Photograph by Julio Cortez/AP Photo

People stand behind a barricade while they wait to catch a glimpse of Britain’s Prince Harry, who is expected to visit Casino Pier during a tour of the area hit by Superstorm Sandy, on May 14, 2013, in Seaside Heights, N.J.

After the biggest Atlantic storm on record struck the New Jersey shore last October, Seaside Heights Mayor William Akers was asked repeatedly if the town would rebuild in time to welcome summer tourists. “Oh, no problem,”he’d reply.

“The truth of the matter,” he says now, “is I had no idea.”

So for Akers it comes as a relief, six months after superstorm Sandy slammed into his 100-year-old borough, to see signs of a revival along his part of the Jersey shore. Rental property owners, boardwalk vendors and the municipality’s beach managers are planning to hire just as much summer help as they did last year. Local officials say a visit by Britain’s Prince Harry today — he has arrived this morning ahead of the traditional Memorial Day kick-off of the beach season — may help boost awareness that the Jersey shore is open for business.

“Not being open would be fatal to Seaside Heights,” said Akers, 57.

This is not a scene from “When Harry met Snooki.”

Businesses near the Seaside Heights have tried to capitalize on the popularity of MTV’s show “Jersey Shore,” — whose cast of characters included Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi — and, since Sandy, gawkers have snapped photos of the Jet Star roller coaster submerged in the ocean — which is to be hauled away soon.

A comeback for the Jersey shore is critical for a state where tourism accounted for 10 percent of employment last year. New Jersey’s jobless rate of 9 percent in March stood above the national rate of 7.6 percent at the time. The tourism jobs reinforce an improving labor market for New Jersey, which has added about 3,300 construction jobs since the storm, with increases in four out of the five months through March.

Rebuilding after Sandy could add 0.4 percentage point to U.S. growth this year, making up more than half the 0.75 percentage point that construction will add to gross domestic product, said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at Economic Outlook Group LLC, a Princeton, New Jersey-based forecasting firm.

“While the destruction has been a detriment to some, it’s been a boom for others,” Akers said.

In Seaside Heights, the images Akers recalls from a nighttime tour of his borough in a military vehicle — floating cars and a house washed into the middle of the street — have been replaced by the scene of workers laying the final planks on the fresh mile-long boardwalk.

The progress might be the payoff from better preparation for natural disasters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“There was a real effort to put resources into the Sandy-affected areas not only after impact but prepositioning things before impact and already starting to think about recovery,”Tierney said.

See the full Seaside Heights report at Bloomberg.com .

Original post is Prince Harry: Jersey Shore Open for Business Post-Sandy 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, presents his budget plan at the Statehouse in Trenton, N.J. on Feb. 26, 2013.

Could it be?

Could Chris Christie and Barack Obama’s new-found friendship be on the rocks?

A day after conservatives spurned the Republican governor of New Jersey as a speaker for their annual gathering, he placed the blame for the looming possibility of sequestration squarely on the president.

“I find it kind of hard to believe that we can’t find $44 billion to cut on a $3.6 trillion budget and not bring America to its knees,” Christie said today at a town-hall meeting in the northern New Jersey town of Montville.
“If you want real leadership, the executive has to provide it,” he said. “And I think this is a failing of the president — what’s happening right now. He’s stuck in his way. He just won the election and he feels like he should get his way.”

Christie, a 50-year-old seeking a second term in November, took fire from some within his own party when he embraced Obama following  Hurricane Sandy after he had spent the entire presidential election campaign stumping for Republican Mitt Romney. In January, he again drew fire from Republicans after he called out House Speaker John Boehner over delays in storm aid.

Christie, who spoke last year at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Chicago conclave, wasn’t invited to the group’s 2013 Washington meeting next month, in part because of his post-Sandy praise for Obama, according to a person familiar with the group’s decision. The governor said he learned of the snubbing like anyone else: he read about it in the media.

“I get a few hundred invitations a week to speak — everything from like a local Kiwanis Club to national organizations,” Christie said. “Apparently I haven’t been invited. I wish them all the best at their conference. They have a bunch of people speaking there and if they didn’t want to invite me, that’s their call.”

