Disappointed by the current crop of GOP presidential candidates, a group of Republican state lawmakers in South Carolina are attempting to prod New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie into the increasingly crowded contest.
Led by state Reps. Kris Crawford and Phyllis Henderson, about a dozen lawmakers plan to hold a press conference on the steps of the South Carolina state house on Wednesday to rally support for the New Jersey governor in the Palmetto State, a crucial early testing ground in the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes.
Crawford and Henderson were previously involved in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade conservative U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana to join the race. Pence decided to run for governor instead.
Christie’s their guy now.
“The thing that sets Christie apart is the challenges he has faced being a Republican in a blue state, and anybody who watched the race he went through to be governor makes you realize that here is a guy who has earned his chops,” Crawford, a physician from Florence, told CNN.
Crawford believes Christie is the only prospective candidate tough enough to go toe-to-toe with President Obama in the general election.
Christie, who recently met with a group of Iowans who had been similarly encouraging him to jump into the fray, has consistently stated that he doesn‘t intend to run for president next year.
Despite renewed clamor for his candidacy, the New Jersey governor has been slipping noticeably in national polls in recent weeks.
Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind survey, released earlier today, shows Christie losing to President Obama by a margin of 50 percent to 34 percent nationally. In March, the same poll had the New Jersey governor trailing the president by just six points.
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