The incident threatens to rupture the image that Christie, the newly installed chairman of the Republican Governors Association, has been carefully cultivating since Hurricane Sandy as a bipartisan straight-talker who puts the interests of his state’s residents above all. It also clashes with the law-and-order bona fides he touted in his gubernatorial campaigns, where he ran heavily on his record as a U.S. attorney.
Christie’s brash, no-nonsense persona helped rocket him onto the national stage, as videos of the governor dressing down reporters at news conferences and questioners at town hall meetings went viral online. But the actions of his associates over a trivial, even petty, political grievance could make Christie’s trademark toughness seem more like bullying — a serious vulnerability as he begins introducing himself to voters nationwide.
For weeks, Democrats have alleged that Christie’s appointees caused the traffic jam as an act of retaliation against Fort Lee’s mayor, Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who did not endorse Christie for reelection.
At first, Port Authority officials claimed the lanes were closed as part of a traffic study, and Christie mocked reporters and legislators who asked questions about the incident. “I was in overalls and a hat,” Christie joked Dec. 2. “I was the guy working the cones.”
But by mid-December, Christie took it more seriously, holding an hour-long news conference in which he denied any wrongdoing. Christie’s top two appointees at the Port Authority, Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, both close political associates, resigned in the uproar.