Fighting for something bigger than Chris Christie

OPINION:

Well, that was quite a splash.

Just days before the Iowa caucuses, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced Wednesday that he is taking his 3 percentage points in the Republican polls and going home. I would have said that he is taking all his “chips” and going home, but I am trying my best not to make food references in this column about Chris Christie quitting his presidential campaign.

Either way, Mr. Christie’s marathon has been run. The party is over.

It was a whale of a campaign! But now you can stick a fork in him!

Mr. Christie made his announcement in dramatic fashion at a town hall in New Hampshire, where he is polling slightly better than his 3 points in Iowa. He had a bigger tub of chips in New Hampshire, so, naturally, that’s where we found him.

It was a dramatic speech timed to make the evening news. He spoke gravely, as if he were hosting the Last Supper. It was a soul-wrenching speech in which he extolled his love-hate relationship with Donald Trump, who often cruelly ridicules Mr. Christie for his gargantuan weight.

“Ambition,” Mr. Christie said, is a good thing in politics. It’s what gets politicians out of bed. But then, he said, ambition is also bad.

So, it’s like pizza. Sometimes it’s really good. Sometimes it’s bad. He did not say “pizza,” but I am just trying to help him make his point about ambition sometimes being good and sometimes being bad.

He was, of course, talking about Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Christie ran against in 2016 before growing weary. Mr. Christie quit that race and immediately endorsed Mr. Trump, hoping for a plum job in the Trump White House. (You can make jellies, fruit pies and probably even pizza with good, ripe plums.)

“I knew his flaws,” Mr. Christie said. “But I knew he was gonna win the nomination, so I decided that I would get behind him and support him.

“I let the ambition get ahead — and in control — of the decision-making,” Mr. Christie said of his 2016 love phase with Donald Trump.

Hard to see how this guy wasn’t polling better for the Republican nomination.

While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is boasting how he did the “full Grassley” by visiting all 99 counties in Iowa, Mr. Christie is doing the “full Hamlet” by baring his wretched, ambitious soul in New Hampshire.

The Republican Party is so screwed. At least without Donald Trump.

Despite his second spectacular flameout, Mr. Christie said he is proud of his campaign. He was, after all, not fighting for a chicken wing or something small.

“This is a fight for the soul of our party and the soul of our country,” he declared, as his hefty soul lurched back and forth on the stage.

Why, he asked grandly and rhetorically, had he resisted calls to drop out of the race earlier?

“Because, unlike some of the other candidates, we are fighting for something bigger than ourselves,” Mr. Christie explained, which means it had to be pretty massive. Or “YUUUUUGE,” as Mr. Trump might say.

He also lamented the “smallness” of the other primary campaigns and attacked Republicans who have sat on the sidelines and complained about Mr. Trump’s ascendancy behind closed doors.

“All they did is voice their opposition in private — behind closed doors — quietly — so no one could hear,” he said. “That’s not leadership, everybody. That’s cowardice. It’s cowardice and it’s hypocrisy.”

This particular soliloquy was especially funny because even before Hamlet mounted the stage to quit his campaign, audio leaked from backstage in which Mr. Christie put on his own seven-course meal of cowardice and hypocrisy.

Caught on a hot microphone, he groused that former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Mr. DeSantis spent north of $50 million each on their campaigns.

“We spent 12,” Mr. Christie said privately — so no one could hear.

“I mean, who’s punching above their weight?” he said.

Then he turned his private talk to Ms. Haley, who polls now show has the only shot at stopping Mr. Trump from getting the nomination.

“She’s gonna get smoked,” Mr. Christie said. “You and I both know it — she’s not up to this.”

Now, it is entirely possible that Mr. Christie meant that Ms. Haley is going to “get smoked” like a good country ham before Christmas and be a delicious winner. But it sure sounded like he was predicting her doom.

Privately, of course. So no one could hear.

• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor for The Washington Times.