Governor Chris Christie announces with the expected pomposity
Chris Christie has officially entered the GOP nomination race for president of the United States. He did it in his normal pompous style telling Americans how it will be.
According to the Huffington Post,
Christie made a public announcement Tuesday afternoon at Livingston High School, his alma mater, in Livingston, New Jersey.
“I am now ready to fight for the people of the United States of America,” Christie said at the public announcement.
He praised his home state during his speech, sharing how working as governor inspired him to run for president. Christie also took hits at lawmakers in Washington, including President Barack Obama, claiming a lack of productivity from Congress is giving Americans anxiety.
“Both parties have failed our country… both parties have led us to believe that America, a country that was built on compromise — that compromise is somehow a dirty word,” Christie said.
“We need to have the courage to choose, we need to have the courage to stand up and say ‘enough,'” Christie added.
Inasmuch as Governor Chris Christie’s speech bore the pomposity every one is use to, the speech taken at face value was very good. Those seeking bravado and braggadocio will find him appealing.
Transcript
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you New Jersey. And thank you to Livingston. Lots of people have asked me over the course of the last week why here? Why here? Because everything started here for me. The confidence, the education, the friends, the family, and the love that I have always felt for and from this community. When I decided to make this announcement, there was not any choice. I had to come home and Livingston’s home for me. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: I want to thank Sheila, a good friend of my mom and a wonderful representative of this town for welcoming us here today. I want to thank my friend, you may be confused, you may think she was being booed by her high school classmates, she was not. For reasons that I will not explain, Linz nickname in high school was the juice. Hence, it is not a boom, it is the juice. And Lynn, thank you for being here. I am also here because this is where my family raised meat. You will — me. You will hear a lot about me from my mother and father and you must know for good or bad that where come from is our parents. You heard Sheila and Lynn both talk about my mom today. I am here in Livingston because all of those years ago, my mother and father became the first of either of their families to leave the city of Newark and come here. My mom is not with us today but I feel her. My dad is with me here today and I am really privileged to have him. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: they raised my brother and I come up brought us here to Livingston when we were four years old and two years old and then our sister don joined us a few years later — our sister dawn. This is where we played on, this is the school we built our friends with and came and learned with. And up until I left to share a room with Mary pat, it was a smooth transition. And my sister Dawn and Todd are as big a part of today as anybody else and they are both here and I love them both. [APPLAUSE] everyone thinks i’m the politician in the family. We did a coin flip only got married. I called tales, tales never fails to I’m the guy who ran. A politician just as good as me and the family is the woman I met all the years ago at the University of Delaware from a family of 10 people. People say why are you shout — shy in a crowd? you should see the family I married to. My wife has been a fantastic part of everything I have done with my life over the last 30 years./ she is largely responsible for the four amazing people that you see standing here with her. [APPLAUSE] ever since I haven’t governor I have been happy to use the veto at home as well. So far so good I have not been overwritten there. I am glad they are here today and for Andrew and Sarah and Patrick and Bridget, I could not be prouder of your children — four children as I am of them. I told you my parents moved to Livingston and they moved to Livingston to make this part of their fulfillment of their dreams. Of their version of the American dream. They both lost their fathers at a young age. They were raised by extraordinarily strong women. Under very difficult circumstances. My dad, one of the best students in his high school class, admitted to Columbia University because his father passed away, he could not go. They did have the money. He went to work and got drafted into the army and came home. He went to work at the Breyers ice cream plant in north New Jersey. He then decided, after he met my mother, that it was time for him to make more of his life. He went to school at night at Rutgers for six years while working at those jobs during the day, to get his degree in accounting and my mother, one of the proudest pictures she had was the one she called our first family picture. It was my mom and dad on the same day that he graduated from Rutgers in June of 1962. The first person in either of the families to ever get a college degree. It was the first family picture because she was six months pregnant with me. The smiles on both of their faces that they were indicative of what not that they had accomplished, but what they saw coming ahead of them. Their smiles were about the fact that they thought that nothing was out of reach for them now. They had each other, they were building a family, they worked together, and then with the help of those strong women, they gave them $5,000 each, with all the money they had in the world, to put a down payment on a house in this town to give their children a chance to take the dream they had started to build and to make it even bigger and even better. I not only think about my mom and dad today, I think about my two grandmothers. Women who raised children largely on their own, women who knew how to work hard, and knew that their hard work would deliver something for their children. I know that both of them are watching down today and that part of today is the fulfillment of their dream as well. I am thinking about both of them. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: one of the things my mother always used to say was if you work hard enough, you can be anything. She said god has given you so many gifts, if you just work hard enough, you can be anything. That story is proof, parents who came from nearly nothing, except for that hard work. Parents that brought little to their marriage except for their love for each other and hard work. That hard work not only produced a great life for me and my brother and sister, but think about how amazing this country is, that one generation removed from the guy who was working on the floor of the plant of the Breyers ice cream plant, his son is the two-term governor of the state that he was born and raised in. