WHY WE LOVE HIM – AT 9:47 A.M. ET:  Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has emerged as one of the great new governors, getting the job done, and with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.  From NRO: 

“Let me help you pack.” That’s what Gov. Chris Christie told one of the state’s top administrators when that administrator commented publicly that he could leave New Jersey and go to another state if his $242,000 total compensation were to be capped under the governor’s proposed rule.

Earlier in the day Christie discussed the Parsippany Board and Seitz at a town hall meeting in Toms River. “Let me tell you about the new poster boy for all that’s wrong with the public school system that is being dictated by greed,” the governor told the audience. “This contract is the definition of greed and arrogance. I’m going to be speaking out loudly and clearly every day I can about Lee Seitz. If Lee Seitz wants to try to put his greed and his arrogance ahead of the taxpayers of New Jersey, you elected me to stand up to people like Lee Seitz and others across the state and I will.”..

...The governor reacted to Seitz’s veiled threats to leave New Jersey and go to a nearby state where there is no state salary. “I will say in response to Mr. Seitz, ‘Let me help you pack.’ We have real problems in our state that we have to fix and we don’t have the time, nor the money, nor the patience any longer for people who put themselves before our citizens,” Christie railed.

COMMENT:  Christie is increasingly being mentioned as a possible candidate for president, although he vehemently rejects the idea.  Well, he rejects it today.  He certainly doesn't look like a president.  He's obese.  And he doesn't act like a president.  No "presidential" style.  And he doesn't talk like a president.  Foreign leaders would engage in their collective wince, once reserved for Dubya.

But Christie has, thus far, been incredibly effective in trying to right New Jersey's listing ship.  Like Obama, he inherited a bad situation.  Unlike Obama, he decided to do something about it that actually worked.

The jury, of course, is still out.  Christie has only been governor for less than a year.  But if things work out, and his spirit continues, watch him.  He is a sharp contrast with all the other candidates currently being mentioned, and that may just be what we need.

November 14, 2010