Christie Pushes Hard for a Lasting Impact

Bergen Record
August 29, 2012
By Melissa Hayes and Anthony Campisi

Even before those who watched it began dissecting Governor Christie’s convention keynote speech, the governor and his team were already at work making sure it would be well-received Tuesday night and beyond.

In the build up to the prime-time address, Christie used social media accounts created especially to promote his keynote speech to share images of his family – a picture of his daughter Bridget standing behind a teleprompter in the governor’s mansion where he rehearsed his speech; his son Patrick, lying face down on a bench, with his shoes on the floor nearby, asleep after his father delivered the keynote Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, Christie’s team was offering direct commentary on the speech itself. Christie tweeted out video clips where prominent Republicans, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, praised the speech and fought back criticism of the address.

The New Jersey State Republican Party was also using its Facebook page to promote Christie’s role at the convention, sharing photos the governor has tweeted and blogged and linking to videos and media coverage.

In the speech itself, Christie pitched his New Jersey success story to delegates and millions of viewers as an example of what could be accomplished with a Republican president, a speech receptive partisans in Tampa said Wednesday lived up to the hype and had many saying it helped the first-term governor solidify a chance at national office.

Christie – and that continuing talk about his future – was also helped by the social media campaign that launched just before he arrived in Tampa.

Christie’s social media outreach allows him to sidestep pundits and appeal directly to his core supporters, said Paul Levinson, a communications professor at Fordham University who has written a book about politicians’ use of social media.

“Christie in a sense programmed a panel of his own supporters,” Levinson said.

And with no one voice able to dominate opinion after the speech in this new media age, there can be many competing ideas about how successful Christie was and what his speech meant. But Christie’s aggressive media strategy will give him a greater influence among those voices, said Matt Eventoff, a former GOP media strategist.

“There was not going to be one overriding opinion that was going to dictate how the message was received or what message was received,” Eventoff said.

Even before taking office, Christie was using social media to promote his candidacy. After he was elected, he used a personal Youtube channel to spread his message without media filters, quickly surpassing other governors who have yet to employ the technology as effectively as he does. Clips of his heated exchanges and more recently a spoof video with Democratic Mayor Cory Booker became internet sensations getting hundreds of thousands of hits.

This latest direct social media offensive is the latest move in a long-running attempt by Christie to attract attention and construct his own national political identity that has been centered around promoting YouTube clips from his public events.

The Twitter handle, @ChristieKeynote, had more than 7,000 followers as of Wednesday afternoon. It was set up by the New Jersey Republican State Committee, to separate Christie’s official government activities – shared through his @GovChristie account – from his involvement in political functions. The state party also launched the Tumblr account, at Christie’s request, to offer a behind-the-scenes look at the governor.

Christie’s spokeswoman did not return a call seeking comment and the state GOP declined to comment about the new accounts.

Critics said Christie spent too much time talking about himself and not enough time promoting Romney, the GOP presidential candidate who takes the state Thursday.

Delegates from across the country on the day after his speech, however, were saying Christie provided the right tone and balance, setting the stage for the Republican party over the next 70 days leading up to the election. And Christie was able to reach out to women, a critical voter base in this year’s election, by sharing the story of his family, particularly his close relationship with his mother, who died of cancer, the delegates said.

“I think he appealed to women because he did bring out his mom and that heritage and conservative women like to hear about families and especially about our heritage, it’s so very important,” West Virginia delegate Barbara Fish said.

And many thought Christie’s moment would extend well beyond the November election, with this speech solidifying his national reputation among Republicans and providing support for campaigns beyond New Jersey.

“There’s a certain element of the Republican Party that will just love him in the future,” said Debbie Georgatos, delegate from Texas and a campaign consultant. “The element of the party that’s very conservative, fiscal conservatives, I think he set himself up well. He had some great lines, that people certainly where we were sitting in Texas were cheering for, I think people enjoyed that.”

West Virginia Delegate Bob Fish was another Republican echoing the buzz about the speech, saying the positive media helped keep talk about Christie going through the convention.

“Any time you get national coverage, that’s got to be a good thing, unless it’s a bomb, which it definitely was not,” Fish said. “Now how that will play in the future, there are too many unknowns that you can’t tell, but I’d say he was not hurt at all by that speech last night. Every media report that I read today was positive. That’s got to be a great thing.”

And the images Christie continued to offer social media followers after the speech may help, analysts said.

Though not specifically pushing a policy agenda, such images serve to humanize politicians and are crucial in a world where people document the smallest details of their lives on Facebook and Instagram, the popular online photo tool, said Democratic political consultant Michael Muller.

“To capture those moments now for political figures, it really does let people in on a much different level,” said Muller, who runs Democrats’ Assembly and Senate election campaigns.

Not everyone thought that Christie succeeded in his push to generate buzz, however.

Joshua Henne, a Democratic political strategist critical of the governor’s policies, said Christie’s social media presence in advance of the convention fell flat.

Christie, he argued, has struck a better tone on his official Twitter account, @GovChristie, which has nearly 145,000 followers, than he has on the account created for the Republican convention. The governor’s official state account has been dormant since Sunday.

“The best thing Christie had going for him was his authenticity, but the completely inorganic nature of his social media push during the convention smacked in the face of this narrative,” said Henne, who serves as spokesman for the liberal Democratic group One New Jersey.