Christie greets prospective Iowa supporters

URBANDALE — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stepped up his retail politicking Saturday in hopes of building a Hawkeye surge that will carry him in Iowa's first-in-the-nation Republican presidential balloting next month.

With slightly more than two weeks until Iowa Republicans make their selections who they think should be their party's 2016 presidential nominee, Christie worked a breakfast crowd at a suburban eatery for support — answering policy questions and posing for 'selfies' with patrons who took a brief respite from their morning chow.

'Have a waffle,' one customer told Christie as the governor crouched down to visit with his two young children.

'I hope I have your support on the first. We're getting close,' the governor told a women sitting in a booth with friends at the Iowa Machine Shed restaurant.

'How are the waffles? I hear the waffles are good,' Christie said to another table of eaters.

Karla Wright of Des Moines asked Christie what he would do to save Social Security. He referred her to his website but indicated he didn't believe people making more than $200,000 needed the benefit as much as Americans with lower income and did not support raising taxes on anybody.

Christie posed for a photo with Diane Gjerstad and two family members even though she can't caucus for him as a Kansan who was out for breakfast with her Iowan brother. 'We don't get this in Kansas,' she said of the campaign activity. 'It's interesting to see the candidates.'

Christie met a supporter in Ladell Gosen of West Des Moines, who recommended the governor see the movie '13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi' when the governor stopped by a booth where he was having breakfast with his wife, Lynn.

Gosen said he plans to caucus for Christie and said 'I hope he gets the nomination, so I can vote for him for president.' His wife was non-committal, telling Christie she could support him if she knew he would put people above politics as president.

'I appreciate the no-nonsense part of him,' she said. 'We'll see, I'm not quite ready to commit.'

Not far away, another GOP presidential contender, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, also was working the other side of the street at a hotel in Johnston where his message included criticisms of Christie that carried over from their back-and-forth confrontation during Thursday's televised debate.

'He (Christie) supports Common Core,' Rubio told prospective Iowa supporters. 'He supports gun control. One of the things he supported was Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.'

Christie dismissed Rubio challenging his conservative bona fides, saying 'Sen. Rubio is not the arbiter of conservative credentials in America and so if he wants to attack me, I think you know why that is — it's because I'm passing him.

'In fact, two years ago Sen. Rubio said I was the type of conservative reformer that New Jersey needed. So all of a sudden now that we're running against each other, he's changed his view. I was a conservative reformer two years ago but not now?' Christie added. 'I don't really care about Sen. Rubio. In the end, I'm running against Hillary Clinton next fall and that's who I'm focused on.'

The New Jersey governor — who hopes to finish tops among the five governors competing in a crowded field for the 2016 GOP nomination — said he confident Iowans will be able to sort through the rhetoric and attacks in making their presidential choices.

'They've been through this before. This is not Iowans' first rodeo,' he said.

Dennis Goldford, a Drake University political science professor, said Christie faces a challenge as a blue-state governor among conservative Iowans.

'The very thing that I think he touts, that he is a Republican who was able to get himself elected in a blue state, that makes him suspicious to all sorts of tea party and more evangelical and much more conservative Republicans,' Goldford noted.

'In other words, yeah, you're a Republican that got elected in a blue state. That's not something to boast about. That's something to make us suspicious of you in terms of your conservative credentials,' according to the political science professor.

Sam Lau, communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party, said Iowans should be suspicious of both Christie and Rubio because they both 'are masters at the art of flip-flopping' in taking one position in the past and then reversing field now that they are running for president and seeking to woo Iowa caucus goers.

'With all the flip-flopping taking place, it's nearly impossible for Iowans to know just where they stand — or to take them at their word,' Lau said in a statement. 'Absentee politicians Chris Christie and Marco Rubio are so desperate to get out of their current jobs they've resorted to saying whatever it takes to gain support in Iowa, even if it means blatant flip-flopping.'