The New York Post now reports that after GOPers all but getting on their knees and pleading with him to run for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination New York Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is poised to announce he’ll run next week.
After months of hedging, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is giving serious thought to jumping into the ring for a GOP presidential run — and could make his decision next week, The Post has learned.
The announcement may come as soon as Monday, said sources familiar with Christie’s thinking.
Haven’t we here at TMV run this sentence before? That doesn’t mean it can’t be true this time, but if it doesn’t happen, are we allowed to just redate this post and put it on top again in two weeks?The renewed consideration about a White House run came after prodding this week from some Republicans he idolizes, including former First Lady Nancy Reagan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former President George W. Bush, sources said.
“It’s more than just flattering,” a source close to Christie said, adding they helped convince Christie that he not only could win, but that he has what it takes to be president.
Only the pugnacious, popular Christie could pull off such a complete 180 from his blustering denial of interest less than a year ago.
“Short of suicide, I don’t really know what I’d have to do to convince you people that I’m not running. I’m not running!” Christie thundered on Nov. 4, 2010.
Christie pals said the pol’s “mind-blowing” experience at the Reagan library in California Tuesday changed his thinking.
“We need you. Your country needs you to run for president,” one woman pleaded after Christie’s moving speech there.
In other words, the big and not so big name flattery made everything else inoperative.
So if this is to believed he really , really, really wants to run — this is not just another news piece that seems to hype up the news outlet or reporters’ hopes or the anonymous sources’ in the story’s hopes that he’ll run.
What would that say about Christie’s decision process given how definitive he was about him not being “ready” for the job yet and what was in his heart? In the course of a few weeks he could suddenly be ready for the job he say he wasn’t ready for? And his heart?
Of course that changes often with politicians who have a habit of all but saying “never mind” when they say they won’t run and then when the feel political winds on their side change their mind. But won’t a flip flop after such emphatic denials before be considered a mite Romnesque for some?
But the Post piece says he is really serious this time.
Really.
Really.
If he runs here is a fact: he is unusual enough and not a cookie cutter Tea Party Republican so he would have a shot at wooing independent voters. And Barack Obama might hope that his Republican foes quickly turn him into another Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani or Rick Perry or at least close to it before he is nominated.
Really.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.