Leader or bully? Ebola response gives Chris Christie new attention

The threat of Ebola has resurrected the key question on which pivots New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s political future: Is he a strong leader or a bully?

The first could ease his way in the 2016 presidential contest he is widely expected to enter. The second could doom him.

The emergence of Ebola in the nation’s most densely populated area has thrust public officials in the New York City region into a welter of difficult decisions, as they seek to prevent both public fear and any threat to their citizens’ health. Those two demands are not always in sync; some quarantines that public health officials say are unnecessary are seen by officials as a welcome tool to allay public concern.

It has also shown Christie unvarnished.

He burst into the mess on Friday night in a joint announcement with his New York counterpart, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, that medical workers returning from treating Ebola patients in Africa would have to be quarantined for three weeks.

The move contradicted advice from public health officials and seemed to set quite a different tone from earlier protestations that New Yorkers had not been endangered by Craig Spencer, the doctor being treated for the virus, because he had no symptoms when he took subways, went bowling and dined in a city restaurant.

Details of the quarantine were hard to come by, and the way that New Jersey acted on the governors’ announcement stirred even more controversy: A returning nurse named Kaci Hickox happened to land at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday as the quarantine was being put in place, and found herself forced into isolation in a tent at a nearby hospital. She told the Dallas Morning News that although a forehead thermometer indicated she had a temperature, a follow-up with an oral thermometer found she was fever-free, and she had no other symptoms. She was tested for Ebola and found not to be infected.

Nonetheless, she remained in custody until Monday and, unfortunately for Christie, was willing and very able to loudly proclaim her disgust at the circumstances. For the New Jersey governor, who only recently has seen the receding of the controversy surrounding his aides’ decision to cause a massive four-day traffic jam -- as apparently punishment for a political slight -- it was as if the George Washington Bridge had reared up and sought revenge.

Christie has responded with the same Jersey-style bravado that has marked his political career, except for a brief span of near-penitence during the worst of the bridge controversy. (Investigations are continuing, but he has long asserted that he had no role in the closures of roads in Fort Lee, N.J.)

Except this time, his arch comments have been directed at someone who recently returned from difficult duty overseas and who, if the governor was right, was threatened by an often-fatal disease. Someone, in other words, to be handled with kid gloves.

Christie, instead, seemed to exaggerate her condition.

“She hadn’t had any symptoms for 24 hours. And she tested negative for Ebola. So there was no reason to keep her,” Christie said Monday from Florida, where he was campaigning for incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Scott and calling Scott’s opponent, Charlie Crist, a “loser.”

“The reason she was put into the hospital in the first place was because she was running a high fever and was symptomatic.” Not only had she no other symptoms, the nurse has said, she was told by medical officials that her only recorded fever occurred because she was flushed in anger over her situation. That was three days before she was allowed to leave.

On Tuesday morning, in a somewhat contentious interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” show, Christie reiterated that Hickox had shown symptoms of illness, which delayed her release. He also insulted the lawyer she has retained and disputed, with several interruptions, Lauer’s suggestion that Christie was on the right side of public opinion even if on the wrong side of science.

“No, I’m going to be on the right side of both, ultimately,” Christie said.

At a later campaign event in Rhode Island, NBC News reported, Christie responded brusquely to the threat of a lawsuit by Hickox over the quarantine.

“Whatever. Get in line,” he said. “I’ve been sued lots of times before. Get in line. I’m happy to take it on.”

It was nothing new for Christie, who has in the past engaged in shouting matches with attendees at campaign events, called a former Navy SEAL an idiot for criticizing him and, armed with an ice cream cone, once barked at an opponent on the Jersey Shore — a confrontation caught on video.

“This is probably a good example of both the best and worst of Chris Christie: At his best he’s a decisive leader, confident and in touch with public opinion,” said Ben Dworkin, a political science professor at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. “And on the flip side he can come across as petulant, demanding, arrogant, seemingly lacking any humility in the face of alternative views.”

“And it’s all there wrapped up in two sides of the same coin, in this issue.”

There is a definite upside to Christie’s involvement in the Ebola response, as Dworkin noted. It occurs as he’s traveling the country as head of the Republican Governors Assn., testing out in various states the message he might employ in a presidential race. And some of those who have criticized him — like the ACLU — are hardly popular in Republican primaries.

Still, it can be risky to translate Jersey style to a broader audience not used to in-your-face politics. Part of Christie’s allure to some national Republicans has been an appeal to women and minority voters that goes well beyond that of other potential GOP candidates. In the past, those voters had been turned off by belligerent attitudes.

But that remains Christie’s stock in trade; if anything it is the mellower version seen during the bridge brouhaha that seemed more inauthentic.

“He’s creating a persona that will distinguish him from all the other candidates who are running for the Republican nomination,” said Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.

“The fact is none of the senators can make a decisive move like he can and other figures aren’t sitting with a major international airport in their state. He’d much rather be talking about this, deflecting the arrows from his critics, than talking about the fact that there’s an ongoing federal investigation.”

For political news and analysis, follow me on Twitter: @cathleendecker.