By David Cruz
Correspondent
It all started so optimistically on a warm, sunny day in Sandown, N.H., after Chris Christie announced his presidential candidacy in Livingston, telling NJTV that he was “all in” in New Hampshire.
And ended on a freezing cold day in Nashua, yesterday.
“We’re going to go home to New Jersey tomorrow and take a deep breath, see what the final results are tonight because that matters,” he said. “So we want to see exactly what happens. And so we’re going to go back to New Jersey to wait. By tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, we should know.”
But even before the light of the morning, the writing was on the wall. The governor’s campaign — dependent as it was on a good showing in New Hampshire — failed to produce the needed momentum after nearly a year of visits. Almost 80 town halls and countless diner stops. In the end, he managed to secure less than 8 percent of the vote after a weekend that he thought had changed the race with an epic debate takedown of a then-surging Marco Rubio. That still threatens to undo the Florida senator’s campaign but, according to exit polls and pundits, may have actually hurt Christie while helping the two other governors in the race — Jeb Bush and John Kasich, both of whom finished well ahead of Christie.
You can take your pick of reasons for Christie’s loss. There are many. Donald Trump usurping Christie’s “telling it like it is” theme. The barrage of anti-Christie ads in the lead up to New Hampshire also seemed to have an effect.
And then there is the GWB lane closure scandal, which is still making headlines as the defendants, all former Christie allies or appointees, seek to implicate him further. It never seemed to come up much in campaign stops or the debates, but it clung to this campaign, like a faint, pungent odor that voters couldn’t identify but still gave them pause.