As you know by now both Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee have been demoted to next Tuesday’s GOP undercard debate which airs on the Fox Business Channel. Christie & Huckabee were sent down because neither candidate averaged 2.5% or more in the last four national surveys. The GOP undercard debate will feature Christie, Huckabee along with Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal. Lindsey Graham, George Pataki and Jim Gilmore did not qualify for this undercard debate.
Both Huckabee and Christie have made positive contributions to the debates and the two have engaged in an interesting debate over Social Security reform. It is a shame, but the herd must invariably thin.
It is pretty amazing that both Huckabee and Santorum, winners of the last two Iowa GOP caucus vote, have been relegated to the second tier. Does this mean that Iowa isn’t as important as it used to be? I am more inclined to think that Huckabee and Santorum have limited audiences with no room for growth and the audience they do have has been largely flocking to Ben Carson and to a lesser degree to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
I think this setback is far more devastating for Christie who appeared to have much more potential to reach a wider audience given that he hails from a blue state. This was demonstrated with his remarks the other day about drug addiction in New Hampshire. These remarks have garnered over 5 million views on YouTube. Say what you will about Christie, he talks about drug addiction in a very personal, persuasive way. This doesn’t mean he should be President, but he does have something to say that is worthy of our attention. Perhaps he has found his next calling and the next President should put him in charge of setting national standards for drug treatment.
But let’s assume for the moment that Christie still wants to be President. If that’s the case then he is going to have take up residence in New Hampshire between now and February. Assuming he will be unable to make it back to the main debate stage, he will then need to continue to have town hall meetings pretty much every day for the next three months. If Christie doesn’t win New Hampshire or come in a very strong second then it’s over. It’s New Hampshire or bust.
