The measure of a Christie run won’t be whether he can outtalk or outglitter his putative Republican primary competitors. It will come entirely down to whether he can outmatch them on substance.
I was born, raised and have lived in New Jersey most of my life. That does not, however, make me an expert on Chris Christie, our Governor and currently one of the contenders for the Republican nomination to run for President in 2016.
His major claim to fame is that he has been twice elected in a very Democratic state and has had to deal with a very Democratic legislature. What is rarely mentioned is that the way he has done this is to issue several hundred vetoes to a point where, if the Democrats want anything passed, they have to make sure he likes it. This is also not to say that they haven’t worked with him to rein in the public service unions and address pension reform. To his credit he has vetoed countless liberal measures from gay marriage to a ban on hog gestation crates.
That said, New Jersey still has lots of taxes, lots of regulations, and lots of people who retire and move to Florida. It also, so I am told, has an “attitude.” Texans may say “Don’t mess with Texas”, but in New Jersey we don’t even have to issue such a warning. It is, after all, the home of the fictional Tony Soprano of HBO fame. In truth, it is a place filled with friendly, happy people, so long as you mind your manners.
In a curious fashion, Chris Christie embodies that attitude. He is a skilled orator when he wants to be. As a former U.S. Attorney he “made his bones” by putting a lot of Mafia guys in jail and doing the same for some high ranked Garden State politicians. That was so refreshing the voters decided to elect him Governor. In 2013 he was re-elected with 60% of the vote.
In the wake of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, Christie’s embrace of President Obama when he came to New Jersey for a photo op caused a lot of Republicans to criticize him, but Christie was being a political pragmatist, knowing that the state was going to need a lot of federal funding to help rebuild from the devastation that had incurred. Even so, he has not been forgiven for it.