New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) spoke at a Latino Coalition summit yesterday, and as msnbc’s Aliyah Frumin reported, he took a not-so-subtle shot at his own party when it comes to minority outreach.
“My party quite frankly has been guilty in some respects of speaking in a way that doesn’t sound very welcoming to new members,” the potential Republican presidential candidate argued during a keynote address at the Latino Coalition’s 2015 Small Business Summit in Washington, D.C.He added, “Any club that you might want to join, even if you agree with all the principles of that club — or most of them — if the club doesn’t sound like it’s welcoming, you’re not going to come, no matter how much you might agree with them.”
In theory, that’s a perfectly good pitch. Given the Republican Party’s fiercely anti-immigration push in recent years, it stands to reason that a GOP presidential candidate would acknowledge the GOP’s missteps when addressing a Latino audience.
What Christie neglected to mention, though, is why he’s a horrible messenger for his message.
It was literally just a few weeks ago when the Republican governor shamelessly flip-flopped on immigration, moving from being a national candidate who supports a “commonsense path to citizenship” for undocumented immigrants, to becoming a national candidate who opposes comprehensive immigration reform.
Yesterday, Christie said his party “doesn’t sound very welcoming to new members.” That’s true. But Christie is the same guy pandering to those GOP factions by abandoning his previous positions and telling what the anti-immigration wing what it wants to hear.
The New Jersey Republican forgot to mention these nagging details to the Latino Coalition. Perhaps it slipped his mind.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."