DES MOINES, Iowa - As speculation about his presidential ambitions hung heavily in the hot Midwestern air, Gov. Christie called for peace in the battle over education at a summit convened Monday by the governor of Iowa.
Saying he did not come to Iowa "to throw down the gauntlet of the next battle," Christie instead spoke in lofty terms about the American promise and the need to save students in places such as Camden, where students fail despite a price tag of $20,000 per pupil.
Most notably, the governor known for calling out the teachers' union in visceral and unprecedented ways refrained from antiunion rhetoric before more than 1,000 educators and other Iowans.
"Maybe we can stop the arguing and bickering for a while," he said. "Maybe we can put aside the personal self-interests of unions and politicians and start to figure out what unites us, and start to take some risk."
Christie's Iowa visit drew national attention for reasons that have nothing to do with education. He touched down just two weeks before the Ames Straw Poll, the first unofficial test for the Republican presidential nomination, and six months before the first-in-the-nation GOP presidential caucus.
Since the Republican Party so far has no front-runner for the nomination - to the disappointment of some activists and fund-raisers - Christie's presence fueled a buzz that the Garden State governor is flirting with the idea of entering the race.
Christie has repeated time and again that he will not run for president in 2012, and he reiterated that Monday.
"I can't imagine that changing," he said. "We're pretty late in the game."
Then why come to Iowa at all?
"Every major news service in America will cover the fact that I'm here to talk about education reform, and it's the last of the big things I want to accomplish this year," Christie said in an interview before the speech. "In the end, what I'm going to get from coming out here is attention for our ideas and plans for New Jersey on a national stage and I think that's really advantageous for the state."
Whether the attention will influence New Jersey's Democratic Legislature, however, is unclear. It has yet to approve any of Christie's major education initiatives, and there are still bruises from the Christie budget cuts, which followed a landmark bipartisan agreement on benefits changes for the public sector.
