Christie Announces Run For President

By Tom Davis/Patch

Gov. Chris Christie told an adoring crowd of supporters at Livingston High School on Tuesday that he’s running for president, joining a crowded field of Republican candidates pushing to secure the GOP nomination in 2016.

“We need to make this country once again the country my mother and father told me it was,” he said to loud applause.

“I’m going to give it to you.”

In his first official campaign event, Christie was to travel to Sandown, N.H. to host a town hall meeting following the Livingston announcement.

Christie becomes the first former or sitting New Jersey governor to launch a presidential bid since President Woodrow Wilson, although Robert Meyner received 43 votes at the 1960 Democratic Convention.

Christie is banking on his brash image - an approach that served him well when he provided an aura of strong leadership during the worst of Superstorm Sandy in 2012 - to carry him to the GOP nomination.

“I mean what I say, and I mean what I say,” he told the filled gymnasium where the crowd chanted his name, saying he plans to fix the nation’s woes - particularly those involving entitlements - “by force” if he has to.

Christie launched a website Saturday, chrischristie.com, that will serve as a launching pad for his presidential campaign.

Christie told the crowd that he will try to boost the nation’s standing after President Obama’s “feckless” foreign policy, and then took a shot at Hillary Clinton, the potential Democratic nominee, saying: “We better not turn the country over to his second-mate, Hillary Clinton.”

“I believe I am ready to work with you to restore America to its rightful place in the world,” he said. ”This is your country too. We’re going to go and win this election.”

His slogan is: “Telling it like it is,” emulating the words of the late straight-talking sports broadcaster, Howard Cosell. And Christie has fashioned himself in a similar way, making himself famous for putting hecklers or protesters in their place during his speeches by using words and phrases such as, “Sit down, and shut up.”

The question now is whether the approach is wearing thin. A recent poll shows he has a 30 percent approval rating in New Jersey, which is among the lowest approval ratings for any of the state’s governors in the past 25 years.

More than two in three New Jersey voters tell pollsters that they don’t think he has the temperament to lead the country. In a Monmouth University poll, a majority of Republicans say Christie shouldn’t run, and they complained that he’s put his own presidential aspirations ahead of the state’s interests.

New Jersey’s top teachers union joined a growing chorus of voices Tuesday suggesting the governor should step down now that he’s running for president.

>>Related: POLL: Should Christie Resign?

One Yahoo News report said things are so “dicey” at home that, throughout this past weekend, Christie had to spend time asking New Jersey Republican state legislators tostick with him. Several have already endorsed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

The ”Bridgegate” scandal - the George Washington Bridge lane-closing political payback scheme that led to a guilty plea and the indictment of two ex-Christie aides - became Christie’s first political setback soon after he was re-elected by a landslide in 2013.

Until then, many voters saw Christie as the man who helped lead a devastated state through the worst storm to ever hit its shores. Superstorm Sandy created a path of destruction from Bergen to Cape May counties, destroying century-old landmarks and tourist attractions, and causing billions of dollars in destruction.

Throughout the 2012 ordeal, Christie was often seen with his arm around the shoulders of storm-shocked residents, offering a comforting hand to a population that strongly needed it.

His early accomplishments, such as reforming the pension system, also enhanced his image as a can-do politician, and nearly compelled him to join the 2012 race for the Republican nomination against Mitt Romney.

But the Bridgegate scandal, his personal spending practices and other Christie behaviors that have drawn heavy criticism may not be all that’s driving his popularity down.

Nearly half the time, observers say, he just hasn’t been here.

Christie was out-of-state for all or part of 218 days in the first 518 days of his second term, and almost all of that travel has helped him lay the groundwork to run for president, according to a “Christie Tracker” kept by WNYC.

In 2014 alone, taxpayers reportedly paid $492,420 for his travel costs, according to New Jersey Watchdog.

Matt Katz, who has kept the Christie Tracker for WNYC, noted in another article that the out-of-state trips could have had an adverse impact on Christie’s ability to govern.

In his first term, the report said, Christie had steak dinners and texted regularly with Steve Sweeney, the Democratic president of the state Senate, that led to several compromises on major issues.