Matt Lewis on Chris Christie

Christie Tackles New Jersey Budget: Angers Unions, Wins Conservatives
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/18/christie-tackles-new-jersey-budget-angers-teachers-unions-wins/

. . .Chris Christie has become an emerging conservative hero, mostly by standing up for fiscal sanity in the Garden State. Almost immediately upon taking office, he passed pension and benefits reform. That meant public workers must contribute toward their own health care and it also created a formula for determining the pensions for newly hired employees. He also signed an executive order on transparency, forcing government agencies to post expenditures online with a search engine attached.

It's starting to earn him national attention. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, William McGurn noted, "If he is to survive the headlines about budget cuts and pull New Jersey back to prosperity, Mr. Christie knows he needs to put the hard choices before the state's citizens, and to speak to them as adults. He's doing just that."

And at a "Newsmaker Breakfast" sponsored by The American Spectator and Americans for Tax Reform last week, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said, "Christie is actually trying to fundamentally change New Jersey..." In a world where politicians are rewarded for taking the easy road, the portly and rumpled governor of New Jersey has become a rare commodity – an elected official willing to make hard decisions, despite the fact that he knows it will cost him politically.

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Chris Christie is doing good in NJ. Unlike Schwarzenegger in California, this governor has some balls. (Somebody needs to bitch slap Arnold.) Christie looks more and more like the Real Deal. I can only hope he sticks to his guns because he is exactly what NJ and the rest of this country needs.

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