Susie Madrak over at Crooks and Liars has the latest on Chris Christie’s book and rehabiliation tour. SPOILER ALERT: Christie’s book is a flop with the public.
A senior publishing source with access to the industry’s BookScan tabulations tells me that “Republican Rescue” sold just 2,289 copies during its first week in stores, which constitutes a colossal publishing flop. That figure does not include digital copies of the book, but based on industry sales patterns, given Christie’s weak showing in stores he likely sold only a few hundred digital ones. (On Sunday, “Republican Rescue” was ranked 15,545th at Amazon’s Kindle Store.)
In comparison to Christie’s 2,000 copies debacle, Jonathan Karl’s new book “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,” sold 24,000 hardcover copies the same week as the Christie failure. How Christie was able to sell so few books after lining up so much national media attention during his marketing roll-out —“This Week” and “The View,”“Fox & Friends,” along with Fox News, Fox Business, the Daily Show, HBO twice, and CNBC — represents an extraordinary disconnect.
It confirms that the deeply unpopular former New Jersey governor remains, first and foremost, a media creation. For years, he’s been propped up by the press as a populist Straight Shooter, but he left office with an approval rating in the teens, and failed spectacularly when he tried to run for president in 2020. That explains why CNN’s Christie special was a ratings disaster, coming in a distant third place among the three cable news channels that night. (During the show, CNN’s Dana Bash never once asked Christie about the BridgeGate scandal that ended his political career.)
I whole heartedly agree with Madrak that Chris Christie is another hideous creation of the Media. Where I disagree with her is that she states that Christie allows the Media to “show both sides” by having Christie spew lies on TV. Madrak says that Christie’s role is to give it to both sides when he never does so, at least never to Republicans. While this may be partially true, I think there is another reason that the Media created and loves Chris Christie: he’s a fuckin’ bully.
Anyone remember Chris “Tweety Bird” Matthews? Matthews LOVED Christie. He thought it was great that Christie got into his constituents’ faces and bellowed at them. Too bad for the rest of us that Christie loved to smack around teachers in public settings.
May 25, 2010 - Christie and Kearney teacher Rita Wilson had words after Wilson tells the governor that teachers are not paid enough.
"Your're not compensating me for my education and you're not compensating me for my experience," she told the governor during a town hall meeting in Rutherford
Christie did not take teh rebuke lying down, responding "You know what then? You don't have to do it." The governor received a round of applause for his remark.
Fuck you for being educated and underpaid!
Dec.3, 2010 During one of his town hall meetings, Christie and Livingston teacher Keith Chaudruc argued over taxes. During the exchange, Christie angrily invites Chaudruc to join him on stage.
After Chaudruc was ushered onstage by a State Trooper, he stood toe to toe with the governor as Christie, who towered over him, berated him.
"Your wonderful increase in taxes would have killed jobs in this state," Christie said pointing his index finger at Chaudruc. "You and I have different ideas of what being a Republican is all about because I'm not going to raise taxes."
During that same town hall, the governor exchanged words with Parsippany Teacher's Union President Judy Mayer who took Christie on over his comments that his education reforms were "for the children."
"You're giving an awful commentary on the teachers in this state," Christie said.
NJ has high taxes. However, I wonder where some of that money goes to. I can safely bet it does NOT go to the teachers of NJ. And Christie thought they already spent too much money on education, especially those he called “failure factories.”
Oct. 6, 2013 - Christie, in the heat of his reelection battle, told an audience at the Congregation Keter Torah in Teaneck no problem taking money from some of New Jersey's "failure factories"
"If you care about the issue of educational choice," Christie said, "you all better figure out where everybody who's on the ballot in November stands on this issue. And don't let them give you the hoo-ha about, 'Well I love public education. I don't want any dollar taken away from public education.' I would be happy to take as many dollars as possible away from failure factories that send children on a no-stop route to prison and to failed dreams, if we could take that money and put it into a place where those families have hope," he said.
So he got to smack around teachers and their union. It was a twofer, and it just thrilled people like Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough to no end. He’s a STRAIGHT SHOOTER!
A straight shooter that the people of NJ finally came to see as a vindictive bully during Bridgegate. And his popularity was in the teens when he finally had to leave office. But the Media still loved their chubby bully! He went on to lose to Donald Trump in NH, after which he became a Trump sycophant.
Normally, corporate America buys up POS books from rightwing hacks to make them appear to be best sellers. This helps push the main “ideas” of the book that such things as deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy are wunderbar. The author gets interviews from the Media about their “best selling” book, and viewers see and hear about the joys of the conservative agenda.
The books inevitably end up in the $1 dollar bin at the local book store because the corporations that bought the books have to get rid of them.
This ploy has been going on for decades as part of the rightwing noise machine.
This would be the normal trajectory of a book from some conservative scumbag like Christie. And it will be the only way that he makes any money off of this endeavor. However, Christie is trying to push some lame message that the GOP needs to move on from Trump, except he really doesn’t want to take on Trump.
How can you move on from Trump when you say you do NOT regret voting for Trump. TWICE! And if Trump is the 2024 nominee, you will not rule out voting for him a third time!
Unfortunately for Christie, he has already committed blasphemy against Trump by even suggesting that Trump did anything wrong while president. Trump will remember this act of disloyalty. And so will corporate America, which wants to stay on Trump’s good side, especially if he is able to seize power again. So I have my doubts that corporate America will stuff wads of money in Christie’s pockets by buying up copies of his shitty book.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bully.