Christie steps into race, pledges ‘truth’ about the nation’s woes
HE PORTRAYS HIMSELF AS THE ONLY REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE ABLE TO RUN THE COUNTRY
Governor Chris Christie declared an uphill candidacy for president on Tuesday with New Jersey-style swagger, unconcealed disgust for Washington and a high regard for his own candour, vowing that as president “there is one thing you will know for sure: I say what I mean and I mean what I say.”
Relying on his biggest, and perhaps his last, remaining advantage in a field of betterfinanced and better-liked rivals — his personality — Christie portrayed himself as the only candidate in the Republican field who is forthright and forceful enough to run the country.
“We need strength and decision-making and authority back in the Oval Office,” he said.
Pacing the stage without a prepared text and raising his voice to a shout at times, he vowed to campaign and govern as a colourful teller of difficult truths, even if “it makes you cringe every once in a while.”
‘No prom king’
“I am not running for president of the United States as surrogate for being elected prom king of America,” Christie said inside the gymnasium at the high school where he was president of his class all three years.
“I am not going to be the most popular guy who looks into your eye every day and says what you want to hear,” he continued.
Trying to claw his way back to the top of the Republican field, Christie took a pointed swipe at his rivals who are in the US Senate, like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who have never run a state government.
“Unlike some people who offer themselves for president in 2016, you won’t have to wonder whether I can do it or not,” he said, invoking the “economic calamity” he said he inherited in 2010 and the “unprecedented natural disaster,” Hurricane Sandy, that he weathered as governor.
But he reserved his deepest disdain for Congress and for the president’s stewardship of foreign affairs, and extended that critique to President Barack Obama’s former secretary of state.
“After seven years of a weak and feckless foreign policy run by Barack Obama, we better not turn it over to his second mate, Hillary Clinton,” Christie said.
Still, he blamed both parties for dysfunction and gridlock in Washington. “If Washington and Adams and Jefferson believed that compromise was a dirty word, we’d still be under the crown of England,” he said.