HUDSON, N.H. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says his 2013 race against a female opponent has helped prepare him for a potential campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The likely Republican presidential contender was asked during a town hall event in New Hampshire Monday evening why he believed he would be well-suited to run against the favorite for the Democratic nomination if he chooses to run and wins his party’s nomination.
Among his reasons, Christie cited his commanding victory over Democrat Barbara Buono during his re-election campaign.
“Everybody thought, ‘Oh no, no … look at this … this is going to be bad. Christie’s gonna lose his cool. This woman’s yelling at him all the time. He’s going to yell back at her. It’s going to ugly really fast and he’s going to lose,'” Christie recalled.
“I think that experience of campaigning under that kind of stress, in that atmosphere, against that type of opponent, prepares you extraordinarily well to be able to run against Secretary Clinton, if that’s what I chose to do,” he said.
Christie, who has been working to move past the George Washington Bridge scandal, also suggested that he’d been held to a different standard that Clinton, who has come under scrutiny for using a private email server when she was secretary of state. He said that, as a Republican, he believes he would have faced far greater scrutiny had he done the same thing.
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