Another day, another round of people close to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) shooting down the hopes of a GOP establishment desperate for him to run for president.
“The governor is not running for president,” Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (R) told reporters Monday, according to The Hill.
She wasn’t the only one. Aides are doing the same “nope” dance they did the last time all this “Christie For President” stuff came up.
Meanwhile, Tuesday night Christie is scheduled to give a speech at the Reagan Library entitled “Real American Exceptionalism” and summarized thusly in Politico this morning: “The speech uses President Reagan’s transformative leadership to depict how the United States’ role and significance in the world is defined by who we are at home.”
Cue the panting by the Republicans. A Christie adviser told the Wall Street Journal that Christie has received a “‘relentless’ stream of calls over the last week from prominent Republicans urging him to run.”
“None of that triggers any new thinking on his part,” the adviser told the WSJ. “He’s very polite to these people: ‘Thank you for calling. That’s very flattering. I’ll let you know.’ And I think they interpret that, ‘Ah-ha! A rethinking.'”
A spokesperson for the New Jersey Republican Party went on the record with ABC News Monday to say basically the same thing.
“Governor Christie is flattered that his accomplishments in New Jersey have received so much support from voters across the country but nothing has changed with regards to the Governor’s decision not to run for President in 2012,” Rick Gorka told ABC.
So there’s all that. Still, Christie is on a nationwide fundraising swing across the country that’s ending with the speech at that most hallowed of Republican ground, the Reagan Library. That, coupled with Rick Perry’s tanking support among the Republican establishment folks, makes the speculation that Christie might do something not completely crazy.
Guadagno, who’s been running the state as acting governor while Christie’s out of town, added a bit of fuel to the speculation even as she shut it down.
“I think the governor started something two years ago and we’ve got much further along in our agenda than we anticipated,” she told reporters according to Fox News. “I could easily get used to this, but I don’t think the governor is going to run for President.”
