By David Cruz
Correspondent
Diner stops are the meat and potatoes of political campaigns and in his first full week on the trail, Chris Christie was eating it up.
“I like your guts,” said one Christie supporter.
The governor says this week has been about starting to building an organization and to that end he announced that former New Hampshire U.S. Attorney Tom Colantuono was joining the team.
“I believe because of what I saw in Chris Christie that he would make a fantastic president of the United States,” Colantuono said.
But even here, some 200 miles away, the pull of issues at home, and his flagging poll numbers there, were hard to escape.
When asked if he has any repair work to do back home, Christie said, “I just have to be myself. It’s not surprising. If you look at any of the governors who are running for president, all of them are suffering at home in the polls because people say, ‘Well, you’re not here as much’ and all the rest of that, so I don’t think any of the governors who are running are over 50 percent in their polling numbers in their home state. It just seems to be the way it goes, but that’s OK.”
When asked if he’s given any consideration to having the campaign reimburse the state for the cost of his security detail he said, “No, because, in the end, anywhere I go the troopers need to go whether I want them to go or not. We’re going to continue to conduct this in the same way that I’ve always conducted it,” Christie said.
Christie maintains that New Jersey comes first when asked about if had a plan on how he was going to split his time.
“First priority is I spend as much time in New Jersey as I absolutely have to to be able to do my job the right way,” he said.
Customers at MaryAnn’s Diner in Derry — one of those New Hampshire spots where every candidate is compelled to visit — are used to this scene, but not everyone was quite so welcoming to a governor whose reputation can sometimes precede him.
“Excuse me for interrupting,” Christie said to a diner who replied, “Not interested. You are interrupting and we’re not interested at all. You’re very rude, very rude.”
There are hundreds of diner stops between today and the first in the nation primary in February, but the governor couldn’t have asked for a better start to this campaign. He’ll be back in Jersey tomorrow, where his day job and a fair amount of disgruntled residents await.