|
 Christie, once seen as a leading 2016 White House contender but
now viewed as a long shot, said his dose of New Jersey straight talk
could help span the partisan divide to solve difficult political
problems.
"I mean what I say and I say what I mean, and that's what America
needs right now," Christie told friends, family and supporters at
the campaign launch at his old high school in suburban Livingston,
New Jersey. "Truth and hard decisions today will lead to growth and
opportunity tomorrow."
The 52-year-old, two-term governor criticized the "bickering"
leaders of both parties, and derided what he called Democratic
President Barack Obama's "hand-wringing and indecisiveness and
weakness in the Oval Office."
"Both parties have failed our country," said Christie. "Both parties
have led us to believe that in America, a country that was built on
compromise, that somehow now 'compromise' is a dirty word."
The campaign launch gave Christie a chance to rejuvenate his sagging
opinion poll numbers and recast his battered image after last year's
"Bridgegate" lane closure scandal.
 Christie is the 14th Republican to vie for the nomination to be the
party's candidate in the November 2016 election. He faces a
difficult challenge regaining his former status near the top of the
heap.
He has seen his standing in national polls in the Republican race
dip to the low single digits. His approval ratings in his home state
have fallen to new lows amid a series of credit downgrades and weak
job growth.
Conservatives, a key force in the early Republican primaries, have
been suspicious of his record of working at times with Democrats in
Democratic-leaning New Jersey. They still resent his hug and warm
words for Obama after superstorm Sandy in the final days of the 2012
presidential race.
'SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP'
As governor, Christie has cultivated an in-your-face image, once
telling a heckler to "sit down and shut up" and getting into
frequent shouting matches with New Jersey residents who challenge
him.
"You're going to get what I think whether you like it or not, or
whether it makes you cringe every once in a while," Christie said
during his launch rally.
Christie promised to wage a spin-free race that "will not worry
about what is popular but what is right, because what is right is
what will fix America."
He also took a verbal swing at Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for
the Democratic presidential nomination, who was Obama's first
secretary of state.
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"After seven years of a weak and feckless foreign policy run by
Barack Obama, we better not turn it over to his second mate, Hillary
Clinton," he said.
Christie headed to New Hampshire after the launch, holding the first
of what is expected to be a series of town hall sessions he hopes
will turn his reputation for plain speaking into an asset.
Asked in Sandown, New Hampshire, how he could beat Clinton, he said
he had proved his political appeal by winning the governor's office
twice in diverse, Democratic-leaning New Jersey.
"If I'm the nominee of the Republican Party for president in
November 2016, I'm not only going to beat her, I'm going to beat her
fair and square," Christie said.
New Jersey Democrats, however, have challenged Christie's claims of
bipartisanship, pointing to incidents like the "Bridgegate" scandal.
In September 2013, aides orchestrated the closing of approach lanes
for the George Washington Bridge connecting New Jersey and New York
City, the busiest bridge in the country.
Critics said the closings were retribution against a Democratic New
Jersey mayor who turned down a request that he endorse Christie's
re-election campaign.
Christie has disavowed knowledge of the closures.
"His version of compromise is more combative than the word implies.
It's more of an assault. He assaults the other side in a compromise
and calls it an agreement," said John Wisniewski, the deputy speaker
of the Democratic-led state assembly.
(Additional reporting by Julie Masis in New Hampshire; Writing by
John Whitesides; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Lisa Shumaker)
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