In his first State of the State speech, in 2011, Gov. Chris Christie talked up “New Jersey’s comeback.”
That talk was about the economy, but the comeback Christie envisioned never quite materialized. Now, in Tuesday’s State of the State speech — Christie’s seventh — the question is whether the governor will be more successful in launching his own comeback.
“We saw how rapid the fall was,” said Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a frequent critic of the Republican governor. “I’m not surprised by anything anymore in public life. So I’m assuming that there’s always time for redemption.”
With one year left in office, this may be Christie’s last chance. But it comes at a bad time.
Christie is politically toxic right now, and not just with Democrats. Recent polls show a large majority of Republicans disapprove of his job performance, which in a recent Fairleigh Dickinson University poll was at 18 percent among all voters. Republican elected officials who have their eyes on the governorship or want to be re-elected in even slightly competitive races don’t want to be near him. And Democrats, who will be heavily favored to retake the governor's office in November, are confident they will only have to wait a year to get anything big done.
“[Democrats] are not of a mind, particularly looking ahead to 2018 when they assume they’re going to have one of their people in the governor’s office, to give him heavy public relations wins,” said Carl Golden, a former spokesman for Republican governors Tom Kean and Christie Whitman.
Yet some Democrats — particularly those under the sway of South Jersey power broker George Norcross, Christie’s most valuable ally — are willing to work with the governor. In fact, they just tried.
It was a disaster.
The attempt by Democratic legislative leaders to secure raises for their staffs, judges and other officials in exchange for letting Christie profit from a book deal while still in office looked like a turning point for the effectiveness of the longtime Christie/Democratic boss alliances. But the legislation stirred rebellion within the ranks, and even some of Christie’s most loyal Republican allies, though they kept quiet in the run-up to the vote, later said they didn’t support it.
“I wasn’t part of constructing or supporting the bill. It was just bad,” said Assemblyman Jon Bramnick, perhaps Christie’s most steadfast legislative ally.
In the end, the measure was withdrawn because of lack of support.
By all indications, Christie’s speech to the Democrat-controlled Legislature on Tuesday will at least partly cover a familiar topic with bipartisan support: his leadership in the state’s efforts to battle drug addiction.
Other than that, he’s leaving Trenton guessing.
Christie — who successfully pushed for an overall of public worker benefits and a property tax cap during his first term — has had little success with big ticket items, other than a long-delayed replenishment of the Transportation Trust Fund through a gas tax hike pared with a number of tax cuts. He began the summer aggressively pushing a radical proposal to equalize school funding with a series of town hall meetings. Eventually, though, he gave up actively pushing it.
“He’s coming off a year of bitter disappointment. He doesn’t even have a book deal. So who knows what he has to look forward to for the remaining year except state finances that continue to fall apart,” Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray said.
The Record’s Charles Stile noted that Christie has already begun to spin the past year of bitter disappointments as a positive — glossing over his failed presidential campaign and snub by the incoming Trump administration to note he’ll be the first governor to serve two full terms since Tom Kean left office in 1989.
In addition, a mysterious camera crew has reportedly been following the governor as he attends drug addiction events and has heart-to-heart conversations with recovering addicts. NJ Advance Media has reported it’s likely to become the basis for some kind of video — and a potential way for Christie to claw his way back into the public’s good graces.
Bramnick said he anticipates Christie's State of the State will focus on addiction, and hopes the governor will press Democrats to compromise with him and Republican leaders on pensions and school funding.
“He’s one of the most talented people I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s got incredible skills,” Bramnick said. “I would hope that based on what we saw at the beginning of his term, that the media will take their foot off his throat and put a little pressure on the Democrats to come to the table.”
Murray said the only way Christie can get his approval rating above 50 percent would be leading the state through a crisis on the scale of Hurricane Sandy — the governor's approval rating neared 80 percent in the aftermath of Sandy — and that he’s not convinced the governor is committed to rebuilding his legacy at home.
“He can certainly get it into the 30s, possibly near 40 percent, if he puts his nose to the grindstone,” Murray said. “But it’s not clear whether that’s all that important to him.”