<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajhanson/24053296119/in/photolist-CDvqW4-DaG95U-D3rGFo-CDvr4Z-D3rGr5-DaG9f3-D5HSye-CfC38B-CKTt1W-D5HSyp-D3rGpG-D3rGDu-Dd1A1c-CKTtad-D5HSug-D3rGBW-CDvr1T-jP8E6c-ozjPrU-ozjPsW-vuRUa5-vvphtp-vuhemx-vcGJCf-vcQ4Cg-vtJVtC-uyowDQ-CJUPei-DGiEdD-CJN4zC-DfbViU-CJUNjH-D8PknK-DGiDup-DvTRYs-D8PjnP-DDZhEs-DDZhuY-CJN4Gm-CJN5DS-D8PkgT-ozk2bd-vuCWot-vuCQSZ-vtKa2u-vrYuc3-uxgDeJ-uxrsai-uxgFvY-vcGPCL">Alex Hanson</a>/Flickr
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie likes to think of himself as a guy who tells voters what he believes, and as he makes a last-gasp attempt to climb out of sixth place in the New Hampshire Republican primary, what he’s telling people is this: He really can’t believe he’s losing to these idiots.
Speaking at a retirement community in Bow, New Hampshire, on Wednesday afternoon, Christie used an anecdote about the late actor James Gandolfini to rip into front-runner Donald Trump as a highly skilled magician deceiving the electorate with smoke and mirrors.
As he told the seniors, when he was a US attorney from New Jersey, Christie had gone with his daughter to a Broadway performance of Beauty and the Beast. Gandolfini, whose daughter on the show, Jamie-Lynn Discala, played the role of Belle, saw Christie in the line for refreshments and tapped him on the shoulder. “He said, ‘Um, I’m Jimmy Gandolfini,’ Christie recalled. “I said, ‘I know.’ And he said to me—he’s a big guy, he had a very strong firm handshake, as you might imagine, and he wasn’t letting go of my hand, so he’s shaking and he pulled me towards him—and he says, ‘You know it’s all make-believe, right?'”
Christie paused for a moment, and then got to his point. “You know it’s all make-believe, right?,” he said, getting into it. “The guy who’s running first in the polls right now—you know it’s all make believe. You know that there’s not really a board room he and Ivanka sit in, right? You know that when he says you’re fired you’re not really fired, right? Because it’s not real! It is an all an act! It is all for TV!”
Trump, who leads in the polls by double digits, has perhaps overshadowed the notoriously blustery Christie by being even more blustery. But Christie wasn’t simply trying to take Trump down a few notches; he also wanted to bring down Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, the first- and third-place finishers in Iowa who are both now lapping him in the state where he’s invested most of his energy. In the second truck-driving metaphor of his speech, he took aim at the two freshmen senators who don’t know how to drive in the mud:
New is great—it’s shiny and pretty. It looks great. I understand that. New is really good. Even on a day like today, right, you went and passed the car dealer and saw a new pickup truck, and you said, “Look at that pickup truck! It looks good.” So you go and you buy the new truck and you park that truck right in front of your house. Let’s say this rain keeps going, I don’t know what the forecast is, but if it keeps raining for a while you know what happens, rain turns everything into mud. And let’s say you go outside to get your new car after a day or so in the rain. You get in that new truck the first time and start it up. You put it in gear and it’s in the mud and the wheels start spinning. And you’re thinking, why can’t I get out of the mud? I gotta get out of the mud. You keep doing it, you’re going back and forth, the wheels are spinning, and you’re starting to get frustrated, and what’s the only thing that’s running through your mind? Where the heck is my old truck! My old truck always got me out of the mud. I never got stuck in the mud with my old truck. My old truck’s banged up a little bit. It’s scratched up a little bit. It doesn’t smell nearly as good as it used to. It doesn’t look as good as it used to, but I can’t go anywhere in this new truck because it can’t get out of the mud.
There’s two different kinds of trucks in this race, man. The Marco Rubio–Ted Cruz truck is the new, shiny, smells-nice truck. And then there’s the Chris Christie truck. It’s old. It’s beat up. It’s dinged up. It doesn’t smell as good as it used to. But man, the Chris Christie truck knows how to get out of the mud. You know why? Because it’s been in the mud before.
Chris Christie is a smelly old truck, and he wants your vote, New Hampshire. Except, that is, when he’s a helicopter.
