November 29, 2021

After all those fawning media segments on the man they call a "straight shooter," Chris Christie's new book turns out to be a colossal flop. Seems like the public refuses to buy what Chris is selling! Via Eric Boehlert's Press Run:

A senior publishing source with access to the industry’s BookScan tabulations tells me that “Republican Rescue” sold just 2,289 copies during its first week in stores, which constitutes a colossal publishing flop. That figure does not include digital copies of the book, but based on industry sales patterns, given Christie’s weak showing in stores he likely sold only a few hundred digital ones. (On Sunday, “Republican Rescue” was ranked 15,545th at Amazon’s Kindle Store.)

In comparison to Christie’s 2,000 copies debacle, Jonathan Karl’s new book “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,” sold 24,000 hardcover copies the same week as the Christie failure. How Christie was able to sell so few books after lining up so much national media attention during his marketing roll-out — “This Week” and “The View,” “Fox & Friends,” along with Fox News, Fox Business, the Daily Show, HBO twice, and CNBC — represents an extraordinary disconnect.

It confirms that the deeply unpopular former New Jersey governor remains, first and foremost, a media creation. For years, he’s been propped up by the press as a populist Straight Shooter, but he left office with an approval rating in the teens, and failed spectacularly when he tried to run for president in 2020. That explains why CNN’s Christie special was a ratings disaster, coming in a distant third place among the three cable news channels that night. (During the show, CNN’s Dana Bash never once asked Christie about the BridgeGate scandal that ended his political career.)

Why does the national media love him? Because he fulfills their need to offer "both sides" without actually offering another side. He is a right-wing conservative, through and through -- and he's not about to bite the hands that fed him all these years.

He could have written a bestseller. He just doesn't have the cojones to tell the truth, and anyone who's paid attention to his career should not be surprised!

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