Photograph by Mel Evans/AP Photo

Inmates, left, and former Gov. Jim McGreevey, right, laugh as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, second right, makes a joke while answering a question at the Hudson County Correctional Center in Kearny, N.J., on May 8, 2013.

One reporter likened them to “The Odd Couple,” the Neil Simon creation about male roommates with opposite personalities.

The setting today, though, wasn’t that pair’s roomy Manhattan apartment. It was a women’s unit at the Hudson County Correctional Center in Kearny, New Jersey. The stars were Republican Gov. Chris Christie and one of his predecessors, the Democrat Jim McGreevey.

There they sat, the sassy, hard-charging and secretly Lap-Banded Christie (more about that in a sec) and McGreevey, 55, who resigned in disgrace in 2004 after declaring himself a “gay American” disclosing an extramarital affair with an aide. Their mission: extoll the virtues of rehabilitating nonviolent drug offenders at the Integrity House recovery program led by McGreevey.

Christie, speaking to reporters, said he was “absolutely not” uncomfortable alongside McGreevey, whose party he has criticized for shepherding New Jersey’s fiscal morass. He said he’s even had conversations with McGreevey on establishing “drug courts,” which emphasize substance-abuse treatment over punishment.

McGreevey, who led the 26 women through song, personal stories and recitation of the Serenity Prayer, said the group was “blessed to have the governor here.”

Christie, 50, has struggled with his weight since he stopped playing sports in school. His cheeks and chin aren’t as full as they were just a few weeks ago, and he told the New York Post on May 6 that he had secretly undergone the Lap Band procedure of gastric banding surgery in February. At a news conference in Newark yesterday, he said he had kept the matter quiet because he considered it personal, to the extent that he had registered under a fake name at New York University Langone Medical Center’s Weight Management Program.

He declined yesterday to say how much he had weighed and lost. Any reporter hoping to break the big news today was disappointed. Christie took just two questions unrelated to the recovery program. Neither involved his tummy.

Original post is New Jersey’s Odd Couple Governors Visit Correctional Center by Political Capital.

Photograph by Julio Cortez/AP Photo

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talks during a town hall meeting at Raritan Valley Community College, on April 11, 2013, in Branchburg, N.J.

One of the fun parts of being governor, Chris Christie tells the schoolchildren:

“Any bugs on your desk, you’re allowed to kill them without getting in trouble.”

Faced with an uninvited visitor making himself comfortable in his office, the New Jersey governor didn’t wait for his bodyguards. He sent the trespasser to his doom: Splat!

Video of the 50-year-old governor greasing a spider, as his fourth-grader Bridget and tour-taking classmates giggled, was posted on his YouTube channel today.

“Where is he?” the governor said, stooping over his desk. “There he is.”

Icky things, somehow, are always “he.”

A child, spotting an office tool, suggested: “Let’s staple him.” The remark, one presumes, was directed toward the critter and not the 50-year-old Republican who is running for a second term.

Christie instead chose his left hand, and that was the end of that. The children laughed and clapped.

“Thank you very much,” he said. “That’s also another fun part of being governor. Any bugs on your desk — you’re allowed to kill them without getting in trouble.”

Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie, said the governor is not, in fact, arachnophobic.

“Impressive constituent relations,” Drewniak, referring to the governor’s young visitors, said in an e-mail. “Too bad fourth-graders can’t vote.”

We couldn’t help but think of President Barack Obama’s equally cool-handed swatting of a fly during an interview with CNBC a few years back. “Nice,” said interviewer John Harwood.

“I got the sucker,” the president said proudly.

(Aren’t the spiders supposed to take care of the flies?)

Original post is Christie Kills Spider for Schoolkids, Channeling Obama’s Fly-Swatting by Political Capital.

Photograph by John Stillwell - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Prince Harry makes early morning checks as he sits on an Apache helicopter at the British controlled flight-line at Camp Bastion on December 12, 2012 in Afghanistan.

Prince Harry, who has demonstrated that the “what-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas” thing doesn’t apply to a buck-naked heir to the British throne, is heading to New Jersey in May for a tour of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation.

No word on whether the prince, 28, will appear alongside Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who is campaigning for re-election in November as he pushes to rebuild the Jersey shore’s towns and tourist resorts. Christie’s spokesmen, Michael Drewniak and Kevin Roberts, didn’t return e-mails asking for comment.

