The term “odd couple” has rarely been this stark. Just consider the sheer optics of Govs. Rick Scott and Chris Christie sharing a spotlight: maybe the oddest couple since Woody and Soon-Yi. But it happened last Saturday.
There was the governor of New Jersey in Orlando–in his role as the newly-minted chairman of the Republican Governors Association–presenting a $2.5 million RGA check to his Florida counterpart to help fund a Scott political committee.
Two months prior, Christie, a 2016 presidential aspirant whose approach precludes sucking up to the far right, was coming off a big re-election victory in his blue state. A visit by the refreshingly brash New Jersey governor to a critical swing state was the perfect way to kick-start an early ad hoc national campaign.
For the unpopular Scott, who has a Tea Party following but can’t be an incumbent-outsider, it was a chance to bask in some reflected, no-nonsense popularity of a mega political personality.
That was then–and this is not.
Christie is now an embattled, “bridge-gate” governor trying to convince those who don’t know him well that he is “not a bully” with a petty, vendetta streak who would disadvantage his own constituents over partisan political payback. He’s even had to play the Nixonian, “plausible deniability” card.
His attempts to salvage his reputation are yet to play out. There are those within his own party who hope he self destructs. The word “impeachment,” however unlikely, has been heard in the Garden State. He says he was “betrayed.” He’s fired people. He’s apologized. He’s unwisely used the passive voice to acknowledge that “mistakes were made.”
This could be a worst-case scenario.
Christie, decidedly not a “focus-group-tested, blow-dried” sort, still retains the central casting look of a heavyweight bully–only one seen as not, ironically, in control of his own inner circle. And the would-be, 2016 presidential candidate with cross-over appeal, is now handing out money to the certifiably deep-pocketed, Tea Party-enamored, unpopular Scott?
And Scott, who really doesn’t need the money, was more ill at ease than normal. Call it a classic lose-lose.
Even if Christie isn’t ultimately connected to a smoking traffic cone, he has come off as a classic New Jersey politician. The sort who doesn’t become president.