The ascent of Chris Christie: George W. Bush nicknamed him 'Big Boy.' Will Mitt Romney call him 'my running mate'?

• Author: Colarusso, Laura M.
• Position: Chris Christie: The Inside Story of His Rise to Power - Book review

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Chris Christie: The Inside Story of His Rise to Power

by Bob Ingle and Michael Symons

St. Martin's Press, 320 pp.

To his admirers, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is a blunt, tenacious, corruption-gutting former U.S. attorney who is cleaning up the mess in Trenton one union boss at a time. He may well be the man who helps the Republicans reclaim the White House, either as the vice presidential nominee this year or as a presidential candidate in 2016. To his critics, Christie represents the worst of Garden State politics: an arrogant, crass opportunist who used his prosecutorial authority for political gain and never misses a chance to publicly berate those who disagree with his policies.

So which is it?

In their new book, Chris Christie: The Inside Story of His Rise To Power, veteran New Jersey reporters Bob Ingle and Michael Symons seem to be suggesting it's the former, painting a mostly glowing portrait of the man who once called a state assemblyman "numbnuts." The authors use upbeat phrases like "humorous crime-buster," "blunt establishment challenger," and "a leader since childhood" to describe Christie, especially in comparison to his Democratic predecessor, Jon Corzine. (Ingle and Symons make little effort to hide their disdain for Corzine and his team, referring, for instance, to his reelection staff as the "Kiddie Corps.") Christie, by contrast, they say, "has the makings of a productive vice president" because of his take-no-prisoners approach to both campaigning and governing.

Despite his own avowals to the contrary, Christie is still considered a likely top contender to be Mitt Romney's running mate this fall. Christie is highly regarded for taking on New Jersey's powerful public-sector unions--especially the teachers--even though it turns out that his mother was a Democrat who once belonged to the New Jersey Education Association. Ingle and Symons describe how Christie pushed a 2 percent property tax increase cap, which meant that there was less money for salary increases at the local level, and attempted to balance the overburdened state budget by slashing state aid to local school districts, forcing towns to make tough choices about capital improvements and class size. It was, however, Jon Corzine who did much of the hard work that moved New Jersey toward solvency. Indeed, Corzine became wildly unpopular with his own base when he forced public employees to pay 1.5 percent of their salaries toward...