The New York Times has a very interesting article today about Chris Christie and how the GOP has treated him since Hurricane Sandy:

A few days after Hurricane Sandy shattered the shores of New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie picked up the phone to take on a different kind of recovery work: taming the Republican Party fury over his effusive embrace of President Obama.

On Nov. 3, Mr. Christie called Rupert Murdoch, the influential News Corporation chief and would-be kingmaker, who had warned in a biting post on Twitter that the governor might be responsible for Mr. Obama’s re-election.

Mr. Christie told Mr. Murdoch that amid the devastation, New Jersey needed friends, no matter their political party, according to people briefed on the discussion. But Mr. Murdoch was blunt: Mr. Christie risked looking like a spoiler unless he publicly affirmed his support for Mitt Romney, something the governor did the next day.

Mr. Christie has been explaining himself to Republicans ever since. His lavish praise for Mr. Obama’s response to the storm, delivered in the last days of the presidential race, represented the most dramatic development in the campaign’s final stretch. Right or wrong, conventional wisdom in the party holds that it influenced the outcome.

Apparently in the view of Republicans, Christie should have let his own state suffer and die in the name of party. Perhaps they should have told Republicans there might be some pregnant women out there who could die, then maybe the GOP would have gone people first. No, I doubt it. After all, beating the black guy was more important than even that.

But Christie has taken the high road. I must say that despite the rhetoric he has pushed in the past, this man has shown that he will put his people ahead of his own party and political future. A perfect example of that is here:

The tensions followed Mr. Christie to the annual meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Las Vegas last week. At a gathering where he had expected to be celebrated, Mr. Christie was repeatedly reminded of how deeply he had offended fellow Republicans.

“I will not apologize for doing my job,” he emphatically told one of them in a hotel hallway at the ornate Wynn Resort.

You would think in a time of great disaster that our political differences wouldn’t matter and we would come together as Americans to recover. That’s how things used to be, but today’s Republican Party wants nothing to do with it:

His willingness to work closely with the president has cast a shadow over Mr. Christie’s prospects as a national candidate, prompting a number of Republicans to wonder aloud whether he is a reliable party leader.

“It hurt him a lot,” said Douglas E. Gross, a longtime Republican operative in Iowa who has overseen several presidential campaigns in the state. “The presumption is that Republicans can’t count on him.”

Take a minute and read the entire article. It really gives a good insight into how the GOP thinks about America today. Party before country and people, that needs to become their motto.