RISING STAR: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, seen by many as a future presidential candidate, rouses the GOP faithful last night in Tampa, saying the party is ready to take on the tough issues. (
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TAMPA, Fla. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took his star turn before the Republican National Convention last night and delivered an emotional and passionate endorsement of Mitt Romney — and himself.
Taking the podium to deliver the prime-time keynote address of the Republican convention — the most important speech of his political career — Christie declared, “A New Jersey Republican stands before you tonight — proud of my party, proud of my state, proud of my country.”
Viewed as future candidate for president himself and a rising star in the Republican ranks, Christie told a pumped-up audience about his humble roots and issued a call for taking on “tough issues” while delivering an indictment of politicians who “pander.”
Christie mentioned Mitt Romney, who was awarded the delegates to become the Republican nominee last night, only seven times in his 2,638-word speech, and not until more than 16 minutes into the 24-minute address.
That’s the same number of mentions Romney got in the speech by former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who had to swallow his pride just four months after losing a battle for the nomination to Romney, a person he once called the “worst possible” candidate.
And Santorum managed seven mentions of Romney into a speech half as long as Christie’s.
Even President Obama, in his career-launching 2004 address to the Democratic convention in Boston, managed to mention party nominee John Kerry 13 times — almost twice as often in a speech as long as Christie’s.
When Christie got around to rallying the crowd for Romney, he called the former Massachusetts governor a leader who “will tell us the hard truths we need to hear” to get America back on track and to end “the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy.”
He said of Democrats, “Their plan: whistle a happy tune while driving us off the fiscal cliff, as long as they are behind the wheel of power.”
And Christie contrasted his record in New Jersey, striking several key bipartisan compromises on pension reform and teacher tenure, with the record of the Obama administration.
“We ended an era of absentee leadership without purpose or principle in New Jersey,” Christie said. “It’s time to end this era of absentee leadership in the Oval Office and send real leaders to the White House. America needs Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and we need them right now!”
Christie delivered a polished and impassioned plea for more politicians to follow in his footsteps and be willing to take on powerful interests even when it’s a challenge.
“Our leaders today have decided it is more important to be popular, to do what is easy and say yes, rather than to say no when no is what’s required.”
“I believe we have become paralyzed by our desire to be loved,” Christie added, in a not-so-thinly veiled smack at Obama.
Although he didn’t specifically mention GOP plans for Medicare and other entitlements, Christie said generally, “It’s been easy for our leaders to say not us, and not now, in taking on the tough issues. And we’ve stood silently by and let them get away with it.
“But tonight, I say enough. I say, together, let’s make a much different choice. Tonight, we are speaking up for ourselves and stepping up.”
Christie, often a free-wheeling public speaker, last night worked off a teleprompter using his prepared remarks — vetted by the Romney campaign.
He got a big round of applause when he talked up his balanced budgets and efforts to “take on” the public-employee unions in Jersey. He called for fixing “overburdened entitlements,” declaring, “Our seniors are not selfish.”
Christie said his late mom, Sondra, “came from nothing,” and was “raised by a single mother who took three buses to get to work every day.”
“She spoke the truth — bluntly, directly and without much varnish,” the tough-talking politician observed. “I am her son.”
And he made yet another mention of his idol, Bruce Springsteen. “I was her son as I listened to ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’ with my high-school friends on the Jersey Shore.
Christie introduced the nation to his dad, Bill, whom he called “gregarious, outgoing and lovable.”
Then he added: “In the automobile of life, Dad was just a passenger. Mom was the driver.
Earlier last night, Santorum said a vote for Romney would be a “vote for life and liberty, not dependency.”
Garden State delegates gave Romney the final votes he needed to wrap up the Republican nomination for president yesterday, as all 50 states and the US territories took turns officially awarding their delegates in a rollicking roll-call vote.