The New Jersey governor is more popular with liberals than conservatives. Allahpundit wonders whether the far right would rally around Christie should he become the nominee:
I keep thinking that, for all the slobber over his “electability,” he might be so widely and deeply disliked by a small but significant minority of righties that they end up staying home if he’s nominee and costing him the election. To be “electable” with a few percentage points’ worth of conservatives sitting out, he’d have to offset them by grabbing more centrist Democrats than expected from the Democratic nominee. How likely is that if Hillary’s the pick and Bill Clinton’s out there every day for her on the trail?
Pareene argues that Christie is more extreme than he’s given credit for:
The ironic thing about this conservative distrust is that Christie actually would be a very conservative president.
He’s an anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage staunch Catholic who believes in low taxes and no regulations and all the rest of the important, eternally unchanging policies on the checklist. Christie’s branding is designed to make him attractive to moderates in the Northeast — this is how the press fell in love with him, obviously — but it’s just that: branding. On the issues, he’s a man solidly of the right.
Barro thinks Christie is counting on these kinds of criticisms:
If Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) wants to win the presidency in 2016, he needs to look conservative enough to be the Republican nominee and moderate enough to be president. He’s successfully executing one part of a strategy to do this: Convincing liberal commentators that he’s an unreconstructed conservative given too much credit for moderation. When he draws their fire, he convinces conservatives that he’s one of them.
Bernstein’s view:
Christie is a viable candidate, but probably starts off with more things to overcome than do some of the others chomping at the bit. I’m afraid that’s about as much as you can say about nomination candidates in a wide-open field at this early point in the race.
The Dish 