By David Cruz
Correspondent
At the Leadership Forum of the Commerce and Industry Association this morning, Chris Christie sounded less like a presidential candidate and more like a governor looking for help in an upcoming legislative election, calling on business leaders to get behind Republicans lawmakers running in November.
“We need you to be active over the course of the next month and a half before election day. Our entire state assembly is up for election this November,” he told the group of 200 or so business owners. “None of you, with all due respect, have a right to complain about what the legislature does if you’re not going to get involved to try to change it. Believe me; the Democrats in the legislature are not your friends.”
The governor made only a passing reference to his presidential race, sticking to themes that were so Jersey-focused you might think winning an Assembly majority for Republicans was part of some grand second-term strategy.
“If you give me the leverage of the governorship and Speaker Jon Bramnick, we’re going to be able to do something that’ll put the senate and the senate president in a very difficult position,” said Christie. “Let’s make it more difficult on them. Let’s make this a much more difficult next two years on them. And you all have the opportunity to that, but you have to have the courage to do it.”
He didn’t exactly outline a legislative strategy for the session but Christie said he had unfinished work to do on pension and healthcare reform and promised to cut taxes even more – if the membership of the Association would only help give him that majority. He told the breakfast crowd to stand tough and not be intimidated by Democrats.
“I mean seriously, for the next two plus years you’re going to have a Republican governor who’s going to say no to any of those thing that they try to do,” he promised.
Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick has been on a mission to win an Assembly majority, despite conventional wisdom that says the gerrymandered assembly districts make it next to impossible for seats to change hands. Bramnick – who some Republican insiders have criticized, off the record, for what some see as a sycophantic loyalty to the governor – has a lot riding on the November Assembly elections. Winning an Assembly majority would catapult him to the front of the line of potential GOP gubernatorial candidates. Christie says he’s going to do his part by hitting the phones to raise money and keynoting a GOP fundraiser – right here – in New Jersey on Wednesday.
Before jetting off to another campaign stop in Iowa, the governor noted that – the Assembly – where his critics lament his frequent absence from the state – hasn’t, itself, been to work, since June.