Seems things are not so great in NJ after all. If he seeks the nomination in 2016 he will have a lot of spinning to do


Yes, he’s a skilled politician and a talented deal-maker who, for his first two years in office, got nearly everything he wanted from the Democratic Legislature.

But it hasn’t worked. New Jersey’s economy is a mess, even compared with its neighbors. The property tax burden is up sharply. Poverty is rising. And the state’s credit rating has dropped on Christie’s watch as the long-range outlook deteriorates. His successor will inherit a bigger mess than he did.

Crime is spiking in several of New Jersey’s hard-pressed cities, where loss of state aid has forced massive police layoffs. The state’s home foreclosure rate is the second highest in the nation and Christie fumbled a federal aid program intended to soften the blow. Yet he tried to raid a fund earmarked for affordable housing until the courts stopped him.

The list goes on. The state’s open space program is essentially dead, with no money and no ideas from the governor on how to fix it. The transportation trust fund is broke as well, so the governor has financed projects mostly by borrowing and by scavenging money that former Gov. Jon Corzine had set aside for the Hudson River tunnel project, which Christie canceled.

Could he turn this around in a second term? Maybe. But it’s not likely because he’s moving rightward to appeal to voters in the 2016 presidential primaries, shrinking the common ground with Democrats. Christie hasn’t discussed his agenda for a second term, but the era of big bipartisan deals in Trenton may be over.


http://blog.nj.com/njv_tom_moran/2013/09/post_13.html