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The day after his re-election campaign ended, Christie hit the trail again. Not a man for subtlety, he chose a place called Union City, the most densely populated town in America, where 85% of the residents are Latino and Romney got fewer than 1 in 5 votes in 2012. He appeared on live cable television before a gymnasium of mostly minority students, of course, and then took questions from the national political press corps. It was a master class in brand building. Despite the pomp, he pledged to focus on his state, avoid getting distracted and keep making divided government work. "Sometimes people make politics too complicated," he said, in a clear jab at the deadlock in Washington. "It's not too complex. It's about personal relationships."
Despite his fearless persona, Christie's career has been filled with caution, making his recent moves all the more notable. In 2011 he resisted enormous pressure (including a call from Barbara Bush to his wife Mary Pat) to get into the Republican presidential primaries as an alternative to Romney. Publicly, he said he just didn't feel the call and had more work to do in New Jersey. But his personal history weighed on him. In 1995, Christie ran for state assembly despite his personal reservations, losing badly. The lesson he took from the earlier race was to listen first and foremost to his own instincts--or pay a heavy price. In 2005, when pressure came to run early for governor, he again resisted the call.
Now Christie, who revealed this spring that he had Lap-Band surgery to get into better shape, is no longer sounding coy. For years, crowds have been screaming "I love you" at Obama during his speeches and rallies, flattery he responds to with his own clever response, "I love you back." In New Jersey this fall, Christie started to hear similar calls from the crowd in the final days of the campaign. His answer is already something of a classic, capturing in a few words the man the country is about to get to know very well. "Good," the governor likes to say, "because I can't change."
--With reporting by Zeke Miller/Asbury Park