In his continuing campaign to distinguish himself from the rest of the pack of Republicans as reasonable, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey slammed the NRA's latest ad that singled out President Obama's daughters for having security in their school and asking if they were more important than 'your children'.
Christie is a father as well and understands that his choices place burdens on his children:
“To talk about the president’s children or any public officer’s children who have, not by their own choice, but by requirement to have protection and to use that somehow to try to make a poetical point I think is reprehensible,” Christie said.
“They’ve got real issues to debate on this topic. Get to the real issues,” Christie said. “Don’t be dragging people’s children into this. It’s wrong and I think it demeans them [the NRA] and it makes them less of a valid, trusted source of information on the real issues that confront this debate.”
The NRA is continuing to marginalize itself as they are losing representatives of their conservative base in the likes of the Republican governor who has Presidential ambitions going forward:
Christie, who saw many Republicans turn on him after he supported Obama’s actions in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy and the days before the 2012 presidential election, is clearly not concerned about taking on one of the conservative movement’s most powerful lobbying groups. He is also unconcerned about what it might mean for his standing with the GOP base. His office clipped the line about the NRA from the press conference and tweeted it Thursday afternoon.
It remains to be seen whether gun safety measures will be a hot topic in the 2016 Presidential election, but with this pronouncement as well as his bipartisanship with President Obama after Hurricane Sandy, Christie may be too reasonable for a Republican primary.