Chris Christie in Waukee
Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie wrapped up a two-day campaign swing through Iowa with a nearly two-hour-long “town hall” meeting tonight in Waukee.
“You all say this to me, at least you have in the beginning: ‘You’re in my top three,'” Christie said and the crowd laughed. “…I appreciate your kindness and your courtesy, but I am here to become number one now…I am here to win your support and win your confidence and win your vote on February 1.”
About 250 people crowded into an Irish-themed bar and a chilly overflow room next door to hear Christie. The New Jersey governor took more than a dozen questions from the crowd and urged them to choose him, rather than an “amateur” to face Hillary Clinton in the debates before next fall’s General Election.
“She’s not going to think she’s got some kid over there who’s, you know, going to their first rodeo,” Christie said. “She’s not going to think that she’s got some guy who’s out of touch with people, who doesn’t know how to relate to people who she can, you know, run over and she’s going to know that no matter how much mud she throws in my direction, I’ve been in neck deep mud everybody and I’ve gotten out of it….You’ve got to be a fighter.”
Christie touted his tax plan and his entitlement reform ideas. He fielded a question about “ObamaCare” and Christie repeated his call to repeal the law and have officials in each state come up with their own designs for health care reform for their citizens.