The Christi downside for conservatives

Washington Post:
...
... he’s got many of the same liabilities that Perry and Romney have been trying to tag each other with in recent debates and on the campaign trail.
To wit:
* Christie has praised President Obama’s efforts on education reform and even suggested in February that he wouldn’t rule out voting for the president. “Overall, I didn’t vote for him, and I doubt I’ll vote for him next time,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”.
Christie said that he doubts that he’d vote for Obama? That’s probably not close to good enough for the conservative base. Perry has been trying to tag Romney as a supporter of Obama’s “Race to the Top” legislation that awards federal grants to education innovators; well, Christie has called Obama a “great ally” on education and applied for Race to the Top funds.
* Despite backing out of a regional cap-and-trade arrangement and supporting a more market-based approach (popular with conservatives), Christie said last month that he believes climate change is real. He said at the time, “when you have over 90 percent of the world’s scientists who have studied this stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role, it’s time to defer to the experts.”
* As New York Magazine noted on Tuesday, Christie has expressed support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and said in 2008 that “being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime.” Ouch. Perry’s effort to give in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants has been the big story in recent debates; imagine Christie defending his record on the issue.
* While Christie has said he wouldn’t sign a same-sex marriage bill, he has expressed support for moving towards civil unions. The only major GOP presidential candidate to take that view is former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who hasn’t gotten very far with the base, to say the least. Perry has also been attacked for saying that he was okay with New York’s gay marriage law, because it was a state-based law (he later backed off that position).
* Like Romney, Christie used to favor abortion rights, changing his mind when his wife was pregnant with their child in the 1990s. While not a disqualifier for most social conservatives, it could hurt in a state like Iowa.
* While Christie has made a name for himself by fighting the teachers’ unions, and while he praised Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) budget-cutting efforts, he declined to endorse Walker’s plan to rein in the collective bargaining rights of public-sector unions. “I love collective bargaining,” Christie said in March.
... 
Christi would be an effective debater, I believe, but his liabilities in a GOP primary would be a problem as well as his late start.  I also do not think he wants it right now.

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