The New Republic on Chris Christie and George Norcross

8/12/2019 The New Republic on Chris Christie and George Norcross

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even as congestion got so dire that ambulance workers were forced to respond to anemergency on foot.) We also know that this act of retribution wasn‟t an isolatedincident: The mayor of Hoboken, to name just one example, has claimed that Christie‟soffice pressured her to approve a big development project represented by a Christiecrony —or risk losing recovery aid for damage caused by Hurricane Sandy.

And yet, even post-Bridgegate, the prevailing interpretations of Christie fundamentallymiss the mark. He has been so singularly successful at constructing his ownmythology —as a reformer, a crusader, a bipartisan problem-solver—that people havenever really seen him clearly. Over the past three months, I talked to more than 50people who have crossed paths with Christie throughout his career—legislators, officials,Democrats, Republicans, lawyers, longtime New Jersey politicos. (Christie himselfdidn‟t respond to a detailed request for comment.) The problem with Christie isn‟tmerely that he is a bully. It‟s that his political career is built on a rotten foundation.Christie owes his rise to some of the most toxic forces in his state—powerful bosses whoensure that his vow to clean up New Jersey will never come to pass. He has allowedthem to escape scrutiny, rewarded them for their support, and punished their enemies.

All along, even as it looked like Christie was attacking the machine, he was really justmastering it.



Photo Illustration by Jacqueline Mellow WOKE UP THIS MORNING AND ALL THAT LOVE HAD GONE



To understand Chris Christie, first you have to understand that he was raised to nevergive an inch. He grew up in the North Jersey suburb of Livingston, to parents descendedfrom big Newark clans—Sicilian for his mother, Sandy; Irish-German for his father, Bill.The strength of their marriage was exceeded only by the strength of their opinions. Theyargued constantly —about money, about politics, about pretty much everything.

Chris, the oldest child, was the family mediator—reassuring his younger brother, Todd,and adopted sister, Dawn, or barging into the fray to take his mother‟s side. Not thatSandy needed any help. Funny, relentless, and willing to punctuate her point with araised middle finger, she got her way more often than not. “They demanded a lot out ofus,” Todd Christie told his brother‟s biographers, Bob Ingle and Michael Symons.

Anthony Hope, the baseball coach at Livingston High School, told me about a game when Chris got picked off third base, costing his team the win. That night, all the kidsheaded to the town‟s big Battle of the Bands, except Chris. Hope, who was chaperoning,

inquired where he was. He‟d been grounded— because of the game.

(Read More: Chris Christie‟s Bullying Map of New Jersey )

The Christie brothers were close, but very different. Todd was a bro in the making—“anoutgoing, happy-go-lucky type,” says Hope. Chris was the serious one, the type of kid who started running for office long before his first keg party. He was known forintroducing himself to other kids on the playground as if he were a first-time candidateat the Iowa State Fair. (“Hi, I‟m Chris Christie.”) By the third grade, he was piping up atPTA meetings to give his opinions on field trips and fund-raisers. Whenever theneighborhood boys played cowboys and Indians, Todd once reminisced, Chris always

opted to be the sheriff. At the age of 14, at Sandy‟s urging, he knocked on the front doorof the local assemblyman, Tom Kean, and asked for advice on how to get elected.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116603/chris-christies-bullying-map-new-jersey?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=intext&utm_campaign=curated






Associated PressDuring Christie's term, Democratic boss George Norcross has become more powerfulthan ever.

Since fate had placed Christie in New Jersey, he was about to get a very particular kindof political education. In his senior year, he was one of two students chosen to representNew Jersey in the Hearst Foundation‟s Senate Youth Program. The students were tospend a week with their home-state senators, observing the legislative process from theinside out. Unfortunately for Christie and his partner, the day before they got to

Washington, news broke of a massive FBI operation in which a federal agent posing asan Arab sheik had bribed elected officials with suitcases stuffed with cash.

Thus began the season of Abscam, the elaborate sting that would eventually reel in themayor of Camden, six members of the House of Representatives, and New Jersey‟ssenior senator, Harrison Williams, among others. That week, Williams went to ground,and so, while all the other students got pictures in the group yearbook with both theirsenators, the Jersey kids only got a photo with one—Bill Bradley. “It was an incredibleembarrassment,” Christie later recalled. “We were the butt of jokes all week.” In histelling, it was the defining moment that alerted him to “the problem of corruption inNew Jersey.”

To say that corruption was a problem in the Garden State was an epic understatement—its political system might as well have been expressly designed to facilitate public fraud.The state‟s official history is one of legendary self -dealers: Enoch “Nucky” Johnson builtand ruled Prohibition-era Atlantic City from the ninth floor of the Ritz-Carlton. Themidcentury mayor of Jersey City, Frank Hague, earned a salary of $8,500 a year and yetleft office with a fortune of $2 million. His signature accoutrement, according to Jerseylore, was a desk with an outward-facing drawer in which visitors would deposit their



bribes. As one mayor of Newark memorably put it, “There‟s no money in being acongressman, but you can make a million bucks as mayor.”

