Christie’s Undercard Debate Performance Receives Good Reviews

“If you think Mike Huckabee or Bobby Jindal won’t cut back spending, wait until you see what Hillary Clinton will do”, he warned. “And that’s why Hillary Clinton doesn’t want me on the debate stage next September, because she knows I’m not going to take my focus off of her for one minute”.

Chris Christie says it’s ridiculous for Ben Carson to claim he’s getting scrutiny unlike anyone else in the presidential race – and that the burden of proof is on him to prove his life story.

Christie, for his part, did not take Jindal’s bait. Lindsey Graham and former NY Gov. George Pataki, who failed to poll high enough to be on the stage.

Christie supporters are even arguing that appearing on the less crowded stage will give the governor more opportunity to make his case to viewers.

“We want a choice in front of us”, Jindal said.

The New Jersey governor may not have qualified for the prime time debate on Tuesday night, but he did manage to make his mark in the “under card” event.

“Hillary Clinton’s coming for your wallet, everybody”, Mr. Christie warned at one point, casting Mrs. Clinton as a tax-and-spend Democrat who couldn’t be entrusted with the country’s future.

The release of the poll results comes on the heels of news that Christie will be relegated to the “kids table” at tonight’s Fox Business Network debate.

“We need a conservative, not a big government Republican”, said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, perhaps the most aggressive participant in the so-called “happy hour” debate held at a theater in downtown Milwaukee.

The debate, hosted by the Fox Business Channel, the Wall Street Journal and the Republican National Committee, was the calmest of the four so far, a byproduct of the chaos of the third one in Boulder. “I got to tell you, I don’t have a lot of sympathy”, Christie said.

A video published by The Huffington Post that shows him talking about the pain of losing a friend to drug addiction had just gone viral and had been viewed more than 7.6 million times as of Sunday evening.

Christie said Democrats will raise tax rates to 70% or 80% to pay for benefits and social programs. “He’s done a nice job in Louisiana, and I don’t have any problem with the job he’s done”, Christie said. And it wasn’t the sort of breakout performance Carly Fiorina achieved at the first undercard debate in August, which vaulted her into the first tier thereafter. Would it actually hurt the economy by discouraging spending?

Christie, again, manages to turn the question into an attack on Clinton: “Hillary Clinton says there’s no crisis at the VA that sends a long and hard message to our veterans that she doesn’t get it and she doesn’t respect their service”.

The fourth candidate on stage, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, touted his conservative record in Congress, and noted that he won elections in a Democratic-leaning state.