Christie Basks in Iowa Limelight

“The unspoken rules of prepresidential politics, not to mention the diplomacy of navigating a scandal, required Chris Christie to avoid any suggestion that his swing through Iowa on Thursday involved his own White House ambitions,” the New York Times reports.

“Inside a diner here, a different reality played out. Mr. Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, reveled in repeated pleas to run for president, nodding as a middle-aged man here told him that he alone possessed the ‘rough-and-tumble style’ necessary to tame Washington.”

Said the man: “You know how to play that game.”

Christie replied: “I do.”

The Des Moines Register has more on Christie’s “multicity leapfrog across Iowa, where he made time for everyone from big business chiefs to tips-earning waitresses, confirmed his own suspicion that people here really do love him.”