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: that is not only what my parents have done for me, but it is what New Jersey has done for us. This place that represents the most ethnically diverse state in the country. The most densely populated state in the country. We are all different and we are all top of each other in places like this gem. [laughter] Gov. Christie: what has come from that is the absolute belief that not only can all of us achieve whatever dream you want to achieve because of the place where relive and the opportunities it gives us, but that we not only can do it together but we have to do it together. We have no choice but to work together, this country needs to work together again, not against each other. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: when I became governor six years ago, we had a state that was an economic calamity and $11 billion deficit on a $29 billion budget, a state that had a taxes and fees rates raised a hundred 15 times in the eight years before became governor, a state that no longer believed that any one person could make a difference in the lives of the people of this state and so we rolled up our sleeves and went to work and balance this budget. We have refused to raise taxes on the people of this state for six years. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: we made the hard decisions that had to be made to improve our education system. We made the difficult decision to reform pensions and health benefits to continue that fight today, we have stood together against each and every person, every cynic who said why are you wasting your time? The state is not governable, the last x years we proved not only can you govern the state, you can leave it to a better day and that is what we have done together. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: and now we face a country that is not angry. When I hear the media say our country is angry I know they are wrong. Last year I want to 37 different states across this country in one year. I met people in every corner of America. They are not angry. Americans are not angry. Americans are filled with anxiety. They are filled with anxiety because they look to Washington, DC. And they see a government that not only doesn’t work anymore, it doesn’t even talk to itself. It doesn’t even pretend to work. We have a president in the oval office who ignores the congress and a congress that ignores the president. We need a government and Washington, DC. That remembers you went there to work for us, not the other way around. [APPLAUSE] [chanting] Gov. Christie: both parties have failed our country. Both parties have stood in the corner and held their breath waiting get their way, oath have led us to believe that our country, that was built on compromise, that somehow compromises a dirty word. If Washington and Adams and Jefferson had believed that was a dirty word we would still be under the crown of England. This dysfunction, this lack of leadership, has led to an economy that is weak and has not recovered the way it should. It has led to an educational system that is 27th in math and 24th in science. It has led us to weak leadership around the world, where our friends can no longer trust us and our adversaries the longer fear us. This weakness and indecisiveness in the oval office has sent away way of anxiety drug country but I am here to say that anxiety can be swept away. We can find the decisiveness to lead America again. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: we just need to have the courage to choose. We just need to have the courage to stand up and say enough. We need to have the courage chart a new path for America. America knows that and knows where we need to go. It must start with this. We must tell each other the truth about the problems we have and the difficulty of the solutions but if we tell each other the truth, we recognize that truth and hard decisions today will lead to growth and opportunity tomorrow for every American in this country. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: what are those truths? Those truths are that we have to ignore knowledge government isn’t working anymore for us. We have to say that out loud and acknowledged it is the fault of our bickering leaders and Washington, DC. Who no longer listen to us and no longer know they are supposed be serving us. We need to acknowledge all of that anxiety and those failures are not the end. There the beginning. The beginning of what we can do together. What we need to decide is that we can make a difference. That we can stand up and make a difference in this country. You see, that’s why I love the job I have. That’s why I love my job as governor because kids ask me all the time, the fourth-grader succumbed to the state house every week, they asked me one, what is your favorite color. Always. Second, they asked me what’s the best part of your job? Iowa’s tell them that it’s that I wake up every morning knowing that I have an opportunity to do something great. I don’t do something great everyday because i’m human but every morning I wake up with an opportunity to do something great. That’s why this job is a great job and that’s why the president of the United States is an even greater job for a greater number of people. [APPLAUSE] I have spent the last 13 years of my life as u.s. Attorney and governor of the state, fighting for fairness and justice and opportunity for the people of the state of New Jersey. That fight has not made me more weary, it has made me stronger and I am now ready to fight for the people of the united states of America. [APPLAUSE] America is tired of handwringing and evasiveness and weakness in the oval office. We need strength and decision-making and authority back in the oval office and that is why today I am proud to announce my candidacy for the republican nomination for president of the United States of America. [APPLAUSE] [cheering] Gov. Christie: and now, as Livingston and New Jersey turns its gaze to the west best rest of Americans, what do we see and what can we confront? We need a campaign of big ideas and hard troops and real opportunities — hard truths Andriy opportunities. We need to fix the broken entitlement system, we have candidates who say we can’t confront this because if we do we will be lying and stealing from the American people. Let me fill everybody else in, the lying and stealing has already happened. The horse is out of the barn. You can only get back in by force. [APPLAUSE] we need to get our economy growing again at 4% or greater and the reason we do is because we have to make this once again the country my mother and father told me it was. As hard as you work, that is as high as you will rise. That is not the case anymore, we cannot honestly look at our children and say that to them because we have an economy that is weak and doesn’t present them with the same opportunities that Mary pat and I were presented in the mid-1980’s only graduated from college. When we graduated, we didn’t worry about getting a job, we worried up picking which job was the best for us. We didn’t worry about whether we were going to be successful, we know we worked hard we would. This country and its leadership does the same thing to my children and yours and I am ready to give it to you. