Executive Temperament in Evidence: Chris Christie

On Wednesday last, I posted a piece documenting Barack Obama’s incapacity as an executive. I followed up on the following day with a brief examination of Bobby Jindal’s record as Governor of Louisiana – which illustrates admirably what Alexander Hamilton had in mind when he wrote that “energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.” Today, I will take a brief look at Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey.

Chris Christie is an original. He is the first Republican to have won statewide office in New Jersey in a dozen years, and he did so on 3 November 2009 by ousting from office an immensely wealthy sitting Governor who had previously served five years as United States Senator from that state.

In certain respects, Christie, who is 47, is quite unlike Bobby Jindal. He did not become a freshman at Brown when he was 20, win a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford when he was 23, and serve as a cabinet secretary in state government when he was 25. He was not a boy wonder, and his rise has not been meteoric. Had you learned about him when he was 39 (as Jindal is now), you might well have concluded that he was a pretty ordinary guy.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Christie grew in Livingston. In later years, he attended the University of Delaware, took a law degree at Seton Hall, and gained admission to the bar. After serving as an associate for six years, he became a partner in a law firm in Cranford, New Jersey, where he specialized in securities law, appellate practice, election law, and government affairs.

It is true that Christie did a brief stint as a member of the Board of Chosen Freeholders for Morris County, and while in office he saw to it that the county procured three competitive bids for all contracts, that county officials were barred from receiving gifts from individuals and firms with which the county did business, and that expenditures and taxes were cut. But when he sought the nomination of the Republican Party for a seat in the New Jersey Assembly, his opponent in the primary won handily, and, even more telling, the same thing happened when he sought re-election to the Board of Chosen Freeholders. In his first foray into politics, Christie had evidently ruffled feathers within his own party. Ten years ago, it looked as if his political career was over, and he was working as a lobbyist for his old law firm.

This would probably have been the end of the story had Christie not gone all-out in raising money for the presidential campaign of George W. Bush in 2000 – which won him the attention and gratitude, some say, of Karl Rove and an appointment in December, 2001 as U. S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. It was in that office that he first distinguished himself.

When Christie received the appointment, there was grumbling in the New Jersey law establishment. He had no experience in criminal law, and he was not one of the more prominent lawyers in the state. But Christie quickly silenced his critics. In his seven years as U. S. Attorney, he and the 137 lawyers working under his direction managed to convict or elicit guilty pleas from 130 public officials, drawn from both parties at every level of government, without losing a single case. For the first time in his life, Christie had the opportunity to show what he could do, and the toughness, impatience, and intolerance for corruption that had so annoyed the Republican establishment in Morris County served him well in his new post.

In hindsight, it is probably a good thing that Christie was not elected to the New Jersey Assembly. He is not your run-of-the-mill team player. One cannot imagine him joining a church for political reasons, marrying a woman connected to a political machine, voting present in the assembly on controversial bills, and sucking up to his party’s leader in that body in the hope of having his name put on a series of bills designed to make him look good to the public statewide.

In ordinary circumstances, Chris Christie would not have been elected Governor. To begin with, the state of New Jersey is a Democratic stronghold. But, more to the point, Christie is anything but smooth, and his demeanor is not comforting. He is big. Let’s face it: he is fat. He is loud, and he is combative, and the Republicans would not, in any ordinary year, have nominated the man. A patrician like Christie Whitman he is not.

In the circumstances, however, these qualities served him well – for, in 2009, New Jersey, like Louisiana before Bobby Jindal took over, was a godawful mess: profoundly corrupt, inefficient, overtaxed, and on the verge of bankruptcy. Moreover, the incumbent was in bed (and not just metaphorically) with the public service unions responsible for bringing the state to the edge of an abyss

Furthermore, New Jerseyans are not by and large smoothies. There is a blue-collar feel to much of the state; the Italians, the Irish, and the Greeks are everywhere to be seen; and they have not forgotten whence they came. After four years of being governed by a slick sleazeball from Goldman Sachs, New Jerseyans regarded a rough customer like Christie as a breath of fresh air.

Under the terms of the various state constitutions in this country, the governorships vary considerably. In some states – Arkansas and Texas come to mind- the governor has very little leverage. In others, the governor has a great deal of patronage to dispense and considerable legal authority. When he became Governor of New Jersey on 19 January, Christie inherited what may be the strongest gubernatorial office under any state constitution in America, and from day one he demonstrated that he was more than willing to use the power that was his to the fullest.

New Jersey is what the United States threatens to become – a failed state. It is wealthy; the public-sector unions are powerful; and the taxes are so high that wealthy individuals have begun moving elsewhere in large numbers and the tax base has begun eroding. Christie grasps the significance of this and from the outset he made no bones of the fact that he intended to cut expenses, balance the budget, lower taxes, and make the state once again a desirable place in which to set up and operate a business. He has shown vigor, energy, and dispatch, and in speeches throughout the state (such as the one he gave at Perth Amboy embedded in this post) he has talked turkey to the people of New Jersey.

In a country presided over by a proficient liar, there is nothing like being told the unvarnished truth. Go to YouTube. Look at all the videos Christie has posted there; review the speech President Obama gave from the Oval Office last Monday regarding the oil spill in the Gulf; and you will see the difference between a genuine executive and someone temperamentally unfit for the job.

I cannot say whether Chris Christie is presidential timber. The jury is still out on his tenure as Governor of New Jersey. But I can say one thing. The qualities that he has demonstrated in his short time as Governor are qualities that will be required of the next President of the United States.