The GOP nomination is up in the air, Republican strategist Karl Rove said Wednesday, as the field is "so fragmented and unsettled," and "everybody can win," including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
"He's had a rough year and a half, " Rove, a deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush, said on Fox News'
"Fox & Friends" about Christie, who was on the same show earlier. "The good thing about Christie is he's steady and has not gone into the fetal position. He has come out of this thing by focusing on the future."
And the Republican Party very seldom nominates senators, but instead chooses governors to lead its ticket, Rove pointed out.
"It's just unusual, at least on the Republican side," said Rove. "We've had a tendency to nominate people with executive experience."
He noted that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is likely to announce his campaign formally next month, has criticized senators who want to run for president.
Last month,
Perry commented that "When you walk off the Senate floor, you walk off the Senate floor. You don't walk away from things when you are governor, you have to deal with things."
Rove also said that there is a divide in the Republican Party over the Patriot Act and the collection of telephone metadata. Some party leaders, such as Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, strongly believe that the collections violate American privacy rights, while Christie and other supporters argue the collection is keeping the United States safe.
But he predicts there will be a different tone in the general election than in the primaries, even though voters are more concerned about privacy.
"The general election is going to be much different," he said. "Rand Paul is doing himself some good in the primary in open states like New Hampshire, where you're an independent and there is no contest on the Democratic side you can announce you're running in the Republican primary.
"We'll see an influx of people like that in these early states where there is an open primary and people can play in the open primary. People will say there is one Republican I will consider voting for and I will vote for him."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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