There are quite a few political subjects on which I would definitely take Politico‘s reporting with a big shaker of salt. But when it comes to the hothouse world of political money, I figure that is their natural milieu. So it may be worth noting when Ben White and Maggie Haberman tells us Chris Christie’s going to have the one problem nobody expected he’d have if he runs for president: not enough money.
Many others on Wall Street…may like and admire Christie, and might even support him in a scenario without Romney and Bush, but they now don’t see a path for the New Jersey governor.
“I think Christie is the odd man out right now. He’s in serious trouble,” said one senior Wall Street executive, echoing remarks made by a dozen others who requested anonymity as not to anger Christie. Wall Street executives also are not inclined to criticize Christie on the record because their firms often do business with the state of New Jersey. Another executive said of Christie: “I like him, and under other circumstances, I could support him. But not with Mitt and Jeb in the race. And Christie has so many other issues.”
Indeed he does. Christie’s chief rainmaker seems to be protesting too much about the “crowded Establishment” problem:
“Can you do math? Well, you will have less money to go around if you have three people going for it instead of two,” said Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot who is Christie’s biggest supporter on Wall Street and in the broader business community.
Langone insists the governor could nonetheless gather the money needed to compete with the rest of what may shape up to be a very crowded GOP presidential field. The billionaire is planning a dinner for Christie next week with big donors, though he declined to name potential attendees.
“They can say whatever they want,” Langone said of Christie’s doubters. “I could say I’m going to kick King Kong’s ass, but you won’t know until I’ve done it. They could say the sky is going to come up yellow tomorrow. I am going to work my ass off to make sure that Chris Christie never needs money.”
Lagone might want to stop comparing his candidate to King Kong, since you know how he wound up.
