Chris Christie

On his Comedy Central show Wednesday night, Stephen Colbert charged that hurricanes have a liberal bias -- and who can disagree? Katrina sank President George W. Bush, Isaac knocked a day off the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., and now Sandy may be messing with Mitt. Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, one of the Romney campaign's top surrogates has been standing before microphones and going on TV to rain praise on President Obama. Yes, Chris Christie, New Jersey's Republican governor, the guy who gave the keynote address in Tampa, has suddenly gotten all nonpartisan merely because his state has been devastated by a super storm.

Re "The GOP's fantasy lineup," Opinion, April 7 It is hard to understand why political pundits talk about the demise of the Republican Party when it has such a strong group of future young leaders, as mentioned in Doyle McManus' column. To wit: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker. To that list, I'd add Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez. While the Republicans have their issues, it is the Democrats with a real leadership problem.

A blossoming feud between California Gov. Jerry Brown and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie could bring a little fun back into politics. The spat began on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa during Christie's visit to the California delegation. Christie, who later in the week would underwhelm as the convention's keynote speaker, pointed out to the delegates he was a mere 14 years old when Brown won the Democratic primary in New Jersey way back in 1980. The trash-talking governor of the Garden State called Brown “an old retread” and implied Brown was chicken for sending his current tax hike proposal to the voters instead of pushing it through the legislature and taking the heat.

Almost four years ago, long before the 2012 presidential campaign heated up, CNN took a poll to learn who Republicans might choose as their party's next nominee. There were two clear front-runners: former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. The former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, limped in third. By the time the campaign arrived, of course, Palin and Huckabee were pursuing careers as television pundits and after-dinner speakers, not presidential candidates.

If some conservatives believe Rick Perry is soft on illegal immigration, what would they make of Chris Christie's statement three years ago asserting that undocumented immigrants aren't criminals? In 2008, when Christie was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, he told a church forum that “being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime.” Christie, who was appointed to that position by President George W. Bush, went on to say that an immigrant lacking documents is a civil wrong.

Re "Christie has words for California," Aug. 28 That was a whale of an insult spouted by the governor of New Jersey and keynote speaker at the Republican Convention, Chris Christie, calling Gov. Jerry Brown "an old retread. " Christie faults Brown for not raising taxes and instead allowing the voters to decide. But isn't this what the Republicans have been calling for? Getting government off our backs and letting people take care of their lives? William Landau Los Angeles ALSO: Letters: Cracks in the city's sidewalk plan Letters: Ron Paul and an unwelcoming GOP Letters: Who's to blame for Rachel Corrie's death?

Just one week after announcing he would not run for president, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is endorsing Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination, sources confirm. Christie will attend Tuesday night's Republican debate in New Hampshire as Romney's guest. The Romney campaign had announced the former Massachusetts governor would address supporters this afternoon with a "special guest. " When he reaffirmed his decision not to be a presidential candidate, Christie had suggested he was not likely to endorse one of the official candidates soon.

The Chris Christie boomlet appears to be drawing to a close. The New Jersey governor is expected to make his decision regarding the 2012 presidential race official Tuesday afternoon, likely ruling out one final time a run for the White House. For months, Christie has insisted that he will not run for president, saying among other things that he did not think he was ready to step into the office. But he found himself under new pressure in recent weeks as Republicans surveyed the field of announced candidates and still found it lacking.

Straight-talking New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is a portly guy -- and has spoken publicly in the past about his struggles with the scale.  Now that he might be a contender for Republican nominee for president, other people are speaking publicly about his weight, too, and what impact it might have on his electability next November. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote that the governor needed to lose weight for his (and the country's) health . Others complained that an inability to lose weight was a sort of failure of character .  Still others rushed to the would-be candidate's defense, writing that fretting over Christie's weight had more to do with prejudice than with real concerns about politics.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Ann Romney's personal testimonial on behalf of her husband at the Republican convention Tuesday “freed me up” to make a broader case against Democrats, Chris Christie said Wednesday. The New Jersey governor reflected on his keynote address at a breakfast hosted by the New Hampshire and Pennsylvania delegations, and seemed aware of chatter that his remarks were disproportionately focused on his own record and not the candidate his party had nominated just hours earlier.

