders drew a crowd of 6,500 that was notably more racially diverse than many of his events.
Clinton, too, has visited Flint and speaks of it often in the South — doing so again Friday in Atlanta, where she campaigned with the city’s mayor, Kasim Reed. He reminded the crowd of Clinton joining President Barack Obama’s Cabinet despite their bitter 2008 primary. When the president-elect called, Reed said, “she put her walking shoes on.”
“I’m sick of lying in Washington. Trump is the man. That’s all there is to it.”
Arlene Smart, 58, of Liberty, Texas, a supporter of businessman Donald Trump for the Republican nomination Article,