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: we need a tax system that is simplified and will put cpas like my dad out of business. We need to get government off the back of our people and business regulation and encourage businesses to invest in America again, not overseas. Invest in our country and our people. And in a world that is as dangerous and as frightening as anytime i’ve seen it and my lifetime. There is only one indispensable force for good in the world. It is a strong, unequivocal America that will lead the world and not be afraid to tell us we will be with you no matter what and until our adversaries there are limits to your conduct and America will enforce the limits to that conduct. [APPLAUSE] [no audio] [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: here it comes, after seven years, I heard the president of the united states say that the world respect America more because of his leadership. This convinces me it is the final confirmation that president obama lives in his own world, not in hours. — ours. After seven years of a week and feckless foreign policy run by barack obama, we better not turn it over to his second mate, hillary clinton. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: in the end, leadership matters. It matters for our country, and American leadership matters for the world. If we are going to lead, we have to stop worrying about being loved and start worrying about a respected again both at home and around the world. I am not running for president of the united states as a surrogate for the elected prom king of America. I am not looking to be the most popular guy who looks in your eyes every day and says what you want to hear and turn around and do something else. When I stand up on estates like this in front of all of you, there is one thing you will know for sure. I mean what I say and I say what I mean and that is what America needs right now. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: unlike some people who offer themselves for the presidency in 2016, you won’t have to wonder whether I can do it or not. In New Jersey as governor, I have stood up against economic calamity and unprecedented natural disaster, we have brought ourselves together and pushed back that economic calamity and we are recovering from that natural disaster and that’s because we have lead and work together to do it. As governor I have proven that you can stand up and fight the most powerful special interest this state has to have and stand up and stop them but at the same time reach across the aisle to our friends in the democratic party and say if you have a good idea, i’m willing to work with you because that’s what our country needs. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: as governor I never wavered from telling you the truth as I see it and then acting to make sure that you know that it’s the truth as I believe it in my heart. As a candidate for president, I want to promise you a few things. First, a campaign without spin and without pandering or focus group tested answers. You get what I think whether you like it or not or whether it makes you cringe every once in a while. A campaign when i’m asked a question, I will give the answer to the question asked, not the answer my political consultants told me to get backstage. A campaign that, every day, will not worry about whether or not as popular but because it’s right. What is right will fix America, not what is popular. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: a campaign that believes in America that is as great as the hopes and dreams that we want everyone of our children to have. Not a campaign that tears people down, but a campaign that rebuilds America as a place where you and I grew up and where we want our children to grow up in again and where we want free people around the world to grow up in an their countries as well. That’s what America has a wasted for and that’s what this campaign will stand for. — that’s what America has standed for. All the signs say tell it like it is. We’re going to tell it like it is today so that we can create greater opportunity for every American tomorrow. The truth will set us free, everybody. [APPLAUSE] Gov. Christie: all the years, all 52 years that I have spent in the state with our people, have prepared me for this moment. We have no idea where and how this journey will end. But we know that it’s only in this country, only in America, where someone like me could have the opportunity to seek the highest office the world has to offer. Only in America could all of you believe that your voices and your efforts could make it different, to change a country as big and fast as powerful as this one. Only in America. Only in America have we seen time after time after time, the truth of the words that one person can make a difference. The reason that’s true is because it’s the only thing that’s ever made a difference in the history of the world. One person, reaching out to another to change their circumstance and to improve the lot of their children and grandchildren. I don’t seek the presidency for any other reason than because I believe in my heart that I am ready to work with you to restore America to its rightful place in the world and to restore the American dream to each one of our children whether they live in Livingston or newark or camden, patterson, or jersey city, no matter where they live across this country, we need to make sure that everyone of those children believes that they have a president who not only speaks to them, but who hears them. Who hears them and understands that their voices are what makes any American president great. If you give me the privilege to be your president, I will wake up every day, not only with my heart strong and my mind sharp, but with my ears open and my arms open, to welcome the American people no matter what party, race, creed, color, to make sure that you know this is your country, as well. We will win this country and I love each and every one of you. Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]