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[Christie appointee David Wildstein] had told someone (in writing) not to worry about the children that the resulting traffic jams were keeping away from school, “They are the children of Buono voters.” Well, turns out he was probably wrong....

Former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin took time out from her book tour to offer her thoughts on the 2016 presidential election. Governor Chris Christie is considered the Republican frontrunner in some circles, but Palin isn’t in his corner. She says the Party doesn’t have to “settle” for any particular candidate. Palin said in a Fox News interview, according to Politico, “We certainly don’t have to settle for any candidate that would go along with an agenda that stifles our economy and would strip any of our freedoms that are constitutionally protected.” Also, in an interview with...

A poll published Wednesday by Quinnipiac finds that in a theoretical 2016 match-up between Governor Chris Christie and former Secretary Hillary Clinton, Christie would have a slight edge. The poll of American voters showed Christie garnering 43 percent while Clinton received 42 percent. Christie was the only Republican who beat Clinton in potential head to head race. Other possible Republican nominees trailed Clinton by between 9 and 15 points: • 49 - 40 percent over U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky; • 51 - 36 percent over U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas; • 49 - 40 percent over U.S....

Think of something that is one World Cup, two Olympics and three Christmases away – would you give it much thought? Well, last week’s landslide victory of Chris Christie as New Jersey governor has energized the Republican Party ahead of the 2016 presidential election. But it’s not that Christie, a pragmatic and mainstream Republican by party standards, would be embraced as someone who can win big in a heavily Democratic state. The opposite is true. Not a day goes by that sees conservative Republicans stabbing Christie. Three years before Election Day, the gloves are off and the knives are out....

Anyone who needs further proof that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had best stay away from a presidential run will find it in the double-whammy aimed at him yesterday. First, an NBC poll shows that in a head-to-head match-up with presumed Democrat 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton, Christie trails by ten points. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie could face a strong challenge not only from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton if he seeks the presidency in 2016 but also from his own party, a new NBC News poll reveals. The survey of 1,003 adults released Tuesday, shows Clinton with 44...

LAWRENCEVILLE — Steve Schmidt, a senior advisor to U.S. Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential bid and New Jersey native, tonight called Gov. Chris Christie's re-election campaign a model for the national GOP. "There is a template there for success because Chris Christie as much as anything stands for the expanding model of the Republican Party, not the contracting model of the Republican Party," Schmidt said during a talk at the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.

Sarah Palin continues to withhold resounding support for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in 2016, saying Republicans don’t have to “settle” for candidates. “We certainly though don’t have to settle for any candidate, any politician that would go along to get along with an agenda that stifles our economy and would strip any of our freedoms that are constitutionally protected,” Palin said Monday on Fox News’s “Hannity,” when asked about the GOP establishment saying Christie is the only Republican candidate who could win the presidency in 2016. Palin said “those establishment people have been quite wrong, it seems, especially in...

He won re-election as a Republican governor by almost 60 percent of the vote. He loved to talk about what he called the “Teamwork Government” he had brought to his state capital — especially when it came to contrasting what he and his tight-knit band of advisers deemed as the wild success and popularity of his Teamwork Government with the chaos of Washington. He boldly went where other Republicans would not go, winning an unprecedented pledge of neutrality from the deeply liberal labor movement. Stunningly, of the 24 members of the American Federation of Labor’s endorsement board, 22 wanted to...

Democrats insist they can thwart Chris Christie (R) if he seeks the White House in 2016, despite the broad appeal he showed in winning reelection last week. Even though the New Jersey governor secured more than 60 percent of the votes against state Sen. Barbara Buono (D), Democratic strategists in the Garden State and beyond believe he has vulnerabilities they could exploit in a national election. Above all, they assert that Christie’s famously combative style could result in a loss of self-control during the heat of a presidential campaign. Steve Elmendorf, who served as deputy campaign manager for then-Sen. John...

Chris Christie criticized strategists for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign on Sunday, saying no one should “give a darn” about their political advice, but the New Jersey Republican governor isn’t nearly as dismissive of their input as he lets on. During his re-election campaign this year, Christie hired a political consultancy firm run by Romney’s former top strategists and paid more than $46,000 for their services. According to his campaign financial reports, Christie paid $46,007.29 (plus $251 for “transportation/parking”) to the Stevens & Schriefer Group, which is run by Romney’s former senior strategists Stuart Stevens and Russell Schriefer. While Stevens...

