RUTHERFORD — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called Gov. Chris Christie “a great leader” and “one of the best governors in the United States” as he joined his fellow Republican on the campaign trail in New Jersey today.
“I think he’s one of our big success stories,” Giuliani said as he walked with Christie in downtown Rutherford this afternoon, shaking hands and posing for photos with supporters. “He’s done everything he said he would do and he’s kept his promises.”
It was the first of four appearances Giuliani will make with Christie today as the governor’s statewide campaign bus tour swings through North Jersey. The two will also stand side by side in River Edge, Hackensack, and Harrison this evening.
Giuliani — who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination for president in 2008 — stopped short of saying whether he wants Christie to run for the White House in 2016. “We can talk about that after this election,” he said.
Christie is running for re-election against Democratic state Sen. Barbara Buono on Tuesday.
But Giuliani did say that Christie has “unlimited possibilities.”
“There are a lot of things he can do,” the former mayor said while greeting dozens of supporters lined along Park Avenue, Rutherford’s main thoroughfare. “But right now, he’s governor.”
Christie called Giuliani a “role model” and an example of the leadership Americans want to see, crediting him with helping to improve New York City when he was mayor from 1994-2001.
“For me, he inherited an awful mess in New York City,” Christie said. “Because he was straight and honest and direct and did the hard things, he was able to clean it up.”
Christie and Giuliani have a lot in common. Both are brash former prosecutors with national profiles and the ability to cross party lines and appeal to Democrats.
Giuliani was one of two high-profile Republicans to campaign for Christie when he was elected in 2009. The other was GOP National Committee chairman Michael Steele.
They also have staff ties. Mike DuHaime, Christie’s political strategist, ran Guiliani’s presidential bid in 2008, and Maria Comella, Christie’s deputy chief of staff for communications and planning, was deputy communications director for that race.
Not everyone was a Christie fan in Rutherford, though. A handful of public school teachers held up signs slamming the governor for his education policies. Another was carrying a Buono campaign poster.
Christie has often feuded with the New Jersey Education Association, the state teachers union, and recently said some public schools in the state are “failure factories.”
“The teachers of New Jersey need to stand up to him,” said one teacher who would not give her name. “He’s going after the wrong people. He’s going after the little guy instead of the big guy.”
Earlier in the day, Christie spoke to dozens of supporters at a train station in Glen Ridge, standing next to Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo — a powerful Democrat who has endorsed the governor’s re-election bid.
Christie, who has been positioning himself as a moderate who can appeal to Democrats and voting blocs that don’t traditionally back Republicans, once again criticized lawmakers in Washington for the bickering that has broken out between the parties recently.
“What we’re aiming to do on Tuesday is not only have a great victory for New Jersey but to set a new course for our country,” Christie said. “That’s the message we’ll send if what happens on Tuesday is that Republicans and Democrats and independents come together. If white voters in the suburbs are voting with African-Americans in our cities. If senior citizens are voting with young people. If the folks who are working every day with our hands are voting with people who are every day tapping keys on a computer. If our Hispanic citizens are voting with our Asian-American citizens.
“If everybody comes together the way it looks like we may on Tuesday, then both parties in America will have to understand that the American people — like the people of New Jersey — want people who actually do their jobs, who compromise, who get things done, and stop the arguing and the bickering.”
Form NJ.com
