Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, a vocal supporter of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has been accused by many on the right of damaging the election by working with President Obama in a bipartisan effort to aid the victims of Hurricane Sandy dealing with the harrowing aftermath of the superstorm.
On Twitter, conservatives have taken to calling Christie a “traitor,” a “turncoat,” and worse after he publicly praised Barack Obama for suspending his campaign in the last days leading up to the election to visit New Jersey as well as for throwing his support to the GOP governor for any relief needed in the state as it struggles to return to normalcy.
On Sunday, a story ran in the media citing anonymous Romney campaign staffers who complained that Christie “snubbed” Romney by declining a Sunday night rally to support the GOP candidate due to Sandy-related obligations the Governor was fulfilling.
Christie had some not-indirect words for the Romney staffers he blasted today, essentially saying the imagined tiff was really sour grapes over his work with Obama after Sandy:
“I said to him, ‘Listen, Mitt, if this storm hits the way I think it’s going to, I’m off the campaign trail from here to Election Day,’… And he said to me, ‘Chris, of course. That’s what you have to do. Do your job. Don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of things.’”
“So all this other noise, I think, is coming from know-nothing, disgruntled Romney staffers who, you know, don’t like the fact that I said nice things about the president of the United States. Well, that’s too bad for them.”
Christie also said that, had Sandy not destroyed much of New Jersey, he “would have been happy to go out on the road and help [Romney].”