Chris Christie Uses Hillary Clinton As A (Figurative) Piñata

I’m not a fan of Chris Christie as a presidential candidate but when he focuses his attacks on Democrats, there may not be a better candidate in the field. On Veterans Day, Christie was on the road in Bettendorf, Iowa, and eschewing the Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 50% and John Kasich tactic of attacking Republicans, he went after Hillary Clinton:

As with the previous night’s debate, governor would spend the rest of the town hall attacking Clinton at almost every opportunity. Even before taking questions, he boasted that the audience need only raise their hand to ask him a question, unlike his rivals, whose staff vetted queries in advance and cherry-picked the most favorable one.

“It would be wrong for me to say who does town halls like that. I shouldn’t say the person’s name,” Christie said, “but her initials are ‘Hillary Rodham Clinton.’”

As governor of a state with 750,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, Christie pointed to his bipartisan reforms, then quickly pivoted to bash Clinton’s answer to a Democratic debate question in which she mentioned Republicans among the enemies she’d been proudest to make.

“The most disgraceful thing I’ve seen in this campaign was at the Democratic debate two weeks ago,” said Christie, repeating what he’d said in the preliminary GOP presidential debate Tuesday night.

“She said, ‘Republicans. .. Fellow Americans. … Why would you ever send someone to Washington as president who believe her enemies are fellow Americans?” Christie asked.

and

“I think all lives matter,” said Christie, who was standing in a cafe where a lever-action rifle hung inside its entrance with the words “We Don’t Dial 911″ above it.

“But let me tell you this: When a movement like that calls for the murder of police officers…no President of the United States should dignify a group like that by saying anything positive about them, and no candidate for president, like Hillary Clinton, should give them any credibility by meeting with them, as she’s done.”

Last month, Clinton had met privately with members of the Black Lives Matter movement while in Washington D.C. for the National Council of Negro Women.

Christie vowed never to do so.

and

When Annie Cox, the widow of a U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan, asked what Christie would do to help veterans get better care, the governor again sought to ridicule Clinton over the V.A.’s delays in treating soldiers.

“Hillary Clinton recently said, ‘There is no crisis at the VA,’” said Christie, who promised he would change the VA to allow soldiers to visit any physician anywhere. “That’s what we promised them.”

Last week I pointed out that Christie was using a recycled attack on the pro-life movement in his addiction stump speech. In this meeting, he made a change. I’m not saying he reads RedState but I’m sure someone in the pro-life movement reached out to him and they were heard:

Some 200 people squeezed into Mickey’s Country Cafe for a town hall meeting on Wednesday morning, and Christie devoted most of his 15 minute opening remarks to touting reaction to the Huffington Post video, which has been viewed some 8 million times so far.

“We need to be pro-life for the whole life,” the governor said, tying his message of drug treatment to his anti-abortion stance. “That’s what a pro-life, conservative America does.”

This is a huge change from his original statement which implied that pro-life people stopped caring about people after birth.

Christie would be a huge asset in any Republican administration… so long as he’s not president. If he signs on as a surrogate for the eventual nominee, he will be worth his ample weight in gold.

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