Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, was trolling for clicks.
It was a weekday morning in late October, and he was standing on the stage of the Moorestown Community House, where he was hosting a town-hall meeting. Ostensibly, Christie was visiting the South Jersey suburb to drum up support for his “tool kit,” a slate of legislative proposals designed to help the state’s municipalities comply with a 2 percent property-tax cap that goes into effect next year. Behind him hung a giant banner that read CHRISTIE REFORM AGENDA, and to his side stood a placard that counted down the number of days that remained for the Democratic-controlled State Legislature to pass those reforms. “With 54 days left, they’ve taken a two-week vacation,” the Republican Christie told about 300 people who had crowded into the community house before the fire marshal barred the doors. “I’m not taking a vacation. I’m going to keep on coming out and talking to all of you.”
But Christie was holding the town hall to do more than just promote his agenda; he was also trying to gin up some Internet content. While his fellow governors tend to use their official YouTube channels to show ribbon-cuttings and speeches, Christie, a former federal prosecutor who relishes the thrust and parry of political debate, has turned his into a video library of gubernatorial smackdowns—which, after just ten months in office, are already so numerous that his admirers are able to rank their favorites. Like the one he delivered at a town hall in Rutherford, where he told a public-school teacher complaining about her salary that “teachers go into it knowing what the pay scale is” and that if she didn’t like what she was being paid, “then you don’t have to do it.” Or another he dished out to a reporter who asked him about his “confrontational tone.” “You must be the thinnest-skinned guy in America,” Christie replied, “because you think that’s a confrontational tone? Then you should really see me when I’m pissed.”
Full Story: The Answer Is No