Original post is Christie on Obama’s Budget Cutting: ‘Feels Like He Should Get His Way’ by Political Capital.

The fight against fellow House Republicans to secure $60.2 billion so the Northeast region could begin rebuilding after Super-storm Sandy wreaked widespread devastation frayed the bonds of loyalty and trust that New York Rep. Peter King feels for colleagues in his own party.

“I am still a Republican,” King says. “It’s just going to be hard for me to trust them again” after almost 80 percent of House Republicans voted against the aid package to rebuild damaged hospitals, highways and other transportation infrastructure.

A delay in action by the Republican-run House from late December in the waning days of the previous Congress until Jan. 15, when the House approved the final installment of the aid package, sparked a revolt led by Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey. King spearheaded the region’s fight in Congress for the aid with help from Republican members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation.

Republican resistance to provide disaster assistance to help storm victims reflects the “puritanical, ascetic point of view” that allows no compromise from party principles of less spending, King said today at a Bloomberg Government breakfast in Washington.

“I never asked these guys for anything before,” King said. “They wouldn’t even listen to us.”

Almost three months after the storm ravaged shore communities in New York and New Jersey and flooded New York City’s subway system, Congress completed action Jan. 15 on the $60.2 billion aid package sought by President Barack Obama. The final $50.5 billion installment was passed by the House with the support of 179 Democrats and 41 Republicans. Another 179 House Republicans voted against the measure.

King said he particularly resented arguments by fellow Republicans that Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, “wanted to set up a secret slush fund for themselves” with community development block grants that would provide flexibility to spend money quickly. “They were using the cheapest political arguments when people were really suffering,” he said.

Since then, King said, he has “already voted `no’ on a few things” to put his colleagues on notice that they shouldn’t “ever take my vote for granted again because party loyalty goes both ways, This time it only went one way.”

Original post is Peter King: Sandy Cost Trust in Party by Political Capital.

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talk with people who are recovering from Hurricane Sandy, while surveying storm damage in Brigantine, N.J., on Oct. 31, 2012.

Memo from Chris Christie to Congress: The American people hate you.

New Jersey’s outspoken governor was fired up today after House Speaker John Boehner delayed a vote on Hurricane Sandy relief funding.

“Disaster relief was something you didn’t play games with, but now in this current atmosphere everything is the subject of one-upmanship, everything’s a possibility, a potential piece of bait for the political game,” Christie said during a press conference. “It is why the American people hate Congress.”

“Palace intrigue” among House Republicans derailed the aid package, Christie said. But don’t blame the Tea Party — the 50-year-old governor said his sights rest squarely on Boehner.

Christie spent much of the autumn campaigning on behalf of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Republican candidates for the House and Senate. A week after Sandy hit, he drew the ire of some in his party for praising President Barack Obama’s handling of the storm.

Asked today if he would stump against those he deemed responsible for the aid hold-up, Christie said, “We’ll see. Primaries are an ugly thing.”

Christie said Obama called him yesterday to discuss the developments and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called him yesterday at 11:20 p.m. New York time to let him know the vote had been called off.

Christie followed that call with four of his own to Boehner, with none returned. He said he spoke to both Boehner and Obama today, but declined to be more specific.

“There’s only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims: the House majority and their speaker, John Boehner,” Christie told reporters today in Trenton. “Last night politics was placed before our oath to serve our citizens.”

Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor pledge to pass the $61 billion aid package in a meeting with New York and New Jersey lawmakers this afternoon.

Boehner promised a Jan. 15 House vote on more than $51 billion in Sandy aid and a Jan. 4 vote on raising the government’s borrowing authority by $9 billion for flood insurance, Rep. Peter King of New York said.

Original post is Christie Slams House for Delaying Sandy Aid Due to ‘Palace Intrigue’ by Political Capital.

Furniture, construction, plumbing, tree removal, road repair and structural engineering are among the businesses spread thin in the aftermath of Sandy, the biggest Atlantic storm on record.

