New Jersey governor Chris Christie has joined the packed Republican race for the White House, formally declaring his candidacy and pledging to run a campaign “without spin and without pandering”.
Playing to his brash, straight-talking reputation as a pugilistic politician, the two-term governor of the northeastern state said on Tuesday that as president he would “not worry about what is popular but what is right”.
Mr Christie (52) is the 14th major Republican candidate in the 2016 race the fifth sitting or former governor to run. Two more – John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin – are expected to declare.
“America is tired of handwringing and indecisiveness and weakness in the Oval Office,” the Republican told a crowd of about 1,000 supporters at his former high school in Livingston, New Jersey.
“We need to have strength and decision-making and authority back in the Oval Office,” he said, “and that is why today I am proud to announce my candidacy for the Republican nomination for the president of the United States of America.”
Reach out
Mr Christie, a Republican governor who won a landslide re-election in 2013 in a heavily Democratic state, pitched his credentials as someone who can reach out to non-Republican and Latino voters. This is a task his party’s presidential nominee must achieve if they’re to win in 2016.
“This country has no choice but to work together again, not against each other,” he said.
Standing next to his wife, Mary Pat, and their four children, Mr Christie played up his middle-class upbringing and promised to “speak the truth” in his “tell it like it is” campaign for the presidency.
“I’m not looking to be prom king of America,” he said to laughs. “I mean what I say and I say what I mean, and that’s what America needs right now.”
Mr Christie’s national profile soared due to his response to the superstorm Sandy in October 2012 and his embrace of Mr Obama during that crisis. But on Tuesday he took aim at the president’s foreign policy as well as the clear Democratic frontrunner to be the next president.
“After seven years of a weak and feckless foreign policy, we better not turn it over to his second mate, Hillary Clinton,” said Mr Christie.
The Republican is seen as a long shot, particularly since a number of his former aides have been charged in the “Bridgegate” scandal with causing traffic jams at a bridge connecting New Jersey and New York City in order to punish a Democratic rival who wouldn’t back his re-election.
He is polling at 4 per cent, according to a national average of polls on the Real Clear Politics website, well behind a group of candidates, including Mr Walker, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and Florida senator Marco Rubio, who are between 11 and almost 14 per cent.
