TRENTON — Speculation about whether Gov. Chris Christie is going to run for president next year just won't stop. Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Alter tweeted today, citing unnamed sources, that Christie has begun conducting focus groups about the possibility of running in 2012. Bill Palatucci, a close ally of the governor, called that "not true." Alter then retracted his tweet,...
Gov. Chris Christie, seen here at the National Governors Association annual meeting in Salt Lake City, continues to dispel rumors that he plans to run for president next year.TRENTON — Speculation about whether Gov. Chris Christie is going to run for president next year just won't stop.
Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Alter tweeted today, citing unnamed sources, that Christie has begun conducting focus groups about the possibility of running in 2012.
Bill Palatucci, a close ally of the governor, called that "not true."
Alter then retracted his tweet, saying, "Another source, close to Christie and v-reliable, says there are no Christie focus groups and nothing has changed. I trust him." But that didn't stop the first tweet from setting off a firestorm of speculation across the country.
Today at a press conference, Christie was asked about comments that Republican strategist Karl Rove made suggesting Christie is reconsidering a run for president in 2012.
Here is his response:
Question: In the last two days Karl Rove has gotten on Fox News and said you were privately telling people you were reconsidering.
Christie: I listened to that four of five times, Ginger, 'cause I was interested to hear what he was saying. What I heard him say was that he "felt vibrations" from either me or Paul Ryan that because of phone calls we were receiving we may be reconsidering. That doesn't say what you just said in your question.
At the end of the day I answered this question two days ago, I said this answer isn't changing and I don't see any reason why it would. And I read this morning that Congressman Ryan said the same thing. So I don't know what else to say about this, fact of the matter is I guess I have to resign myself to the idea that until the filing deadline for Iowa passes that I'm going to continue to be asked. That's fine, you know the only thing that pains me about it is that it squeezes out other things that I wish you all were asking me about.
But also, it's really flattering it seems like every time somebody gets in people go, "He's not as good as Gov. Christie, let's ask him again." Okay, that's nice I'm flattered by that, but I have a job to do here and I'm focused on my job here. I'm not focused on anything else.
Chris Megerian contributed to this report.
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