Maybe Nancy Reagan, a woman of exceptional perceptiveness, foresaw the great Republican crack-up.
Maybe she thought that Chris Christie could save the party back in September 2011, when she invited the New Jersey governor to speak at her husband’s presidential library and museum in California at the height of the GOP establishment clamor for Christie to run for president right away.
When Christie escorted Reagan into the auditorium that night, it seemed like an anointment, as if the torch of the movement and party that Ronald Reagan built were being passed to a new generation of leader.
Now, as Nancy Reagan’s funeral takes place Friday, the Republican Party is at war with itself and under the sway of a front-runner who is in many ways the antithesis of the 40th president. And Christie, for the moment at least, is more a national punch line than a political player.
On Thursday, as members of the public streamed for a second day past Reagan’s casket to pay their respects at the library in Simi Valley, Calif., Christie’s magical night there 4 1/2 years ago seemed more remote than ever.
Businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump has seized control of the race for the Republican nomination with a nationalist and nativist message that defies ideological characterization. There are authoritarian elements in his approach, and he would in some cases expand government – to build a giant wall on the border with Mexico, for instance, and to deport up to 11 million illegal immigrants.
Some say Trump is remaking the GOP coalition with an alliance of angry populists, much as Reagan cemented it four decades ago as the party of small government, low taxes and free markets.
“Reagan ascended on an ideological basis,” said national GOP strategist Bruce Haynes. “This movement is as much cultural and economic.” He added that the Trump movement is “reactive,” while Reagan’s message was “aspirational.”
Christie, of course, declined the entreaties to run in 2012, but entered the race for 2016. He never quite found his groove, however, instead discovering that Trump had overwhelmed his “straight talk” brand and that there was intense competition for the mainstream, center-right GOP vote among several candidates.
After he dropped out, Christie stunned the political world by endorsing Trump. At one event, he introduced Trump and then stood behind him in the TV shot, his eyes darting, leading to jokes that he was being held hostage or was regretting what he had done. Christie says neither is true.
Charlie Gerow, a Harrisburg, Pa.-based Republican communications consultant, was an advance aide for Ronald Reagan’s campaigns, helping to set up and stage trips and events, and he also worked with Nancy Reagan.
“I think she’d be shocked, concerned, to see all that her husband built be potentially pulled apart,” Gerow said. “She’d be distressed.”
He described her as gracious and charming with “unpretentious elegance.” And she was canny. “She was the keeper of Ronald Reagan’s political stock and reputation, and was a magnificent guardian, protector and promoter,” down to the smallest details, Gerow said. “She had real solid political instincts and a knack for public relations,” he said. “She understood positioning and was masterful at it.”
This week, Christie dismissed the idea that the GOP was undergoing any sort of radical shift.
“No. It’s an indication that this party’s in the middle of a primary – that’s what happens,” the governor said in a Newark, N.J., news conference Monday, responding to a question about the stop-Trump movement among some party leaders.
“Listen, I’ve never been someone who just is against something,” Christie said. “I think if you’re a public figure, you have the obligation, if you’re going to speak out, to be for something … and I think that the stop-Trump movement, as you put it, will fail, because all it is is against something.”
He ordered flags on New Jersey state buildings to be flown at half-staff Friday in honor of Nancy Reagan, and he issued a statement: “Nancy Reagan was the rock behind one of the greatest leaders of our time. It was a great honor for me and Mary Pat to be welcomed by her to the Reagan Library in 2011 and it will be a memory we will always treasure.”
Staff writer Maddie Hanna contributed to this article.