I know…I know….here we go again right? All the talk is about how Chris Christie will be the best GOP nominee because he’s the most electable. We’ve heard this before. We heard it with John McCain in 2008. We heard it with Mitt Romney in 2012 and now we are hearing it with Governor Christie. But there’s a crucial difference. No disrespect to McCain or Romney but Christie has pizazz. He has more chutzpah in one finger than McCain and Romney do combined. That’s important. A lot of Tea Party conservatives are going to focus in on the purity of...

Even as the Obama administration attempts to negotiate a rotten deal with Iran on the monitoring and winding down of its nuclear program – a deal that fell through late last week – Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) has declined to take a position on Iran.

Governor Rick Perry was in Iowa this weekend and during an interview on ABC’s This Week, he raised the $64,000 question about a potential Chris Christie presidential candidacy: Gov. Rick Perry of Texas credited Chris Christie for his re-election in New Jersey, but he pointedly questioned whether the 22-point victory by Christie held any greater meaning for the Republican Party. “Is a conservative in New Jersey a conservative in the rest of the country?” Perry said in an interview with “This Week.” “We’ll have that discussion at the appropriate time.” As he made his first visit back to Iowa since...

Is it just me, or does anyone else out there wonder why the mainstream media is gushing over Gov. Chris Christie? The Washington Post got all wee-weed up over his decisive win in New Jersey last week. The New York Times planted a big kiss on his chubby tookus. The networks in Manhattan all ran a variation of “Boy, this guy is really something, huh?” (snip) In coronating the rotund governor as the next sure-fire GOP presidential nominee in 2016, none of the mainstream media pointed out his stances on issues that they no doubt hate: Mr. Christie vetoed a...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Sunday offered his Republican Party a prescription to win: show up. Christie, fresh off a 22-percentage point win for re-election, said the GOP must go into Hispanic and black communities, talk with seniors and campaign in traditionally Democratic-leaning areas. It’s what helped him become the first New Jersey Republican in a quarter century to capture more than 50 percent of the vote. It also has done nothing to tamp down chatter about a 2016 presidential bid, something many have encouraged. “I know everybody is going to be speculating about what may come in my...

If New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has any chance of securing the Republican presidential nomination, he just might have to thank such darlings of the tea party movement as Rand Paul and Ted Cruz for an unlikely path to victory. As Mr. Paul’s and Mr. Cruz’s recent filibusters on the Senate floor have shown, the 2016 quest for the White House is well underway. A fierce battle among the new small-government, libertarian stars is already raging. That has left a growing number of conservative activists voicing concerns publicly about a scenario that would let a moderate Republican like Mr....

It is no wonder that with Christie’s 22.5 point reelection victory in the New Jersey governor’s race on Tuesday the national press has christened him a star. Other than Christie, there is not one political adult being mentioned as a serious candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. Rand Paul values property rights over civil rights, which should be reversed. Ted Cruz wants to close the federal government and seal the boarder from immigrants, which is odd for a Canadian. And Rick Santorum. Enough said. Truth be told, the GOP has not fielded many attractive candidates of late. ---snip--- Here...

As a Latino myself, I totally agree with Cruz and Rubio. The GOP establishment is making too much over a “non-race” in New Jersey. The Democrat Party didn’t compete for the New Jersey governorship because they want Christie as the GOP nominee in 2016, so that the media can turn around and destroy him. It’s all a set up! Fox News reports while the spotlight shines brightly on Gov. Chris Christie, and more moderate Republicans see a glimmer of hope to winning back the White House, two prominent Tea Party stars are very publicly rolling their eyes – senators Ted...

Last August before a closed meeting of Republican leaders in Boston, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey said, "We are not a debating society. We are a political operation that needs to win." Tuesday night, Christie won. Big time. In one of the nation's bluest states, Christie got 60.5 percent of the vote. His Democratic opponent, Barbara Buono, claims she lost because "Democratic political bosses" made a deal with Christie "despite him representing almost everything they're against. ... They did it to help themselves politically and financially." In other words, they voted out of self-interest. Imagine that. Self-interest in politics....

GOP rivals begin dishing on Christie: So this is what happens the day after you win a 22-point re-election victory and after the national media anoint you as the GOP establishment front-runner for a presidential race that’s still three years (!!!) away: Potential Republican rivals begin taking not-so-subtle shots at you. That’s exactly what happened to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) yesterday. "Clearly [Christie] was able to speak to the hopes and aspirations of people within New Jersey,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told CNN. “That's important. We want to win everywhere and Gov. Christie has certainly shown he has...