Christie's race covers political present, future

WAYNE, N.J. — WAYNE, N.J. With the governor election less than a month away, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is telling voters that he might not serve out his full second term if elected.

The admission might hurt any other candidate.

But for Christie, it underscores his popularity as a straight-talking Republican in a Democratic state. And it highlights what's at stake in New Jersey's looming governor election -- a contest as much about Christie's presidential aspirations as the governor's race.

He did not laugh off a question about his political future when asked during his first re-election debate Tuesday.

"I am not going to declare tonight … that I am or I'm not running for president," Christie said.

He later quipped: "I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I can do this job and also deal with my future. And that's what I will do."

That's exactly what Christie is doing as he uses his governor election to make the case for a higher office.

Buoyed by polls suggesting he has a commanding lead in his re-election bid, Christie's team is assembling a broad coalition of supporters -- groups of Democrats, union workers, women and minorities that Republican candidates elsewhere struggle to attract. He says his re-election campaign offers a road map of sorts for beleaguered Republicans across the nation as the party works to expand.

"We've got to win elections again. And that's what we're going to show the whole country in New Jersey on Nov. 5," Christie said of his party.

"I thought that the Republican Party was put into effect to win elections. I didn't think we were some debating society or some group of academic elites that sit around and talk about big ideas but don't do anything about them," he continued.

Christie's philosophy aligns him with Republican pragmatists pushing the GOP to embrace political moderation. Despite detailed recommendations by the Republican National Committee to do just that, the pragmatists are losing the debate as the GOP's more conservative wing drives the national discussion in Washington.

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Column: Christie's tough guy act shows lack of civility

Chris Christie, New Jersey's nattering nabob of negativism, seems to have taken a page out of Spiro Agnew's playbook in hoisting himself onto the list of potential running mates for Mitt Romney, the Republican Party's presumptive presidential candidate.

AP

Gov. Chris Christie

DeWayne Wickham USATODAY columnist

Christie, the Garden State's rough-talking governor, has been auditioning for the GOP's vice presidential slot with a tough guy act that seems to play well with the Republican base. His supporters see combativeness as a blue-collar virtue that Romney lacks — and his centrist leanings as a magnet for independent voters. Christie's backers delight when he talks of kicking the butts of Democratic lawmakers, calls a reporter who challenged him during a news conference an "idiot," and labels an openly gay legislator a "numbnuts" for comparing Christie to segregationist governors for his position on same-sex marriage.

Agnew is the Maryland governor who catapulted himself onto the 1968 presidential ticket of Richard Nixon with tough talk of a different kind. He called a meeting of his state's moderate, black leaders following rioting that broke out in the wake of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and accused them of not doing enough to stop the violence.

Memories of Agnew

These black leaders didn't act because they were "stung by insinuations (they) were Mr. Charlie's boy" and "by epithets like 'Uncle Tom'," Agnew said as television cameras rolled. That dressing down of Maryland's black leaders got Agnew national media attention and an invitation to be Nixon's running mate.

Christie is a bully of another sort. He was caught on video recently menacingly berating a man who voiced some objection to his education policy while the governor strolled along a Seaside Heights, N.J., boardwalk with an ice cream cone in hand. "You're a real big shot, shooting your mouth off. Keep walking away. … Keep walking," Christie can be heard calling out to the man, whom the governor pursued briefly before being gently nudged into another direction by a member of his entourage. But to actually think Christie is a real tough guy is to believe The Sopranos was a real-life documentary, not an HBO fictional drama.

Baiting for attention

Like James Gandolfini, the show's star, Christie is an actor. He baits interest in his potential candidacy with the kind of tough talk that only true bad guys, and people with a security detail, get away with. His reckless speech might play well in a state besmirched by the false imagery of The Sopranos and Jersey Shore, an MTV series that negatively stereotypes the very neighborhood where Christie had his boardwalk blowup. But it won't pass on the world stage where vice presidents play an increasingly important role. In a recent interview on the ABC News show Nightline, Christie said coyly that he'd answer the phone if Romney called to ask him to be his running mate.

Let's hope that doesn't happen.

What this nation needs from both sides of the political aisle are serious men and women who will take a constructive — not a chest-beating — approach to leadership and governing. We need politicians who can proffer their ideas and defend their ideological ground without resorting to brutish behavior. This nation needs elected officials who will answer reporters' questions, or — when they choose not to — will do so with the good reasoning and civility public trust demands.

As with Agnew, Christie's selection as a vice presidential candidate would be great theater. But to put someone who delights in using fighting words so close to the Oval Office would place a blustering bully a heartbeat away from the presidency.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

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