Chris Christie has as much chance at getting nominated as Stormy Daniels has about being a virgin

Chris Christie (RINO-NJ) was at the Road to Majority conference, comprised of evangelical Christians, to speak about presidential character.

Conference host Ralph Reed said he rejected the idea that conservative evangelicals were part of a Trump “cult.” He said that Christians do not worship Donald Trump, they worship God but little did Reed know that the attendees would have a different take on Trump and would counter his claim.

It was actually Christie's speech that appeared to prove Reed wrong.

Although Christie stayed on message about Christian teaching, leadership, sin, forgiveness and character, when he attempted to apply these tenets to Donald Trump, he got roundly booed. While Trump's immense approval appears kind of cultish in that he is untouchable, there is little doubt that he has the evangelical vote locked up as Christie was the first to criticize him but unsuccessfully in their eyes.

The former Governor of New Jersey began his speech with a Bible verse from Romans 5:3-5, but only read from Romans 5:3-4: “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and it is character that produces hope.” 

Christie drew applause when he said that he never funded Planned Parenthood when he was governor of New Jersey, and went on to discuss his pro-life views and poverty, which he connected to his support of charter schools.  

Charter schools, he said, gave poor parents the opportunity to send their kids to a better school than, presumably, the local public school. Christie also connected his pro-live views to his work against human trafficking.

Christie’s lead-up to his attack on Trump started with a reference to his Catholic faith. “When I sin…I must take responsibility.” [Was he speaking on the subject of gluttony?]

When Christie said that character requires the asking of forgiveness–to God and others–when one makes mistakes, the Road to Majority crowd gave him very lukewarm applause. Christie went on: “Beware, everybody, of a leader who never makes mistakes. Beware of a leader who has no faults. Beware of leader who says when something goes wrong it’s everybody else’s fault. And he goes and he blames those people for anything that goes wrong, but when things go right everything is to his credit.”

Christie reminded the audience that he was the first candidate to endorse Donald Trump in 2016. He was also the chairman of Trump’s transition team, the chairman of Trump’s opioid and drug abuse commission, and even played Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in Trump’s debate prep. He once supported Trump, but he can no longer do so because Trump “has let us down.” And Christie is running against him.

And then came the onslaught: “Trump is unwilling to take responsibility for any of the mistakes that were made, any of the faults that he has, and any of the things he has done. And that is not leadership everybody. That is a failure of leadership.”

At this point the crowd begins to boo. Christie continued talking over the boos:

"You can boo all you want. But here’s the thing. Our faith teaches us that people have to take responsibility for what they do. People have to stand up and take accountability for what they do. And I cannot stand by, and as soon as I’ve started to be critical, after all of that, after he offered me White House chief of staff, now what he does is call me names, and belittle me. And I will tell you, if all you do…is disagree with someone and in return you get that kind of treatment, I’ve joined a great list of Americans like Rex Tillerson and Jim Mattis and Mark Esper and Mick Mulvaney and John Kelly and all the rest. And you can love him all you want, but I will tell you that doing those kind of things makes our country smaller. It makes our country smaller and it makes us lesser."

But should we trust Chris Christie when it comes to 'smaller?'

I don’t think Christie has a chance to win much of the Christian Right vote, but he left the stage with his integrity in tact. He delivered a message that the Christians who attend the Road to Majority conference need to hear. They can boo Christie, but they have no satisfying answer to his critiques of Trump’s character.

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