Currently, the Democrats are the majority party in both Houses. In the Senate there are 24 Democrats and 16 Republicans. There are 52 Democrats and 28 Republicans serving in the General Assembly.

Portrait of the Governor as a Young Man

Chris Christie's forgotten early years of scandal and failure.

By OLIVIA NUZZI

February 13, 2014

In April 1995, Chris Christie had only been a freeholder for two months. But Anthony Bucco, a former mayor and freeholder, had only himself entered the State Assembly that January to fill a vacant seat. Christie thought he had spotted another soft target.

Bucco, now 75, speaks with a thick accent and sports a weathered, quintessential Jersey visage. He told me that he had worked on Christie’s campaign for freeholder, and so he was “very surprised” when Christie decided to challenge him for the State Assembly seat. “[Christie] was very aggressive, as he is today. He was determined to win it. … There was a little brashness about him.”

Christie teamed up with Richard Merkt, a legislative aide, to run against the team of Bucco and Michael Patrick Carroll, who, upon learning that Christie had entered the race, was quoted as asking, “He’s been a freeholder for what, 20 minutes?”

Back then, Carroll was known for his staunchly conservative views (he’s a Civil War re-enactor with children named Benjamin Franklin and Robert E. Lee), which he often expressed in the opinion pages of the Daily Record. But today, Carroll is one of the four Republicans on the committee investigating Governor Christie over Bridgegate.

Christie and Merkt attacked Bucco and Carroll for what they called a “Guns for Votes” campaign, claiming they had a “radical plan to legalize assault weapons.” And they touted the fact that they had never voted to increase taxes—though Christie, having been in public office “for what, 20 minutes?” had not had many opportunities to vote, and Merkt, having never held public office, had not had any opportunities to vote at all.

Bucco and Carroll hit back, dinging Christie as a “perennial candidate” with bottomless pockets (he’d spent $60,000 of his own funds on his freeholder race the previous year). “If all you need to be a legislator is a lot of money and uncontrolled ambition, “Bucco told the Daily Record, “I think the state is in trouble.”

Christie’s biggest mistake, Carroll told me, was his positioning as a pro-choice, anti-gun candidate. “As you might gather, in a conservatively dominated primary, that’s not really a high-profile way to win an election,” he said. “So, I question the political good sense of having run such a campaign.”

For Merkt, who soon turned against his running mate, the issue was Christie’s inexperience. “One would think that you would want to spend a little time in office before you took the next step, and [going from freeholder to State Assembly] is a fairly big step,” he told me, shaking his head. “It proved to be a race filled with errors and misjudgments on our part, and we got shellacked.”

Perhaps the biggest misstep was underestimating how much bad blood there was in the wake of Christie’s vicious freeholder campaign. His liberal views on abortion and guns might have been a tough sell among Morris conservatives, but they didn’t make him enemies. It was the Cissy Laureys affair that put a target on Christie’s back. “It left some long-term scars,” Merkt said.

Come primary day, Christie received just 4,376 votes, finishing dead last out of the four candidates. “The voters didn’t want the dirty tricks,” Bucco boasted after Christie’s defeat. “June 6, 1995 put the end to that type of campaigning in Morris County.”

Christie returned to his post as freeholder to serve out the remainder of his term. When it came time to run again, Merkt remembered, “believe me, they couldn’t wait to see him bounced.”

***

In 1997, after three tumultuous years as freeholder—in which he was again sued, this time by an architect hired to design a new jail in Morris County—Christie was due for re-election. Republicans in Morris County were eager to push Christie out of the seat they believed he had obtained unfairly. They enlisted another Republican to primary Christie. “Everywhere I go,” one of Christie’s opponents was quoted as saying, “Chris is the issue.”

Cissy Laureys was intent on seeking revenge, and entered the race, releasing a series of advertisements reminding voters of Christie’s court-disapproved tactics. They read, “Is Chris Christie Really Sorry … Or Just Sorry He Keeps Getting Sued?”

Come primary day, Christie finished dead last, taking his running mate down with him. Laureys regained her seat. “When someone takes away your reputation, it’s something you never get back,” she said. “Republican voters of Morris County not only put me back in office, but they restored my good name.”

Christie arrived at the Republicans’ party to make his concession speech. It was an awkward scene, Christie told biographers Bob Ingle and Michael Symons. “[A]s I was walking off the stage, there was a guy standing by the stairs … and as I was walking down the steps, he was making kind of a kissing noise with his lips … And I kind of looked at him and I said, ‘what now, Chuck?’ And he goes, ‘that’s just me kissing your fucking career goodbye.’”

***

On a Saturday afternoon in late November, the phrase “Bridgegate” had yet to enter the political lexicon. But as Richard Merkt sat in a booth of a diner in Morris County and told me about the young future governor, he sounded just like the million pundits on cable everyday since the Fort Lee traffic scandal broke.

“He’s a racehorse,” Merkt said, his tone suggesting both admiration and disgust. “He’s basically someone who runs for a position so that he has that as a stepping stone to the next position.”

The racehorse has stumbled, and there’s nothing less intimidating than a horse on the ground. Unaware of how interesting such an idea would become in just a few short weeks, Merkt laughed, “He is vindictive when he’s not happy. He’d probably do something to me if he could, but he can’t.” He laughed again.