July 26, 2013

Christie Cites 9/11 in Assailing Libertarian Trend in G.O.P.

By JONATHAN MARTIN

ASPEN, Colo. — Invoking the families of 9/11 victims, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey on Thursday heatedly denounced the growing libertarian drift on national security in the Republican Party that is favored by Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, and others in the party.

“This strain of libertarianism that’s going through parties right now and making big headlines I think is a very dangerous thought,” Mr. Christie said on a panel with other Republican governors here.

Asked if he was alluding to Mr. Paul, a potential Republican presidential rival, Mr. Christie spoke in deeply personal terms about the impact of the 2001 terrorist attacks on his state.

“You can name any number of people and he’s one of them,” Mr. Christie shot back before referring to the more than 600 New Jersey families who lost relatives in the attacks. “These esoteric, intellectual debates — I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation. And they won’t, because that’s a much tougher conversation to have.”

Staking out terrain on the hawkish right ahead of a potential White House bid, Mr. Christie, in remarkably stark terms, warned those advocating a crackdown on the surveillance programs — instituted under President George W. Bush and now being carried out under President Obama — that they would regret their positions.

“The next attack that comes, that kills thousands of Americans as a result, people are going to be looking back on the people having this intellectual debate and wondering whether they put. …” said Mr. Christie, before cutting himself off.

Mr. Paul’s advisers back in Washington heard the message loud and clear and fired back that Mr. Christie is out of touch with growing concern in the country over privacy and civil liberties.

“If Governor Christie believes the constitutional rights and the privacy of all Americans is ‘esoteric,’ he either needs a new dictionary or he needs to talk to more Americans, because a great number of them are concerned about the dramatic overreach of our government in recent years,” a senior adviser to Mr. Paul said.

“Defending America and fighting terrorism is the concern of all Americans, especially Senator Paul,” said the adviser, who would not speak on the record about Mr. Christie. “But it can and must be done in keeping with our Constitution and while protecting the freedoms that make America exceptional.”

The cross-country back-and-forth marks one of the first, and certainly one of the sharpest, volleys between likely 2016 presidential hopefuls and their surrogates. It also represents something of a political wager from both the Paul and Christie camps.

Mr. Paul’s assumption seems to be that with fatigue from two wars over the last decade and skepticism toward a growing security state, Republican voters will be open to a foreign policy approach that is profoundly different than the interventionist policies of Mr. Bush.

But Mr. Christie, who is viewed suspiciously by some of the party’s most conservative members, is betting that he can court rank-and-file Republicans who remain hawkish and more concerned about preventing another terrorist attack, and that they are willing to accept government surveillance.

The exchange took place one day after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly defeated an amendment that would have blocked the National Security Agency from collecting phone records. The 205-217 vote found 94 House Republicans joining a bloc of liberal Democrats to support the measure, perhaps the clearest sign yet of the growing unease in Republican ranks toward security policies that were widely popular in the party under Mr. Bush.

Even as Mr. Christie, speaking to an audience of Republican donors and local residents, sought to assert his tough-on-terrorism credentials, he also favorably linked the policies of Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama, something few ambitious Republicans would do.

“President Obama has done nothing to change the policies of the Bush administration in the war on terrorism. And I mean practically nothing,” he said. “And you know why? Cause they work.”

Mr. Christie was joined on stage by Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.

The other governors did not follow suit in praising Mr. Obama’ s approach to fighting terrorism, but Mr. Walker, another potential White House hopeful, sought to minimize the opposition in the party’s grass roots toward aggressive surveillance policies.

“I don’t see that shift,” Mr. Walker said regarding a possible libertarian drift on national security among Republicans. “I see a few loud and vocal people talking in Washington and I don’t think that necessarily reflects where the party is.”

The governors gathered in this resort town as part of a retreat for donors to the Republican Governors Association.

The panel, moderated by a New York Times reporter, was hosted by the Aspen Institute. Each of the four governors are considered possible presidential candidates. Asked if any of them wanted to rule out a possible White House bid, each remained quiet.