By David Cruz
Correspondent
The Stop Chris Christie PAC announced this week that it was disbanding. No need for them to stop Chris Christie, they say; the governor has stopped himself, failing to make any headway in the polls, including the latest Quinnipiac Poll, which showed him ninth in the field, with 4 percent, pretty much where he’s been since he announced.
“These polls don’t mean anything right now. What matters is what matters to the American people,” said Christie at a CBS show.
Christie insists he is undaunted, explaining rightly that he’s within the margin of error of being in the top three, fully six months before the first primary ballots are cast in New Hampshire.
When asked on Morning Joe how he gains traction with all of this madness going on, Christie said, “You just keep working. The bottom line is the way this works is the one who wins these primaries is the ones who work the hardest, develop an organization and then get the vote out.”
This week, the governor was seemingly everywhere. There he was on Morning Joe on MSNBC, Here he is on Fox, CNBC and CBS, even answering — albeit reluctantly — questions about frontrunner Donald Trump.
“I was watching him the other night when I got to Iowa and he’s just kind of stream of consciousness talking and he says ‘you know what I’m really good at that nobody writes about. What I’m really good at? Military. I’m good at that. I’m a tough guy, right?’ And everybody cheers, well ok, I don’t know exactly what that means but what people are relating to is the fact that they don’t like what’s going on in Washington right now,” said Christie.
At the moment the governor is treading water and his team says they are making inroads in New Hampshire and even Iowa, where he picked up the endorsement of the state’s House speaker. Christie released another web ad this week, trying out a new theme.
“What I believe is that we’re elected to enforce the law,” said Christie.
“They’re frustrated by a president who has permitted lawlessness in this country and now they have the leading democratic candidate who believes the law doesn’t apply to her.” he said.
“This president has set a standard in Washington of lawlessness,” Christie said.
The Christie camp believes that the Trump phenomenon is temporary, burning bright now but unsustainable under serious scrutiny. They believe that all the leg work the governor’s done this summer and plans to do throughout the fall will put him in a good position to benefit from a field that will eventually thin once primary voters start to really pay attention.
Some pundits have suggested that Christie to call it a day, end his campaign and get back to his day job in New Jersey. But the Christie camp insists that this is a marathon and that — despite what the numbers may say — their guy is exactly where he needs to be at this point in the race.