The New Jersey governor’s national name recognition and reputation as a moderate Republican made him a popular potential candidate for the presidential race in 2012.
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“We’re going to tell it like it is today, so we can create greater opportunity for every American tomorrow”, Christie told a raucous crowd stuffed into the gymnasium at Livingston High School, where he served as class president. “And I think America wants someone who’s willing to fight for that”.
Christie was urged to run in 2012 when he was atop the GOP polls, but said he declined because “I wasn’t ready to be president of the United States”.
“America is exhausted of hand-wringing and indecisiveness and weakness in the Oval Office”, said Christie. “And that is why, today, I am proud to announce my candidacy”.
But supporters at the event say that’s exactly what this country needs.
“Gov. Christie is a masterful retail politician, as voters especially in New Hampshire get to know him, he does have the ability to charm the trousers off of voters”, she said. [TO CHRISTIE] Should your low approval rating here be an issue in this race? “Both parties have failed our country… both parties have led us to believe that America, a country that was built on compromise – that compromise is somehow a dirty word”.
Conservatives, a key force in the early Republican primaries, have been suspicious of Mr Christie’s record of working at times with Democrats in Democratic-leaning New Jersey.
Yet Christie also jabbed Obama’s “weak and feckless foreign policy” and called Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton the president’s “second mate”. In fact, Christie shares that distinction with just two other state leaders: ex- Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, who vetoed equal marriage legislation in 2009, and ex- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed marriage equality in 2005 and 2007.
Christie said Tuesday that his brand of blunt discourse would bring about a new era of functional politics and soothe citizens facing an uncertain future.
Christie, who flew to New Hampshire immediately after announcing, has lined up five days of town halls, meet-and-greets and even a Fourth of July parade, in far-reaching parts of the Granite State.
The New Jersey governor plans to visit Maine a day after announcing his run for the presidency in 2016.
It’s an endorsement of Christie’s candid and hard-charging style that has sometimes been the source of controversy during his time in the public spotlight.
The Republican is seen as a long shot, particularly since a number of his ex- aides have been charged in the “Bridgegate” scandal with causing traffic jams at a bridge connecting New Jersey and New York City in order to punish a Democratic rival who wouldn’t back his re-election.
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“He is the biggest bully”, Sandra Hanrahan, a teacher among more than 100 protesters outside Christie’s launch, told AFP, citing the governor’s slashing of pension fund payments.