Michael Guarino of Brick, New Jersey, said his third-generation, family-owned furniture store nearly shut down after the storm struck. Two weeks after Sandy made landfall on Oct. 29, he saw an unusual boom in business.

“I can’t even keep up with it,” Guarino, 50, said of the post-storm demand. His business added two delivery trucks and a warehouse. He expanded the staff to 27 from 15. He wants to hire more, though he said it’s “very difficult” to find local workers while residents are consumed with clean-up efforts.

Guarino, who has doubled his work schedule to 80-hour weeks since Sandy hit, isn’t the only one hiring. The storm has probably increased the demand for construction workers by at least an additional 30,000, said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at Economic Outlook Group LLC, a Princeton, New Jersey-based forecasting firm.

The economic boost of post-storm reconstruction probably will occur over the next year or two, and Baumohl said he expects “a real big, V-shaped rebound” in construction during the next six to 12 months.

To aid in Sandy’s immediate clean-up, Thomas Nicolosi, owner of Staten Island, New York-based Redline Construction LLC, added seven employees to his full-time staff of four.  Even with the additions, the company is “still short-handed” and planning to hire more workers, Nicolosi said.

Demand for work after Sandy was “so chaotic” that Nicolosi’s partner started a waiting list for service requests. The company gutted 46 damaged houses in about 20 days in the Belle Harbor area of Queens, New York, after the storm. Employees are now returning to those customers to solicit orders to rebuild.

U.S. lawmakers are considering a $60.4 billion package requested by the Obama administration to assist residents as well as businesses that sustained damage after Sandy. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit in 2005, Congress directed more than $110 billion to the Gulf Coast.

Original post is Sandy Rebuilding Spurs Hiring in Furniture to Construction by Political Capital.

Photograph by Astrid Riecken/The Washington Post via Getty Images

'Daily Show' host Jon Stewart in Washington.

What’s New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie up to today during his lobbying trip to Washington? He’s not saying.

Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for the 50-year-old Republican, confirmed the trip yesterday but declined to specify who Christie is meeting or disclose times and locations. House Speaker John Boehner’s office said today the Ohio Republican plans to meet this afternoon with Christie.

No press availability has been scheduled either, though the governor’s office did release a public schedule last night highlighting an 11 p.m. interview on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart as his only public appearance today.

“He will be conveying the concerns and needs of New Jersey to Congress and the federal government,” Roberts told reporters last night in Trenton.

Christie, who’s seeking funding as President Barack Obama and Congress wrangle over $600 million in tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect next month, has pegged the state’s rebuilding tab at $36.9 billion.

He’s working with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut’s Dannel Malloy, both Democrats, in seeking a combined $83 billion in federal disaster aid. The two Democrats made the rounds in Washington on Monday.

Original post is Christie Silent on Washington Trip, Chats With Jon Stewart by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mel Evans/Pool/AP Photo

New Jersey Commissioner of the Department of Transportation, James Simpson, second left, Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Porotection, Bob Martin, right, and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, third right, walk with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, center left, past damaged homes along the Atlantic Ocean on Nov. 2, 2012 in Mantoloking, N.J.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in Washington to lobby Congress for a Superstorm Sandy supplemental. The White House could send emergency aid request for more than $50 billion to the Hill as early as today.

Speaking of Sandy, Amtrak and New York-area transit agencies are sending officials to testify at a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing on the storm’s  transportation and infrastructure damage.

The Senate is to vote on a bill to normalize trade with Russia, while a Senate Judiciary panel considers a measure that would require Apple Inc. and Google Inc. to get permission from people before collecting data on location. The House is gone for the week, with only a pro forma session tomorrow.

On the fiscal cliff front, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, and Kevin Hassett, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, testify at a Joint Economic Committee hearing about the effect on the middle class and the U.S. economy should lawmakers fail to stop automatic tax increases and $607 billion in spending cuts from taking effect next month.

Federal Election Commission filings due today will disclose expenditures by, and contributions to, the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the final weeks before Nov. 6 election. Super-political action committees and Congress candidates also must report.

