Hampton, N.H. – The crowd that packed a school town hall Sunday in this seaside town buzzed with energy before New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie arrived. One voter after another invoked his debate takedown of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as they filed into the building.
“I will engage at a time and place of my choosing. Not before. Not when the media wants to. And I decided to engage last night,” Christie said to applause from the roughly 200 people who packed the school cafeteria. “How do you think it went?”
Christie is hoping a surge will lift him from the depths of New Hampshire’s polls to a strong finish on Tuesday in what could be his campaign’s last stand. And his performance in Saturday’s debate seemed to invigorate his campaign in the final stretch.
The governor repeatedly targeted Rubio Saturday as too inexperienced and overmatched for the White House and berated the senator for what he called overly scripted talking points that amounted to nothing.
It echoed the attacks he and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have tried to hammer home for weeks. But this time, before a nationally televised argument, Rubio seemed to play into the argument by pivoting three times toward an attack on President Barack Obama taken from his stump speech.
After one repetition, Christie turned to the audience and slammed Rubio for a “memorized 25-second speech that is exactly what his advisers gave him.” When Rubio countered by saying Christie tried to avoid his role in New Jersey when a snowstorm struck two weeks ago, it got more heated.
“You didn’t want to go back, Chris,” said Rubio.
“Oh, so, wait a second. Is one of the skills you get as a United States senator ESP also?” Christie shot back. “Because I don’t think it is.”
At the Sunday rally, he stepped up his attacks.
“He’s not been tested. He’s not been proven. When the lights go on, I told you he would not be ready,” said Christie. “Well, the lights were bright last night.”
He compared himself to a reliable, dirt-spattered old truck that can get the job done better than a flashier, new model.
“No one can throw more mud in American politics than Hillary Clinton,” he said of the Democratic frontrunner. “And last night I wanted to show you – do you want the new truck or the old truck? You nominate the old truck, I’m going to run her right over on the way to the White House.”
Leland Van Oss said he was leaning toward Rubio after hearing him at two town hall meetings. But he said Saturday’s debate changed his mind.
“I really think that took him from an also-ran to one of the big players in the game,” he said of Christie. “And I’m anxious to see his attacks on Mrs. Clinton. For me, it’s all about winning the White House, and I think he’s the best candidate to do it.”
Jay McCarthy said he was a Bush supporter until the debate. Now he’s siding with Christie – and encouraging his wife, who is in Florida, to cast her absentee ballot for him as well.
“I tell you, I was gonna vote for Jeb until Chris stuffed it down Rubio’s throat last night. He really stuffed him,” said McCarthy. “I definitely want a governor, and this guy has what it takes.”
With polls showing that roughly one-third of New Hampshire voters haven’t made up their minds, Christie’s campaign hopes to prove that he – and not Rubio, Bush or Ohio Gov. John Kasich – is the best mainstream alternative to billionaire Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
“You were on fire last night,” one supporter told him.
Without missing a beat, Christie answered.
“And I don’t intend to cool off until I beat Hillary Clinton.”
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