NJ Watchdog: Christie shoots from hip but wounds credibility

Chris Christie has never been one to mince words. The New Jersey governor says what he thinks, but it’s not clear if he thought about what he said.

Last week, Christie interrupted his run for the White House long enough to criticize legislators for not paying enough attention to state business. Last month, he warned Hillary Clinton that he plans to grill her about emails in a debate, overlooking his own legal issues. Finally, the portly governor ordered the leader of the New Jersey National Guard to lose weight.

Let’s take it from the top. Christie last week blasted the New Jersey Assembly for not focusing on legislative matters.

“The fact is they don’t want to interrupt their precious campaign time for a minute,” he told a breakfast meeting of business leaders in Hanover.

Later that morning, the governor boarded a plane to Iowa in pursuit of his presidential ambitions. So far this year, Christie has traveled out-of-state on at least 145 days. Yet to hear him tell it, he’s the only one minding the Statehouse.

“I’m the Maytag repairman,” said Christie. “Sit in my office in Trenton, all alone.”

The New Jersey governor likes to shoot from the hip – but those shots often ricochet back to wound his credibility.

While most of the Assembly’s 80 members seek re-election in November, they can generally be found in their legislative districts. Meanwhile, Christie is fixated on New Hampshire, where he plans to hold 100 town meetings before the February primary.

To add injury to insult, New Jersey taxpayers have spent more than $1.3 million for the travel costs of the state police troopers who accompany Christie on his trips away from the Garden State.

The complete story is online at http://watchdog.org/240912/christie-credibility/.

NJ Watchdog: Christie runs for president - and away from pension mess

Fresh from a failure to fix New Jersey’s pension system and its $170 billion deficit, Gov. Chris Christie is scheduled to formally announce his run for the White House next week.

But first, Christie is expected to veto parts of a state budget that would restore $1.8 billion he cut from the state’s scheduled pension contribution. The governor is slated to hold a news conference Friday to explain his rejection of budget changes approved Thursday by the Democratic-controlled Senate and Assembly.

Then next Tuesday morning, Christie has a date at his alma mater, Livingston High School, to tell the world why he should be the next president of the United States. That afternoon, he’ll fly to New Hampshire for the ninth time this year to try to convince primary voters that he should be running the country.

Meanwhile, New Jersey’s fiscal dilemma will be in its governor’s rearview mirror as he travels the nation to audition for a new job. And his pledge to fix the state’s pension system is not likely to be repeated in his campaign speeches.

“We will tackle this problem now and we will solve it,” promised Christie during his budget address in February. “That is what real leadership produces for our people.”

“I am committed to working with each and every one of you in good faith to make a promise to the people of this state that we will not push this off...we will not leave it for another day... for another year... for another generation,” said the governor.

Instead, Christie convinced the state Supreme Court that his own pension reform of 2011 was unconstitutional – a decision that legitimized his decisions to strip billions from the pension contributions required by the law.

The full story is online at http://watchdog.org/226135/christie-president-pension-mess/.

NJ Watchdog: Voters flee as Christie chases White House

As Chris Christie applies for a job in the White House, he may want to think twice about using his New Jersey employers as references.

Fifty-four percent of registered voters give thumbs-down to Christie’s performance as governor, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released today. And 60 percent believe the Garden State is on the wrong track.

The numbers have dropped dramatically since a high point in February 2013, when Christie savored a 73 percent approval rating versus a scant 23 percent in naysayers.

The poll found New Jersey’s pension crisis to be Christie’s biggest weakness. Only 22 percent of voters view his role favorably, compared to 60 percent who disapprove.

The unfunded liability of state retirement system exceeds $170 billion, according to a New Jersey Watchdog analysis based on numbers from the state Treasury. Christie made pension reform the centerpiece of his budget address in February, but there has been no legislative progress on the recommendations of the governor’s blue-ribbon panel.

Meanwhile, Christie is spending less time in Trenton and more time on the national campaign trail. Next week, he is scheduled to be in New Hampshire from April 14 to 17. One of the events will be a town hall meeting with voters in the early primary state.

The story is online at http://watchdog.org/211151/nj-voters-flee-christie/.

DGA: Christie To Jersey: Drop Dead

It's about time the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) started showing some support for Barbara Buono by hammering Chris Christie on his record instead of letting him get by on his rhetoric -MM  



WASHINGTON, DC—Less than 24 hours after Chris Christie endorsed Tea Party radical Steve Lonegan for the U.S. Senate and only days after he vetoed a gun safety package that he in part proposed, the Democratic Governors Association today released a new graphic calling Chris Christie out for leaving the people of New Jersey behind in favor of his personal presidential ambition. Christie’s decision to ignore New Jersey is reminiscent of yet another iconic newspaper front page.