Christie Texas trip highlights damage of bridge scandal

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie enters the Borough Hall in Fort Lee, N.J., to apologize to Mayor Mark Sokolich. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

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Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly, fired for her role in the “Bridgegate” scandal, stands with Gov. Chris Christie during a tour of the Seaside Heights, N.J., boardwalk last year after it was hit by a massive fire. (Tim Larsen / Associated Press)

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie shakes hands with residents after leaving the Borough Hall in Fort Lee, N.J. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

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Fort Lee, N.J., Mayor Mark Sokolich addresses a news conference. (Richard Drew / Associated Press)

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Two women walk at Palisades Interstate Park as the sun sets over the George Washington Bridge, in Fort Lee, N.J. (Julio Cortez / Associated Press)

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Fort Lee, N.J., Mayor Mark Sokolich arrives for a news conference. (Richard Drew / Associated Press)

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks about his knowledge of a traffic study that snarled traffic at the George Washington Bridge, during a news conference at the Statehouse in Trenton. (Jeff Zelevansky / Getty Images)

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at the news conference in Trenton. (Mel Evans / Associated Press)

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David Wildstein, Gov. Chris Christie’s appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is seen alongside a projection of an email conversation at the Statehouse in Trenton. Wildstein resigned from the agency in December after the scandal broke. (Mel Evans / Associated Press)

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Then-port authority executive Bill Baroni explains in November his reasoning for closing entrances to the George Washington Bridge. He resigned the following month. (Chris Pedota / Associated Press)

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Democratic members of the New Jersey Assembly John S. Wisniewski and Loretta Weinberg listen to a question while discussing the lane closures Wednesday at the Statehouse in Trenton. (Mel Evans / Associated Press)

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David Wildstein, former director of interstate capital projects for the port authority, waits to testify at a hearing held by the Assembly Transportation Committee in Trenton, N.J. (William Thomas Cain / Getty Images)

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The George Washington Bridge, which spans the Hudson River, connects New Jersey to New York City. (John Moore / Getty Images)

By Mark Z. Barabak

Feb. 6, 2014 2:53 PM PT

For the first time in two decades, Texas is electing itself a new governor, making the contest — featuring liberal heroine Wendy Davis — one of the marquee races of this election year.

That alone would be good reason for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, head of the GOP’s gubernatorial campaign arm, to drop by the Lone Star State. There’s also this: Texas is a deeply red bastion bursting with fat cats slinging fat wallets who could serve Christie well in a prospective 2016 bid for president.

Indeed, Christie’s chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association, with its network-building, chit-gathering capacity, was one of the reasons some installed him as an early favorite for the GOP nomination, following his smashing reelection victory last November.

PHOTOS: The ‘Bridgegate’ scandal

But that, of course, was before the George Washington Bridge scandal drove Christie’s White House ambitions into a ditch.

The governor was in Texas on Thursday, raising money for the RGA, and the nature of his visit demonstrated everything that need be said about the current state of his political disunion. The events in Dallas and Fort Worth were held behind closed doors, with no press coverage allowed. The state’s presumptive GOP gubernatorial nominee, Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott, chose to be elsewhere during Christie’s visit, as did outgoing Republican Gov. Rick Perry.

The Texas jaunt follows a Christie trip last month to Florida, where Republican Gov. Rick Scott, locked in a tough reelection fight, sneaked into a similar fundraiser through a back entrance rather than having his picture taken alongside New Jersey’s scandal-stricken governor. Out of sight, as it were, if not out of mind.

The facts surrounding the bridge scandal are in dispute and subject to multiple investigations. It is clear that Christie’s aides manufactured several epic traffic jams leading to the bridge after the Democratic mayor of nearby Fort Lee, N.J., refused to endorse the governor for a second term. Christie has adamantly insisted he had nothing whatever to do with the perceived payback and said he fired two aides aware of the plan as soon as he learned of their actions.

Steadily, however, new revelations have kept the scandal very much alive, feeding the cravings of a ravenous New York-New Jersey press corps. (Would there be half as much coverage if Christie was governor of, say, Nebraska?)

The latest drip-drip came Friday when an attorney for David Wildstein, Christie’s high school classmate and appointee to the bridge-tending Port Authority, said “evidence exists” to contradict Christie’s assertions of innocence. It was not clear what that evidence is; pressing for legal immunity and payment of his legal bills, Wildstein has every incentive to dramatize his claims.

But true or not, the cover-up allegations are hardly helping Christie as he eyes a 2016 presidential run. “Even if it turns out not to be true,” said New Jersey pollster Patrick Murray, “there are significant consequences just to having those charges sitting out there.”

Such as having the word “bridge” in the first paragraph of every account of every trip Christie makes out of state.

Or making Christie a public persona non grata within his own party at the very moment he’s trying to raise his national profile and lay the foundations for a 2016 run.

Surely this is not the way Christie and his strategists envisioned his presidential campaign rollout, sneaking in and out of events to avoid the probing of reporters or photographing of fellow Republicans in unhappily close proximity. (Even the Texas Republican Party was kept out of the loop about Christie’s comings and goings Thursday.)

PHOTOS: The ‘Bridgegate’ scandal

It was wildly premature to install Christie as the GOP frontrunner, as this story suggested last November, and it is just as premature now to write off his presidential chances.

But a White House campaign cannot be run like a stealth military operation. At some point, to seriously vie for his party’s nomination, Christie will have to step out from behind those closed doors, face the scrutiny of reporters and show that members of his own party want more than just the money he can raise for them in private.

Presumably he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

mark.barabak@latimes.com

Twitter: @markzbarabak