Christie said, “Parties tend to become pragmatic when they are powerless ... It’s time for us to get pragmatic.” Wow, that means he wants the GOP to become "powerless"! Well, I can agree with that!

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Back in Spotlight, Christie Offers G.O.P. Subtle Advice
By Michael Barbaro, March 6, 2014

 In a return to the national political stage, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey sought Thursday to both ingratiate himself with conservative activists and press them to broaden the appeal of the Republican Party, warning that “we’ve got to start to talk about what we are for and not what we are against.”

Mr. Christie, long a proponent of pragmatism over ideology, told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference here that “we don’t get to govern if we don’t win.”

“Please, let’s come out of here not only resolved to stand for our principles, but let’s come out of this conference resolved to win elections again,” he said.

But while Mr. Christie delivered subtle advice to his party, he did not use the closely watched speech to offer a challenge to its conservative wing, as he had in the past. Instead, he seemed to take a more cautious approach that acknowledged the wariness of conservatives toward a governor from the Democratic-dominated Northeast, as well as his own political vulnerability amid a bruising scandal over his administration’s role in the closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.

Mr. Christie devoted much of the speech to reinforcing traditional conservative messages, frequently sounding as much like a conventional Republican looking to endear himself to his party’s base as he did a blunt conveyor of uncomfortable truths, his familiar and favored role in American politics.

The crowd responded warmly, interrupting Mr. Christie about a half-dozen times with applause and giving him a standing ovation, an achievement unto itself for Mr. Christie, who was snubbed by the conference last year. The organization then denied him a speaking slot after he publicly, and effusively, praised President Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy just days before Election Day.

On Thursday, he referred repeatedly to his anti-abortion positions. He railed against the news media, saying it had misrepresented the Republican Party. He defended the billionaire Koch brothers, who are major Republican donors, against attacks from Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the Senate majority leader. And he mocked Mr. Obama’s leadership style.

Mr. Christie recalled the president’s decision to maintain his distance in deficit reduction talks in Congress. “Man, that’s leadership, isn’t it?” he asked. “If that’s your attitude, Mr. President, what the hell are we paying you for?”

A few weeks ago in Chicago, Mr. Christie was more explicit about the need for the Republican Party to put aside recurring debates about political purity, praising the record of former President George W. Bush and the party apparatus that embraced him as its nominee, despite doubts about the conviction of his conservatism.

“Parties tend to become pragmatic when they are powerless,” he said at the time. “It’s time for us to get pragmatic.”

Mr. Christie’s tone on Thursday may have reflected his current standing within the national Republican electorate. According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, 31 percent of Republicans want Mr. Christie to run for president, compared with 41 percent who do not.

But his mere presence at the conference showed his resolve to maintain the kind of strong national profile required to run for president.

The annual gathering of conservative activists here has long created a conundrum for the Republican Party and its leaders, simultaneously serving as a pep rally for its right wing, an influential bloc of voters in primaries, and representing a political liability for its image with a broader, more moderate electorate. (It was here that Mitt Romney, straining to win over skeptical conservatives, described himself as “severely conservative.”)

This year, organizers seemed determined to put a less strident face on the convention and the party. They stacked its opening day with Republican leaders, like Mr. Christie and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the former Republican vice-presidential nominee, who have pushed the party to reach out to minority voters and welcome dissent within its ranks.

“A majority party welcomes debate, brings people in,” Mr. Ryan said here on Thursday. “It doesn’t burn heretics, it wins converts.”

But that gentler message was occasionally clouded by speakers who went on the attack, eviscerating Mr. Obama, his health care overhaul, foreign policy and oversight of the Internal Revenue Service. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a rising star in the conservative world, offered up the day’s most searing attack.

“If you have a president who is picking and choosing which laws to follow and which laws to ignore, you no longer have a president,” Mr. Cruz said.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, took the stage wielding a rifle and quipped that Mr. Obama was “treating our Constitution worse than a place mat at Denny’s.”

John R. Bolton, a former ambassador to the United Nations, upbraided the president for what he described as a retiring and weak approach to national security, evoking the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

“Under Barack Obama, you can murder his personal representative and get away scot-free,” Mr. Bolton said. “Conservatives are not going to let this issue go away.”
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