Republicans gathering in Tampa this month for the national convention — and those watching it on TV — are about to get a huge slice of New Jersey attitude.
That’s because the Garden State’s wildly successful governor, Chris Christie, has just been tapped to deliver the convention’s keynote address.
It’s a terrific choice.
Christie has long been a shining star on the GOP speakers’ circuit, thanks both to his record and his fresh outspokenness.
Which is why a lot of Republicans first pressed him to run for president himself this year, then urged Mitt Romney to put him on the ticket.
But Christie was reluctant to take on either task, and made that clear early on.
Speaking to the nation, though, is entirely something else.
“I’ll try to tell some very direct and hard truths to people in this country about the trouble that we’re in and the fact that fixing those problems is not going to be easy,” he said yesterday.
Still, he added, his own experience in bringing budgetary reform to New Jersey shows that “the American people are ready to confront those problems head-on and endure some sacrifice.”
In recent years, political conventions have become relatively meaningless coronations with all-too-predictable speechmaking.
Sounds like the gathering in Tampa just got really interesting. We can’t wait.