The Oct. 29 storm caused $36.9 billion in damage to New Jersey. Christie has said he aims to make the beaches ready in time for Independence (from the British) Day, the traditional start of summer tourism, on July 4.

The prince will be stateside May 9 to 15, with a New Jersey stop described only as “an area badly affected by Hurricane Sandy,”  according to a news release on the prince’s official Web-site.

Harry, an Army Air Corps pilot who has served in Afghanistan, also will visit Washington for an exhibition on landmine clearance, and to tour Arlington National Cemetery and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He also will make appearances in Colorado and New York and play polo in Greenwich, Connecticut.

During his last U.S. visit, in August, he was photographed playing strip billiards in his Wynn Las Vegas luxury suite. Photographic evidence, which we viewed on the Internet for strictly professional purposes, showed him cavorting with companions in naked glory.

In an interview with BBC News in January, referring to the incident, he said he had “let himself down; I let my family down.”

Third in line to the British throne, Harry is the younger son of Prince Charles and his late ex-wife, Princess Diana.

Original post is Prince Harry Does Jersey Shore by Political Capital.

Photograph by Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg

Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, speaks to reporters at the Statehouse in Trenton, New Jersey.

New Jersey’s 200-year-old-plus statehouse has its charms.

The basement is not one of them.

Gov. Chris Christie, after one snootful too many of an occasional stench that evokes wet dog mixed with low tide by way of waterproof epoxy paint, told his security staff that he’d had enough of the super-secret spy route to his office.

“You’d go up this ramp,” Christie, 50, a Republican running for reelection in November, told members of the New Jersey chapter of the Commercial Real Estate Development Association in Edison this morning.

“Then you go behind these — it looks like ‘Get Smart,’ you know, for those who are old enough to remember ‘Get Smart.’ Big steel doors open, and then you go into another door, and then there’s this incredibly smelly basement that you have to walk through, and then up these rickety old stairs, and then through two people’s offices, and then you get into the outer office of the governor’s office.”

“For two-and-a-half years, I hated it. Every day I went through this smelly basement. Finally, nine months ago, I said to myself: What the hell am I doing? I get to go anywhere I want. I’m the governor.”

It took a few days for his security staff to adjust, he said, and now he comes through the front door and past the grand rotunda, with its tribute to President-elect Abraham Lincoln, who addressed both branches of the New Jersey Legislature on Feb. 21, 1861. Farther along is an oil portrait of George B. McClellan, the Civil War general and Democratic presidential nominee defeated by Lincoln, then later voted New Jersey’s 30th governor. Near that is the bust of Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic president from 1913 to 1921, after stints as Princeton University president and New Jersey governor, the only president with a PhD.

Finally, the glass entrance to Christie’s office.

“It makes me understand what an extraordinary privilege this is — what a great honor it is to have your name on that door,” Christie said. “To call that building your home for however long the people of this state allow you to have it.”

Original post is Christie: ‘I’m the Governor’ — Stinking Basement History by Political Capital.

Photograph by Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg

Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, at the Statehouse in Trenton, New Jersey, on Jan. 4, 2013.

Where in the world is Chris Christie?

And who is presiding over the land of his birth?

The 50-year-old Republican New Jersey governor, who is running for a second term, had plans to “depart the state” the night of Jan. 27, according to the public schedule his office released. The listing described Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno as in charge for Jan. 26 and 27.

For personal travel in the past, the governor or his staff members have told reporters that he’s heading to his beloved Jersey Shore, or a baseball road trip, to name a couple of destinations. Then the reporters tend to buzz off and leave the guy to his wife and four kids.

If his trip is political, campaign advisers usually give at least a basic itinerary. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, will host a Christie fundraiser in February at the Palo Alto, California, home he shares with his wife, Priscilla Chan.

It’s hush-hush this time.

Yesterday, we called Mike DuHaime, a Christie strategist, who said Christie’s trip wasn’t political, and Michael Drewniak, a Christie spokesman, said the governor was traveling with his family. Then, around lunchtime, came a statement from Drewniak’s office: Christie had issued a conditional veto of the Democrats’ minimum-wage increase and proposed his own version.

Wait. Guadagno was still acting governor, so wasn’t this one hers? Nope. She had a statehouse ribbon-cutting ceremony, and today, a bill signing for Special Olympics funding.

We bumped into Drewniak at the Pepsi machine. So where, again, is Christie, and when is he returning?

