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" Chris Christie is not having the best 2014, y&amp;#039;all. &amp;quot;The guy, as a person, is horrific,&amp;quot; said Ballard, a top lobbyist and finance chair of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Like other Romney insiders, Ballard deeply resents Christie for the way the governor sidled up to, and gushed about, President Barack Obama in the 2012 campaign&amp;#039;s final days just after Tropical Storm Sandy ruined parts of the Northeast&amp;#039;s coastline. &amp;quot;Charlie Crist got a lot of grief for what was called a hug of Obama. But what Christie did to Obama isn&amp;#039;t suitable to say in a family newspaper,&amp;quot; Ballard said. &amp;quot;I firmly believe he helped swing that election in Obama&amp;#039;s favor just to help himself. I busted my ass for two years raising money and supporting Romney and this guy Christie just wiped his hands of us when we were no longer useful to him.&amp;quot; Part of me wants to point out that, apparently, the utterly self-centered cluelessness of the candidate spread pretty widely throughout all levels of the Romney campaign. (Christie was supposed to let his constituents fight each other for bottled water rather than accept help from the federal government? People on the Jersey Shore were supposed to live in lean-to&amp;#039;s until Willard closed on that new place in D.C.?) Part of me wants to point out that this is yet another indication that the prion disease afflicting the collective brain of the Republican party rages unabated. But a much bigger part of me wants to laugh and laugh until I fall down. Ballard said he never planned to attend any of the events headlined by Christie, but the recent flap over &amp;quot;Bridgegate&amp;quot; made his low opinion of Christie even lower. &amp;quot;Christie probably didn&amp;#039;t know his staff was shutting down the George Washington Bridge for political paybacks or whatever,&amp;quot; Ballard said. &amp;quot;But the fact is, he had people around him who thought it was ok. And that speaks to his character.&amp;quot; Stop. You&amp;#039;re killing me over here. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a20180/romney-fundraiser-dumps-on-chris-christie-011714/>