Chris Christie received the endorsement on Wednesday of the only other governor in the United States who could describe the brash New Jersey leader as “a little bit shy”.
In a news conference on the second-floor porch of a crowded diner in Portland, Maine, Paul LePage became the first Republican governor to offer an endorsement in the 2016 presidential primary.
The gruff, controversial LePage sang the praises of his fellow GOP governor. In particular, he singled out Christie for standing by him in 2014 and directing national fundraising resources to his re-election campaign when the media viewed LePage as “a dead-walking governor”.
LePage touted the New Jersey Republican’s ability not to “sugar-coat anything and to tell like it is” as a reason for backing Christie. In the Maine governor’s opinion: “What is happening around the world could easily happen for America if we keep playing the political correctness game.”
He added: “I look at Greece, I look at Costa Rica, I look at Europe, I look at really troublesome areas of the world and we need leadership and we need people to understand truth, not rhetoric.” (Europe is currently in the middle of financial turmoil over Greece’s default of its debt to the IMF. Costa Rica is, however, not facing any financial or political crises at present, although the US commonwealth of Puerto Rico is facing insolvency.)
Christie’s endorsement came with some controversy.
There have been rumblings in Maine that LePage may face impeachment after he threatened to cut a local charter school’s funding when it announced it would be hiring the state’s Democratic speaker of the house as its president. LePage claimed that the Democrat’s opposition to charter school funding disqualified him from holding the post.
The Maine governor has also pledged to veto every bill sponsored by a Democratic legislator, regardless of its content, until Democrats agree to support a constitutional amendment to abolish Maine’s state income tax. LePage also vetoed the state’s budget earlier this week, an order which was promptly overridden by a bipartisan majority in the state legislature.
Christie stood by LePage at the event and told reporters in response to a question on the controversy: “I support the governor’s leadership. There are times you have to take a stance and you have to let people know exactly where you stand on an issue.”
The New Jersey governor added: “Controversies come and go. Leadership is what stands strong and firm and that’s what this governor has done in his time in office.
“I stand with him not only on that but on all the other tough things he’s been doing surrounding the budget.”
For all the mutual admiration between the GOP governors for their shared propensity for “straight talk”, Christie, whose campaign slogan is “telling it like it is”, did appear to engage in some political obfuscation. The New Jersey governor said that despite all his preparations to run for the White House, he had only made a final decision about mounting a campaign last Thursday. He hedged about how much attention his campaign would pay to Iowa and South Carolina as opposed to New Hampshire, where the New Jersey governor is spending the next few days.
But Christie could still improve his bluntness over the course of his campaign. LePage pledged to help “bring him out of his shell” on Wednesday and there are seven months until the Iowa caucuses.
