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Christie plans D.C. rollout

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is bringing his blunt talk about fiscal responsibility to Washington this week in a speech sure to stoke speculation about his national prospects – which have intensified in recent weeks as some Republicans openly fret about the strength of their 2012 field.

Like Christie himself, the message he’ll deliver Wednesday at the conservative American Enterprise Institute is unorthodox and straightforward: he accuses both parties, Democrats and Republicans alike, of “timidity” in the face of the coming fiscal calamity.

“It’s hard, but it can be dealt with,” Christie said of his speech, previewed for POLITICO, which will focus on his battles with the state’s teachers unions. “I’m a little mystified as to why they’re not doing it, on either side. Because what we’ve shown in New Jersey is that the public is hungry for this.”

“I don’t think anybody’s ever accused me of being ambiguous. So I think when I get done, they’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about,” he said.

Christie is candid about his willingness to consider national office in the future but insists he’ll be sitting out 2012, saying he is “challenged and content and excited to be the governor of New Jersey, and I got a lot of work to do here – we are far from being fixed.”

“I’m not running for president,” Christie, 48, said by phone from his desk in Trenton Monday. “And I don’t know anybody who would want somebody like me as their vice president.”

But that hasn’t stopped some Republicans from seeing Christie as the answer for a party that badly wants to beat President Barack Obama two years out. He drew 6 percent of the vote at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll – tied for third, even though he’s not running.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has emerged as a vocal backer, telling Fox and Friends Monday morning, “I would say he’s the only Republican who could win.”

And it’s not just Coulter. One overriding sentiment at CPAC last week was that there was still a spot in the race for a newcomer. Some have pushed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Others have turned to Christie, a former U.S. attorney who unseated incumbent Jon Corzine in 2009 and who is enjoying a wave of GOP national celebrity.

Earlier in the year Christie turned down an opportunity to offer the Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union speech.

In a season of revolt against canned politics, his unapologetic swagger and decisiveness have registered with voters and activists.

“I am who I am,” he said. “To the extent that people are finding any type of attraction to what I’m doing, it’s mostly because it’s because I’m being straight with them. It’s not a bunch of prepared hooey, read off a teleprompter.”

AEI, which sometimes has to fill speeches with employees and interns, says the response to Christie has been so phenomenal that room reached its capacity of 300 less than a week after his speech was announced. Reporters and others are now being referred to a livestream on the Web.

Yet for all Christie’s demurrals on the presidential race, it’s clear his interests extend beyond Trenton. His staff revealed that he had hosted former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney last month for a large dinner at Drumthwacket, the governor’s mansion – and let it be known that it was Romney who had made the overture.

“Governor Romney asked if he could come see us, and I was more than happy to host him for dinner with some folks in my state who are political friends and allies of mine,” Christie said. “I’d do it with people I feel like I have a relationship with, and I have one with Governor Romney.”

And Christie clearly expects more such auditions.

“If there are other folks who I have developed a relationship with over time who are considering running for president … I’m happy to give them a forum,” he said. “As that happens, I’m not naïve enough to think that it won’t leak to all of you immediately.”

In an exclusive preview of his D.C. address, “It’s Time to Do the Big Things,” the governor reveled in his biggest controversy – his war with Garden State teachers’ unions.

It’s a fight where national Republicans are cheering him on and he knows it.

The speech, he said, is an effort to “let people around the country know about the experience we’re having in New Jersey, … and how I think it’s something that every governor is currently looking at, and that the federal government should be looking at.”

Christie explained his confrontational style, memorialized on various YouTube videos that have drawn hundreds of thousands of views.

“I was brand-new to the schoolyard last January,” he said. “And when I came on, I saw a whole bunch of people, laying on the ground – bloody. And one person standing up – that’s the bully. Some governors before me have decided they wanted to cozy up to the bully and make nice with him and hope that they don’t get punched.

“My attitude is: ‘You punch them, I punch you.’ That’s what I think I’ve been sent here to do, with regard to some of the public-sector unions. I don’t think you can allow public officials to be bullied around. If they want a fight, they’ll get one.”

Christie beat Corzine by less than 4 percent of the vote, but since then has marshaled public opinion to a surprising degree in a state that has gone Democratic in the past five presidential elections. In a Quinnipiac University poll taken early this month, 53 percent of respondents approved of his handling of the state budget, although those polled were evenly split on his handling of education.

The support for his tough medicine was unusually broad: 56 percent favored layoffs for state workers, 65 percent backed furloughs for state workers, 77 percent supported wage freezes for state workers, and 66 percent were for reducing pensions for new state workers.

“Whether that’s members of the state legislature, or people at my town-hall meetings, or folks who interview me on national television, I’m no different,” he said. “Some people are going to like it and some people aren’t, but they’re never gonna have to wonder what I think. They’re gonna know.”

The governor’s three big themes, foreshadowed in his “State of the State” address last month, will be “restoring fiscal sanity,” reforming entitlements and education reform.

Standard & Poor’s lowered New Jersey’s credit rating earlier this month because of what Christie said at the time was a “pension and benefit bomb.” Christie said that for his state, pension and health-benefit reform are the entitlement equivalents of the federal Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

“Nobody’s talking about it, so [Republicans and Democrats] both get incompletes,” Christie said. “Once again, the states are going to have to show leadership. I want to talk to people on a more national level about the fact that this is being done in New Jersey … as a way to show a pathway to it being done in other states and on the national level.”

Christie accused both parties of “timidity” on the big fiscal issues.

The Republican Party, he said, is “on probation” with the American people. “If we do this well, the country will reward us for being men and women of our word,” he said. “And if we don’t, then we’ll be punished they way people who break their word should be.”

“The way to get that message out to a lot of the states is to come to Washington, D.C., because you’ll get national coverage that they’ll read everywhere,” the governor added. “But also, if it leads to spurring courageous conversation in the United States Capitol, then that’ll be just another extra added benefit.”

Christie claims he already has “changed the way government is going to operate in New Jersey.”

“No longer is every program assumed to be funded, [or] that every funded program will get an increase,” he said. “We’ve actually turned that momentum around, not just for one year but now for two years in a row. That, I hope, will be the takeaway [from his budget address later this month]: ‘Wow, this isn’t just a flash in the pan. They’re actually going to continue to do this.”

Christie said his soulmates among governors include New York’s Andrew Cuomo (D), Wisconsin’s Scott Walker (R), Ohio’s John Kasich (R) and Susana Martinez (R), New Mexico’s first female governor.

“We are on the verge of real financial disaster,” Christie said. “It’s not papering it over anymore with help from Washington, D.C. It’s about us putting our own affairs in order, and Washington, D.C., giving us the flexibility [on Medicare and other issues] to do that.”

Asked about the GOP’s 2012 presidential field, Christie replied: “I, obviously, am very close to Governor [Haley] Barbour [of Mississippi], and we worked together closely at the [Republican Governors Association]. I’m also very friendly with [former Minnesota] Governor [Tim] Pawlenty, and have great respect for him. I have respect for [Indiana] Governor [Mitch] Daniels, and I’ve spent time with him.”

How about Sarah Palin? “I’ve never spent any time with her,” he said, referring to the Alaska governor who stepped down from office 4 months prior to his election.

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