“As Chris Christie’s establishment rivals seize on his blue-state governing record, the New Jersey governor punched back here Tuesday with the kind of bluntness that had been his trademark but in this presidential campaign has been the domain of Donald Trump,” the Washington Post reports.
“Signaling a turn among center-right candidates into a tougher phase, Sen. Marco Rubio charged that Christie has been too closely aligned with President Obama on gun control, health care and Common Core education standards, echoing twin attack ads aired here by his allied super PAC.”
Said Christie: “I just don’t think Marco Rubio’s going to be able to slime his way to the White House. He wants to put out a whole bunch of negative ads? Go ahead. I hope that he will acknowledge at some point that I couldn’t care less.”
He also mocked Rubio as naive in the arts of political street-fighting: “He’s never been in a tough race in his life.”