“We’ll let you know,” he replied.

Then Kevin Roberts, another Christie spokesman, followed up with an e-mail saying Christie will return tomorrow night. He included a transcript of a response Christie gave when asked about his travel on Sept. 13, 2011:

“We put out a public schedule every day and, you know, if I’m going to be out-of-state I tell the lieutenant governor that I’m going to be out-of-state and she’s the acting Governor. But I don’t feel an obligation to tell people every place I’m going every day, you know?”

“I went to the University of Delaware football game on Saturday evening. Do I have to tell everybody that? You know, I went with my family to the game. It took me out-of-state. I told the lieutenant governor I’m going to be out-of-state for three hours at a football game. So, OK, if anything happens you’re in charge. Do I really have to advise people, you know, I’m going to a football game out-of-state? I think you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. If it involves my official duties I’ll advise about it, but if it doesn’t I’m not going to.”

Original post is Christie: Where in the World? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg

Pedestrians fill gas cans at a Sunoco Inc. station in Bloomfield, New Jersey, days after Hurricane Sandy.

Here’s hoping that we’re not revealing a sensitive national-security matter, but New Jersey Governor Chris Christie put it out there, so what the heck.

When the president of the United States phones, Caller ID flashes not a name or number, but rather “Unknown.”

Christie, 50, a Republican seeking a second term, knows this because after Hurricane Sandy struck on Oct. 29., he spoke daily with President Barack Obama, a Democrat whom Christie praised for his leadership during the most devastating Atlantic storm in history.

The gasoline supply was an immediate crisis, Christie said today during a speech at the New Jersey Hospital Association in Princeton. He called Obama, who had given his number and told him to call any time.

“I said, ‘I need gas.’ He said, ‘OK. How much do you need?’” Christie said. “So at this point, I did what any person who has no idea what they’re talking about does when asked a question like that over a cell phone by the president of the United States. I was standing in front of my Cabinet, who knew I was on a phone with the president, and I said, ‘Uh, uh, sorry sir. You’re breaking up. Did you ask how much gas I need?’ Desperately looking at someone in my Cabinet to give me some answer.”

Bob Martin, commissioner of environmental protection, whispered, “12 million gallons,” Christie said.

“I said, ‘Mr. President, we’ve looked at the problem and we think we need 12 million gallons.”

Obama said he would call Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and get back to the governor.

A few moments later, “Unknown” was on the line.

That gas would be on the way.

Original post is Obama’s Caller ID: ‘Unknown’ — Christie’s 12 Million Gallons of Gas by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, arrives at the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.

This time it was cold, not fire, threatening a Newark damsel in distress.

Still, Mayor Cory Booker knew just what to do: He swept her off her four furry feet, placed her in a police cruiser and ordered the heat cranked.

Booker, who pulled a neighbor from her burning apartment in April 2012, scored another rescue last night after Twitter posts from ABC-TV Eyewitness News reporter Toni Yates alerted him to a dog shivering on a front stoop. The temperature in Newark hit a low of 11 degrees yesterday, according to AccuWeather, during a streak of sub-freezing weather that started Jan. 18.

Booker, 43, has more than 1.3 million followers on Twitter, where the residents of New Jersey’s most populous city communicate with him on malfunctioning traffic signals, uncollected trash and crime. He also has formed a campaign committee in his bid for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by fellow Democrat Frank Lautenberg, 89.

Yates, who was on a news assignment, spotted the dog, which appeared to be a Rottweiler mix that had recently given birth, on the porch of a residence. She posted a message, which was retweeted by colleague Darla Miles. Booker arrived before 11 p.m. and carried the animal to a police cruiser, asking an officer to “crank up the heat.”

“This is brutal weather,” Booker said on camera. “This dog is shaking really bad.”

Owner Moises Rodriguez, interviewed by Eyewitness News, said he had been in Queens, New York, and wasn’t aware that the dog, named Cha-Cha, was outdoors. Her puppies were inside the home.

On Twitter, Booker shared the credit for the rescue with Yates: “Because of you, that dog was rescued.”

Original post is Super-Booker to the Twitter Rescue: ‘Cha-Cha Comes in from the Cold’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg

Shoppers crowd a store at the Premium Outlet Mall in Tinton Falls, New Jersey.

Here’s a nightmare moment for every statehouse reporter with a college education heavy on liberal arts and light on statistics.

