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Christie builds his case for Trump's VP

Trenton insiders are convinced the governor is auditioning for a spot on the GOP ticket. But he probably doesn't need to.

Chris Christie has said it over and over: He can’t “imagine” being vice president. His personality just isn’t cut out for the role.

But the way Christie has been governing New Jersey over the last couple months has many Trenton insiders convinced he’s angling for a spot on the ticket with Donald Trump, whose transition team he’s leading and who hinted at it far back as November when he said Christie could have a “place” in his administration.

Christie has fiercely guarded his reputation as a strong executive, taken pains not to see his vetoes overturned and put forward sweeping proposals that anger liberals and have little chance at passing.

He’s also echoed Donald Trump’s talking points on “radical Islam” and has become the presumptive Republican nominee’s chief apologist, bucking other Republicans by refusing to call his remarks about Judge Gonzalo Curiel racist.

“Once it was clear his own presidential ambitions came to an end, at least for the time being, he switched gears for how do I get out of New Jersey. And it was getting on the Trump bandwagon,” said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.

Christie’s closest advisers say there’s no conscious effort to appeal to Trump. It just happens that he’s well positioned to.

“You don’t position yourself to be vice president. You either have those qualifications, and/or you have a very close relationship with the person who is the nominee,” said Christie confidant Bill Palatucci, a Republican national committeeman who serves on the Rules Committee for the Republican National Convention . “In Chris Christie’s situation, he has both.”

“I don’t see it as any type of audition. I see it as him being himself,” said Mike DuHaime, a top Christie strategist in his campaigns for governor and president.

Democrats who have long fought Christie at home, however, say they’ve seen this play out before. Christie is using his job in New Jersey not to govern here, but to build his reputation for the national stage, they say.

“He’s been auditioning for president. For Trump vice president. For presidential nominee four years from now. He auditioned for all of it,” said state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, a Democrat, citing “the way he consistently carries the flag of the very right-wing portion for the Republican primary voters.”

Shortly after dropping out of the presidential race, Christie became one of Trump’s most prominent surrogates. But he cut back on the public appearances with Trump when they stoked a backlash at home, with even several Republicans calling on him to resign if he didn’t focus on the governorship. The furor hit a fever pitch when Christie was conducting a friendly interview of Donald Trump at a campaign event in Florida while back home New Jersey’s lieutenant governor attended the funeral of a state trooper who died in the line of duty.

Soon, the governor was throwing himself back into his job with a passion not seen in the last couple years, when he was rarely glimpsed in the statehouse and spent much of his time out of state to run for president.

Unlike the types of achievements that got Christie noticed nationally in the first place -- like compromising with Democrats to overhaul of the state’s public worker health and pension benefits — some of the policies Christie’s pushing have little to no chance of being enacted in this blue state. But they could bolster his conservative credentials and set up public disputes with Democrats.

Christie put forward a plan that would increase state aid to suburban and rural school districts while slashing it for urban districts that currently get the bulk of the funding. The plan, which would overturn decades of state court decisions on education funding, has almost zero chance of passage, but the governor is hosting town hall meetings about it around the state.

And Christie stepped in and cut a midnight deal with the Democrat-led state Assembly last month that would increase the state’s gas tax for the first time since 1988 while cutting the sales tax by 1 percentage point. In doing so, he blew up a carefully crafted bipartisan plan and put forward something that had virtually no support in the state Senate. He then ordered non-emergency transportation projects shut down in an effort to put pressure on the Legislature and touted a letter from Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist to support his plan.

“The talking points that come out of this: I’m fighting against those seven justices in black robes who are telling us how to spend our school money, or on the Transportation Trust Fund: I’m not giving a gas tax increase unless I get tax fairness,” said Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who with Weinberg helped break open Christie’s biggest scandal when he investigated the 2013 access lane closures of the George Washington Bridge. “He’s almost praying at the altar of Grover Norquist on that one.”

Christie’s advantages as a vice presidential candidate were on display even before his own presidential campaign failed. His takedown of Marco Rubio on the debate stage was one of the defining moments of the GOP primary, and showed the caustic criticisms he would be capable of delivering in the attack dog role.

“He’s probably one of the best communicators in the history of the country. No one can carry a message better than Chris Christie,” said New Jersey Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick, a Christie loyalist. “Who would you rather have as vice president every day communicating? Maybe Ronald Reagan. Maybe a few people are out there in his league.”

But the drawbacks to placing Christie on the ticket are considerable. Aside from the question of the ticket’s regional balance, he wouldn’t put New Jersey in play — his approval rating has plummeted to 26 percent.

Then there’s the upcoming trial of a former aide and former appointee charged with closing off access lanes to the busiest bridge in the country. It's due to start in September, not only putting Christie’s biggest scandal back in the spotlight but potentially churning up new and damaging revelations about the way the Christie administration operated — and all during the campaign homestretch. There’s also the recent revelations that Christie’s state-funded lawyers charged with investigating the bridge scandal never looked through Christie’s personal email, even though he conducted state business on it — a controversy that threatens to muddy Trump’s focus on Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

Now one of Christie’s closest confidants, David Samson, is according to The New York Observer about to plead guilty to a felony involving his role as Christie-appointed chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — a multi-billion dollar agency whose budget is bigger than several states.

State Sen. Michael Doherty, who was the first New Jersey state lawmaker to back Trump, said he doesn’t think Trump should pick Christie.

“I think there’d be better choices,” Doherty said. “I think there’s better picks out there that bring some geographic diversity, that have actually served in Washington, D.C. I think you want to have somebody that’s maybe a little different than the presidential candidate. Christie and Trump are kind of the same type of personality.”

But Doherty is one of the few New Jersey Republicans who is openly critical of Christie, and despite his deep unpopularity that’s become an increasingly large political liability for supporters, Christie still holds enormous sway over New Jersey Republican lawmakers.

State Sen. Joe Pennacchio, who’s from Christie’s own well-heeled Morris County, endorsed Trump not long after Doherty and is pulling for Christie.

“I’ve known him personally for 20 years,” Pennacchio said. “I think he’s got the fortitude.”

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