“I’m sure Christie *meant* to be humorous, but seems not to have a grasp on Midwesterners who find nothing funny about the whole NJ/mafia thing and are happy to be 1000 miles away from the Garden State.”
That’s funny, because all those Midwesterners in the audience listening to Christie speak when he said this were smiling and laughing. Christie was a big hit with the crowd. So wishful thinking on your part.
Are you claiming that the audience was representative of Iowans or Midwesterners in general? Or, was it a select crowd that would hoot and holler no matter what Christie or Romney said? Pick your audience and, voila!, amazingly you get the response you want.