“Explain the unemployment rate to me,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose bombastic demeanor tends to elicit rapid compliance, said today at a news conference when the state’s 9.6 percent jobless rate came up.

No volunteers.

New Jersey added 30,900 private-sector jobs in December, according to data released by the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Christie called it “the greatest private-sector job-growth month since we’ve been keeping statistics,” starting n 1990.

The jobless rate responded — with a drop of just one-tenth of 1 percent.

“I told you guys this before: I have no idea what the unemployment rate means and I suspect the people who do it have no idea what the unemployment rate means,” Christie said. “The unemployment rate is based on a poll. So I don’t know what to make of it. All I could tell you is this: 30,000 jobs in one month? Pretty good month. Historic month. What it tells you is that New Jersey is doing quite well.”

End of lesson.

Original post is Unemployment 101: Professor Christie by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama is greeted by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie upon arriving in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to visit areas hardest hit by Sandy.

The Christie-Obama bond goes on.

Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey who commended Democratic President Barack Obama for his response to Hurricane Sanday, today condemned the National Rifle Association for its ad talking about the president’s children.

Christie called the NRA ad “reprehensible.”

“Don’t be dragging people’s children into this,” the governor said, noting that the children of figures in the public spotlight already face enough risks.

The day Obama announced 23 executive actions and more congressional proposals to curb gun violence, the NRA, proposing armed guards at the nation’s schools as an alternative, released a video-ad calling the president an “elitist hypocrite” because his children are protected by armed guards at school. The narrator of the ad, appearing at the NRA Web-site and on the Sportsman Channel, does not identify the president’s two school-age daughters by name, but does ask this:

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools?”

The president’s children, like all first families, are protected by the U.S. Secret Service wherever they go.

David Keene, NRA president, maintained that his group was not targeting the children’s Secret Service protection — rather the security at the school they attend. The Obama girls attend a private school in Washington attended by the kids of many other prominent people.

Whatever the group was thinking, the White House scolded the NRA.

“Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. “But to go so far as to make the safety of the president’s children the subject of an  attack ad is repugnant and cowardly.”

Christie seconded the motion today.

Terrence Dopp contributed to this report.

Original post is Christie Joins Obama White House: Calling NRA Kids Ad ‘Reprehensible’ by Political Capital.

Magnet for Wall Street money.

Scooper-upper of imperiled neighbor in a burning apartment.

Now, filer of Federal Election Commission Form 1, “Statement of Organization,” to run for U.S. Senate in 2014.

Cory Booker, 44, is officially going after the seat of 88-year-old Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg, potentially setting up a primary race in a state that hasn’t sent a Republican to the upper house since 1972. Campaign paperwork names as treasurer Judith Zamore, who was compliance director for Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown’s successful U.S. Senate run in 2006. Zamore now is a principal for Capitol Compliance Associates, a Washington-based campaign-finance consultancy.

Booker didn’t immediately return an e-mail for comment. Lautenberg hasn’t said whether he will seek another term, and a spokesman, Caley Gray, didn’t immediately return an e-mail.

Booker’s filing comes three weeks after he dashed the hopes of New Jersey Democrats by declining a 2013 gubernatorial run against Republican Chris Christie, whose record approval in public-opinion polls after Hurricane Sandy basically makes him the most popular guy ever in New Jersey, politician or otherwise. Only one Democrat, state Sen. Barbara Buono from Metuchen, has declared a candidacy against Christie, and she was 43 points behind him in a Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll released Jan. 8.

A Booker-Lautenberg primary would have the youth-vs.-wisdom overtones of California’s Brad Sherman-Howard Berman contest for Congress in November, the result of redistricting that left the Democratic veterans fighting for a single seat. Sherman, the younger, prevailed. In New Jersey, Booker led Lautenberg by 42 percent to 20 percent among Democrats and Democratic leaners, PublicMind found in its survey released Jan. 10.

Booker, an Oxford Scholar who has degrees from Stanford and Yale Law, has persuaded Wall Street hedge-fund founders to sink private money into redeveloping Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, where a years-long industrial decline was capped by race riots more than 40 years ago. Single and childless, he lives alone in one of Newark’s most violent-prone areas. In April 2012, he ran into a neighbor’s burning apartment, rescuing her and suffering minor burns and smoke inhalation.

Original post is Booker Books a 2014 Senate Race by Political Capital.