New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Thursday challenged his party to do what is necessary to win elections while seemingly taking a jab at a fellow Republican governor, according to media reports.
Christie made the remarks in a closed-door meeting of the Republican National Committee in Boston, but attendees provided quotes to both NBC News and Time.
“See I’m in this business to win,” Christie said, according to Time. “I’m in it to win. I think that we have some folks who believe that our job is to be college professors. College professors are fine I guess. Being a college professor is — they basically spout out ideas but nobody ever does anything about them. For our ideas to matter we have to win. Because if we don’t win, we don’t govern. And if we don’t govern, all we do is shout into the wind.”
Christie’s public embrace of President Barack Obama following Hurricane Sandy — a week before last year’s presidential election — caused many Republicans to bristle. But the New Jersey governor indicated that he has no intention to disparage the GOP.
“I am not going to come and call you the stupid party,” he said, according to NBC. “The election is over and we need to move on.”
Some have interpreted that as a dig at Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), who has said multiple times in the months following last year’s elections that the GOP must stop being the “stupid party.”
