Christie's policy focus isn't lifting him out of the pack

Facing New Hampshire voters at a recent town hall-style meeting, a Republican presidential candidate advocated for strengthening the military, repealing Obamacare, and providing treatment for drug addicts.

He declared that the United States needs to "mean what we say" to adversaries, and panned the leaking of classified information by Edward Snowden, who "ought to be locked up for a thousand years."

The talking points sounded like Gov. Christie's - but it was Ohio Gov. John Kasich facing voters at the Portsmouth Country Club, striking positions similar to the New Jersey governor's.

While Christie's quest for the Republican nomination has featured his sales pitch as a straight-talker, he has also tried to set himself apart as the candidate with the most substantive policy proposals.

Since April, he has given five policy speeches, outlining prescriptions to overhaul Social Security and Medicare, bolster troop levels, and streamline the tax code, among other proposals.

But policy specifics haven't propelled Christie forward in a 17-candidate field, with rivals echoing pieces, if not the details, of his message.

On many issues, determining which Republican candidate said what can be a challenge for voters, and that makes it more difficult for such candidates as Christie - who is on the bubble to qualify for the first GOP debate Thursday - to break out of the pack.

The nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama's administration with Iran, for instance, has been panned across the Republican field as paving a pathway for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

Some candidates have drawn attention with strident rhetoric: Real estate mogul Donald Trump grabbed headlines with declarations that Mexico was sending "rapists" to the United States and that Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war, was "not a war hero." Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee last week said the deal with Iran would "take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven."

Christie, while no stranger to rhetorical flourishes himself, said in an interview with Bloomberg News last week that he found Huckabee's remark "too hyperbolic."

Given the policy similarities among the GOP candidates, for those looking to distinguish themselves, "a lot of it will be personality," said Mike Dennehy, a GOP strategist in New Hampshire who is advising former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Christie is putting his personality on display on the campaign trail, stirring emotional responses with the tale of his mother's dying words ("There is nothing left unsaid between us") and citing her bluntness as "why I am the way I am." He has also joked about some of his confrontational moments, noting their availability for viewing on YouTube.

But he has also tried to brand himself as a candidate of substance. "The fact that we've been this specific for this long is really going to make a benefit to us," Christie said on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday.

As of last week, Christie was polling just well enough to get into Thursday's debate, under rules set by Fox that limit participation to 10 candidates.

Even if Christie makes the cut, though, the debate stage won't afford him the ability to delve into his policy specifics, said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.

Christie's challenge, Zelizer said, will be to draw broader contrasts with rivals such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

"The burden on him is to say something that grabs people's attention and makes him look different fundamentally than some of these other candidates," he said.

On a range of issues, that will not be easy for Christie:

He has pushed for treatment rather than incarceration for drug addicts, calling the war on drugs a "decades-long disaster."

Kasich: "If you're drug-addicted, we're going to try to rehab you and get you on your feet."

Christie has repeatedly attacked the nuclear deal with Iran. The super PAC backing his candidacy has been running a television ad that features footage of the New Jersey governor at a town hall meeting, denouncing the agreement as giving Iran "a glide path" to a nuclear weapon.

Compare that with an ad from a group backing Rubio alleging that the deal provides Iran with "a clear path to a nuclear bomb."

Bush called the deal "dangerous, deeply flawed, and shortsighted," describing it as "appeasement" - a term Christie also has used.

Christie has promoted his plan to overhaul Social Security and Medicare as an example of his willingness to tackle tough problems, declaring to town hall crowds that "I'm not going to touch" the issue - "I'm going to hug it."

He has announced proposals for changing the federal programs, including gradually raising the Social Security retirement age from 67 to 69, reducing benefits for seniors earning $80,000 a year in non-Social Security income, and ending benefits for those making $200,000 and up.

He would also require wealthier seniors to pay more for Medicare benefits, and gradually increase the eligibility age for that program to 67, and later to 69.

While Christie has been out front in laying out specifics, his broader argument - that spending on the programs needs to be reined in to prevent other priorities from being crowded out - is being repeated by other candidates.

"Certainly if we don't fix our entitlement system, these structural problems will overwhelm us," Bush said at a forum hosted last month by Americans for Prosperity in New Hampshire. He quipped that on the Republican side, "of the 75 people running for president, I would say the majority of them will support entitlement reform."

Christie earned kudos earlier this year from the Wall Street Journal's editorial board for his tax plan, which proposes rate cuts that the board declared were superior to Rubio's.

On other economic proposals, though, Christie has company: Like Christie, Bush backs a target of 4 percent economic growth.

One topic on which Christie has yet to present a detailed plan is immigration. He has said broadly that the United States can't afford to build a wall along the entire southern border, or to round up and deport every undocumented immigrant.

While those remarks strike a tone that immigration hard-liners might not appreciate, Christie has also criticized Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton's call for a path to citizenship - an approach he once supported - as "pandering."

On that shift, too, he isn't alone. Walker also has backed away from supporting a path to citizenship.