Christie: 'I Don't Know' Who Romney Will Pick for VP

Gov. Chris Christie said today he does not expect to be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's pick for vice president.

"Hopefully (Romney) picks a smart, well-qualified person who's ready to be president and ready to support him as president," Christie said Monday in Manasquan. "Who that's going to be? I don't know. I assume we're going to hear relatively soon what his decision is."

The governor, who is set to head across the U.S. this week to campaign for Romney, kicked off his tour of the Jersey Shore at the Manasquan Pavillion, where he touted the tax cut plan that he said statehouse Democrats are "holding hostage."

Christie, fresh off what he described as much-needed vacation after getting into a , pounded the "Corzine Democrats" in the state Legislature for trying to stall the state's economic recovery by holding his proposed 10 percent tax cut "hostage" until they see how much revenue Trenton pulls in this year. 

Citing a CNBC report that ranked New Jersey as the fourth-best state in the U.S. for job creation in 2012, Christie said that last year his administration created the most private sector jobs in the state since 2000—and 2012 was on pace to be even better, he said.

Since taking office, Christie said his administration has added nearly 85,000 new private sector jobs. 

Christie, with the Manasquan River Inlet behind him and Manasquan beach to his right, told a crowd hundreds gathered at the Manasquan Pavillion to urge the state's Democratic lawmakers to vote for his proposal to cut state income taxes for all New Jerseyans by 10 percent, which he said would result in even more job creation.

"If we cut taxes now, we're going to add even more jobs and put even more gasoline on this recovery, and it's going to burn even faster and brighter and help your neighbors and your friends who aren't at work to get back to work," Christie said.

Christie credited his policies of cutting spending and lowering taxes with injecting optimism into the state's business community, which he said has responded by hiring workers and investing in the state's economy.

"They feel the comeback and they're putting their money where their mouth is by putting more people to work," Christie said. 

Christie held up two recent Farleigh Dickinson University polls of New Jerseyans in which a majority of respondents said the state was headed in the right direction—the first time in 11 years the university gathered data in two consecutive polls in which a majority of respondents felt that way, he said.

The governor also took several shots at what he described as the Legislature's "Corzine Democrats," a phrase he used roughly a half-dozen times Monday, for allegedly trying to raid the pockets of individual taxpayers and businesses.  

"The only people who don't recognize this comeback and are routing against it are the Corzine Democrats in Trenton because it's in their political interest," Christie said. 

Although the governor said he doesn't know who Romney's vice presidential pick will be, Christie did not definitively say he wouldn't accept the nod, either. 

"For my sake I hope I'm right here (in 2013), making sure that New Jersey continues to move in the right direction and not get off on the wrong track again if I go (to Washington, DC)."