A new book about how to save the Republican Party by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fizzled during the first week of sales, selling only 2,289 copies in bookstores, reported the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
“Press Run author Eric Boehlert called the sales figures ‘a colossal publishing flop’ and ‘debacle’ for Christie, comparing the dismal sales to the same-week sales of 24,000 for Jonathan Karl’s new political book, ‘Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,’” said the Mail.
Christie’s book received a tremendous amount of pre-publicity with the former governor being puffed by Fox News, Whoopi Goldberg and George Stephanopoulos, among others.
So he basically sold one book for every TV appearance he made…
Seems nobody gives a shit what Chris Christie thinks. Cable news bookers should act accordingly. https://t.co/889YxUBhsl
— Heather Gardner (@heathergtv) November 29, 2021
The media push was so strong that MSNBC’s Chris Hayes recommended other authors should use Christie’s PR team.
“The problem for Christie,” Hayes said, “is that no matter how many times he repeats the message of his book on air—his argument for a…not explicitly authoritarian, anti-democratic version of Republicanism—there’s no market for it.”
More likely the book’s failure is because outside of the national media, who seem enamored with Eastern Republicans who act like Democrats, few people have a great liking for Christie.
“It confirms that the deeply unpopular former New Jersey governor remains, first and foremost, a media creation,” Boehlert said in his newsletter.
“For years, he’s been propped up by the press as a populist Straight Shooter,” he added, “but he left office with an approval rating in the teens, and failed spectacularly when he tried to run for president in 2020.”
“He left New Jersey as the most unpopular governor since the advent of polling,” agreed Politico’s New Jersey Playbook reporter Matt Friedman. “But he’s still catnip to the national media,”
Critics of Christie and the media took to Twitter with glee, pointing out the disingenuousness of both.
“So he basically sold one book for every TV appearance he made…,” said Heather Gardner on Twitter about Christie. “Seems nobody gives a sh** what Chris Christie thinks. Cable news bookers should act accordingly.”
