Chris Christie

TRENTON - Those New Jersey conservatives who believe that Republican Gov. Christie is a tax-and-spend liberal may soon have an alternative in the June gubernatorial primary. Seth Grossman, a Somers Point lawyer and Linwood resident, was elected to the Atlantic County Freeholder Board and Atlantic City Council in the 1980s. In 2003, he founded an organization, Liberty and Prosperity, that espouses many tea-party principles. "Chris Christie is not a conservative, never was a conservative, and all he wants is the power and celebrity," Grossman said in an interview.

David Letterman once altered a video to make it look as if Gov. Christie was preparing a turkey in the middle of an MSNBC-TV interview. He has also depicted the New Jersey governor struggling to get out of a chair during an Oprah interview. Letterman even devoted an entire "Top 10" list to Christie fat jokes: What if Christie were president? "Instead of Iraq, we'd invade IHOP. " And: "The cabinet now has a Secretary of Cake. " On Monday night, the governor got his payback. He made his first appearance ever on Late Night With David Letterman , and, according to highlights released by CBS, the governor at one point pulled a doughnut out of his pocket - and took a bite.

TRENTON - Back in the day, before the Republican convention keynote address and the nationally televised Sandy news conferences and the Saturday Night Live skit - before Chris Christie was called the Most Popular Governor in America - the New Jersey governor was just another Twitterer. He fought with people on Twitter, sometimes after midnight, and sometimes after midnight on the weekends. He checked in from his nights out ("Great show by Beyonce. Great energy, great dancing & she was in great voice.

Who's running against Chris Christie? No one, it seems. Credible opponents are dropping like Jersey skeeters at the onset of the first frost. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, former acting Gov. Dick Codey, Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr., and Senate President Steve Sweeney have all demurred. That leaves lesser-known State Sen. Barbara Buono. So, as he faces reelection, Christie couldn't have arranged the stars any better. In nearly every poll, he's scoring a solid thumbs-up of 60 to 70 percent or more.

If oddsmakers were infallible psychics, the next presidential election will pit Hillary Clinton against former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie - and Clinton will win. The Democrat's chances vary from 5-2 to 9-2 with 11 online bookmakers, while the nearest Republicans, in various rankings, rate no better than 6-1, according to www.oddschecker.com . Her closest competitors...

TRENTON - Matt Lauer displayed a 1995 campaign flier depicting Chris Christie, then a New Jersey Assembly candidate, supporting a state assault-weapons ban. Does Christie, now governor and a leader of the national Republican Party, support a federal ban? Four times Lauer asked. And each time, the governor - who proudly proclaims his bluntness - refused to answer. After the mass shooting last month at a Connecticut school, he said that gun control should be part of a broader conversation, along with violent video games, drug abuse, and mental illness.

I said this after Hurricane Sandy and I'll say it again. Chris Christie has started to grow on me. And no, that's not meant as a joke. Christie's straight talk of late may be just more bullying by a master politician, but it sure does ring true to me. In a parched partisan landscape where every move is done for political gain - "It's why the American people hate Congress," he said - Christie's tell-it-like-it-is rhetoric serves as needed...

WASHINGTON- House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday set a Jan. 15 vote on a Superstorm Sandy relief bill after enraged Northeast lawmakers - including Gov. Chris Christie, a fellow Republican - blasted the speaker for skipping action on disaster aid in the final hours of the current Congress. Boehner scheduled the vote after a parade of officials from storm-ravaged New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, led by Christie, criticized Boehner for refusing to allow a vote on a $60-billion aid package.

Republican Gov. Chris Christie lambasted his own party Wednesday afternoon for holding up federal relief funding to New Jersey and other states. He told reporters that he expected funding to be released by Congress by now and was extremely disappointed with House Speaker John Boehner, in particular. He said called Boehner's office a few times this morning - after a Sandy relief bill failed to get House approval last night. Christie said he had yet to hear back from Boehner. "We've had to wait six times longer than the victims of Katrina with no end in sight," Christie said, describing the delay as "callous indifference to suffering of the people in my state.

As New Jersey Democrats search for a savior to lead them back to the comfy confines of the governor's mansion in Princeton, Republicans have theirs in Chris Christie. And his campaign for reelection is well under way. Christie has announced his intention to run for reelection in 2013, and he will formally launch a campaign next year. Yet he is already trying to secure support in key demographics - like labor and Latinos - to give him a head start in beating back a Democratic challenge in this blue state.