Mike Rice, who was fired Wednesday as basketball coach at Rutgers, apologized for the disturbing behavior he exhibited in a video that was broadcast on ESPN a day earlier. Former assistant Eric Murdock caught Rice on camera as the coach bullied players -- shoving, pushing and throwing basketballs at them and shouting verbal abuse, including anti-gay slurs. "I've let so many people down," Rice said Wednesday morning. "My players. My administration. Rutgers University. The fans.

OXON HILL, Md. - To most of those attending this year's biggest gathering of conservative activists, the messenger - not the message - was to blame for the Republican Party's defeat in the 2012 presidential election. That made Mitt Romney's appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday potentially awkward. But the crowd responded enthusiastically to his first public speech since election night. "As someone who just lost the last election, I'm probably not in the best position to chart the course for the next one," remarked Romney, who also said that "It's up to us to make sure that we learn from our mistakes and my mistakes.

If you want to bet on the Super Bowl or the World Series or the Indianapolis 500, don't go to New Jersey. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp upheld a law prohibiting sports betting in all but four states, dealing a setback to New Jersey's attempts to revive its struggling casino industry by allowing gambling on sports. The ruling drew an unhappy reaction from Gov. Chris Christie. “We believe firmly in the principles of our position on sports betting and that the federal ban is inequitable, violates New Jersey's rights as a state and is unconstitutional,” Christie said in a statement.

Already fierce competitors, Nevada and New Jersey are preparing to open a second front in their fight for gambling dollars, this time in the virtual world of online gaming. On Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed a law legalizing Internet betting, following Nevada , which approved its version last week and hopes to be online for poker within months. Tiny Delaware is also in the hunt for online riches and could be taking bets by this fall. All three states will be offering online gaming, especially poker, to those living or visiting within their borders.

Fresh from being the big man on late night television, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday focused his ire on the National Flood Insurance Program and its slow rate of resolving claims from Superstorm Sandy. Christie, a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2016, has taken a hard line in trying to secure federal aid for his state in the wake of the storm that hit the Northeast in October. At a meeting in Union Beach, N.J., Christie criticized the federal program that he said has been too slow and plagued by excessive paperwork and bureaucratic delays.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose political hug of President Obama in the wake of Hurricane Sandy raised Republican hackles, has now criticized the National Rifle Assn. for the group's anti-gun control ad that referenced the president's two daughters.  Considered a potential GOP national candidate in 2016, Christie on Thursday went after the NRA, which is part of the coalition that forms the GOP's conservative wing. The ad argues that because Obama's daughters have armed security, regular parents deserve the same treatment in the wake of last month's deadly rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

TAMPA, Fla. - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may quickly win over many in the national television audience with his gruff, everyman persona and sharp critiques of a staggering economy when he delivers the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night. But it is Christie's other profile - his substantial physical one - that undoubtedly will make the first major impression on millions of television viewers. Christie is bigger than any other major national political figure in recent memory.

ATLANTIC CITY -- With forecasters predicting that Hurricane Sandy may slam directly into the coast of New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie ordered this city's casinos shut down, barrier islands evacuated, and everyone to stay off the beaches. Christie told state residents to let emergency officials' judgment overrule their own. "How about if we go by this rule? Anything that looks stupid, is stupid," he advised. On Sunday morning, heavy surf already was pounding the piers and beaches here, and plywood covered the windows of the souvenir shops and high-rise casinos that line the boardwalk.

The 112th Congress worked hard on just one thing: competing to be known as the most worthless, incompetent, do-nothing gathering of lawmakers in the nation's history. These political underachievers may well have guaranteed themselves that dubious distinction by what they did and did not do Tuesday night. In theory, our senators and representatives are elected to promote the best interests of the people who elect them. In practice, a great deal of the elected officials' time is spent serving the interests of the people who paid for the campaigns that got them elected.

WASHINGTON - House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday set a Jan. 15 vote on a Superstorm Sandy relief bill after enraged Northeast politicians - including Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, 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 criticized the Ohio Republican for refusing to allow a vote on a $60-billion aid package before the end of this congressional session.