Rep. Frank Lucas, and Oklahoma Republican, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, will provide updates on farm-bill negotiations at a Farm Journal conference. The Natural Resources Defense Council Releases report on affects of global warming on ski resorts in the U.S. FedEx Corp. CEO Frederick Smith speaks at an Economic Club of Washington luncheon.

And Obama takes a break from wrangling over the fiscal cliff this evening to light the National Christmas Tree tonight on the Elipse.

Original post is Washington Daybook: Christie Turns Lobbyist by Political Capital.

Photograph by Bill Kostroun/AP Photo

Chris Christie with his tickets as he arrives at Giants Stadium to attend a Bruce Springsteen concert.

Chris Christie, New Jersey’s governor, is born to run — right over his idol.

The 50-year-old Republican, who declared his candidacy for a second term Nov. 26, would beat the Democrat-backing balladeer Bruce Springsteen, 63, in next year’s election, according to a survey released today by Raleigh, North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling.

“We threw Bruce Springsteen into the poll just for fun,” Public Policy said on its Web-site.

The governor has attended more than 100 Springsteen concerts and displays an autographed guitar in his Trenton office. The two embraced at a Hurricane Sandy relief concert Nov. 2. They gabbed again Nov. 5, on the eve of the presidential election, when Barack Obama, talking to Christie by phone from Air Force One, passed the phone to Springsteen, a passenger.

The rocker, whom fans call “The Boss,” has recorded albums including “Born to Run” and “The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle.”

He has a favorability rating of 54 percent to 23 percent, the poll showed.

When asked their choice for governor, though, 61 percent of voters surveyed picked Christie and 25 percent Springsteen.

Christie has record public support a month after Hurricane Sandy, the biggest Atlantic storm in history, killed 38 people in the state and decimated parts of the coast, whose resort towns and boardwalks Christie has called “the Jersey shore of my youth.”

Quinnipiac University poll last week showed him with a 72 percent approval rating, the highest for a New Jersey governor. Ninety-five percent rated his handling of the disaster good or excellent.

Cory Booker, the 43-year-old Newark mayor, would be the front-running Democrat in the governor’s race, 14 points behind Christie, the PPP poll found. It surveyed 600 New Jersey voters with automated phone interviews from Nov. 26-28. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Kevin Roberts and Michael Drewniak, spokesmen for Christie, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment. We haven’t tried to call Springsteen because, uh, he isn’t running.

Original post is Springsteen Born to Lose — to Christie or Booker, that is by Political Capital.

Photograph by Julio Cortez/AP Photo

New Jersey Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick walks near a home damaged by Superstorm Sandy on Nov. 29, 2012, in Ortley Beach, N.J.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s personalized embroidered fleece jacket is so two weeks ago.

The outerwear now sweeping runways — well, the Hurricane Sandy-ravaged Seaside Heights boardwalk, anyway — is a little black number modeled by Assemblyman Jon Bramnick from Westfield, the highest-ranking Republican in the lower house.

Windproof, waterproof, wrinkle-resistant. State seal emblazoned on the front, “NEW JERSEY LEGISLATURE” stenciled on the back: This jacket, like the one worn by the 50-year-old Republican governor post-disaster and during a “Saturday Night Live” comedy sketch, has icon potential.

“I got them for all my members a few years ago,” Bramnick, 59, a trial lawyer, said yesterday as he and colleagues viewed the devastation during a five-hour bus tour escorted by state police. “It’s not fleece, though.”

Bramnick’s look isn’t likely to jump the aisle, according to Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, 60, from East Orange, the highest-ranking Democrat in the house, which her party dominates.

“To put it simply, the Assembly Democrats lack Minority Leader Bramnick’s dashing fashion sense,” Oliver said in an e-mailed statement.

Christie on Nov. 12 retired his go-to jacket, a staple during tours and press conferences after the worst Atlantic storm in history hit the coast, costing the state an estimated $36.9 billion and leaving 38 people dead.

The fleece’s next big moment may be as an auction item to raise money for hurricane victims, the governor has said.

Original post is New Jersey Fashion Statement: We’re from the Government, Here to Help by Political Capital.