In most of the United States, the big political machines have been broken, or reduced to wheezing versions of their former selves. In New Jersey, though, they‟ve endured likenowhere else. The state has retained its excessively local distribution of power—566municipalities, 21 counties, and innumerable commissions and authorities, all of themgenerous repositories of contracts and jobs. The place still has bona fide bosses—perhaps not as colorful as the old ones, but about as powerful. The bosses drum upcampaign cash from people and firms seeking public jobs and contracts, and direct it tocandidates, who take care of the bosses and the contributors—a self-perpetuating cycleas reliable as photosynthesis.

When a brash young Christie decided to wade into this swamp, casting himself as areformer seemed like the smart thing to do. By the time he was 31, Christie had marriedhis college sweetheart, Mary Pat (her first impression of him was as “a studentgovernment geek”), gone on to law school, and then to a small firm w here he handled

medical-malpractice cases and, later, securities litigation and some state lobbying. In1994, he ran for a seat on the Board of Chosen Freeholders in Morris County, theprosperous exurb where he and Mary Pat, a Wall Street investment banker, had settled.It was time, he declared, for an end to the cycle of campaign contributions from those who did business with local government. “I‟m sick and tired of people hiring theirpolitical friends,” he said.

But even as Christie was running against Jersey‟s political culture, he was willing to borrow some of its uglier tactics. One afternoon, Ed Tamm Jr., a Republican he waschallenging, got a call from a friend who asked if he‟d seen a Christie ad that had justaired during the Devils game, alleging that Tamm and his fellow board members were

under investigation. Alarmed, Tamm called the county prosecutor, who reassured him it wasn‟t true. It was the final weekend before the Republican primary, leaving no time torespond, and Christie finished first, tossing Tamm and another Republican off the board. They sued him successfully for defamation, but years later, Tamm is stilldumbfounded. “Politicians get hammered all the time, but there‟s got to be an elementof truth to it,” he told me.

Only four weeks after taking office, Christie announced that he was thinking ofchallenging a veteran Republican for the state Assembly. His ambition rankled localRepublicans. “A lot of people were like, who does this guy think he is?” says RickShaftan, the campaign manager for another candidate. (So determined was Shaftan to beat Christie that, at one point, he went to a local crawfish festival and recruited someoverweight drunk guys for an ad that depicted Christie wrestling opponents in a mudpit.) Christie lost that race. Two years later, local Republicans recruited challengers toknock him off the freeholder board, too. On election night, after Christie gave hisconcession speech, one of his nemeses smacked his lips in his direction and explained,“That‟s just me kissing your fucking career goodbye.”



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Christie had now spent tens of thousands of his family‟s money and lost two races in arow. Not long after the election debacle, he had lunch with his Assembly running mate,Rick Merkt. “It was a couple of gut punches,” Merkt says of the defeats. But he saw apath forward for his friend. He suggested to Christie that “the federal route might givehim another bite at the apple.” What Merkt meant was that, instead of running for

election, Christie should try to get himself appointed to an influential post. In NewJersey, that meant engaging in precisely the sort of grubby glad-handing Christie hadcondemned. Still, he was in his late thirties and all he had to show for his foray intopublic life was a middling legal career and a lot of local Republicans who hated him. Andso he took Merkt‟s advice.

The “federal route” turned out to be quite straightforward. First, Christie sought thecounsel of Bill Palatucci, a colleague at his firm. Years earlier, Palatucci had served asGeorge W. Bush‟s driver when he campaigned for his dad in New Jersey, and he advisedChristie to raise money for Bush‟s 2000 presidential campaign. Christie and Palatucci

proceeded to pull in $350,000, more than enough for Christie to qualify as a Bush“Pioneer”; he and Mary Pat also personally contributed $29,000 to Bush and otherRepublicans between 1999 and 2001. After the election, it came time for Bush tonominate a U.S. attorney for New Jersey, one of the biggest offices in the country.Palatucci pitched Christie to Karl Rove. It was a competitive field, and Christie had zeroexperience in criminal law; indeed, he had never so much as filed a motion in federalcourt. He got the nod.

Only after the September 11 attacks did his qualifications come under any heavyscrutiny. Suddenly, it didn‟t seem like a terrific idea to appoint an untested,undistinguished lawyer to the district across the river from Ground Zero. The New

Jersey Federal Bar Association, the Newark Star-Ledger, and the state‟s junior senator,Jon Corzine, all criticized the choice. But the power to clear the nomination for a vote belonged to the state‟s senior senator, Robert Torricelli. The two men met in Torricelli‟soffice, and the senator told Christie that, in light of the terrorist attacks, Bush wasentitled to get the post filled fast. (It was no secret that he also liked the idea of aprosecutor with Italian-American roots, to counter ethnic stereotypes.) Torricelli toldme that he imposed only one condition: Christie had to hire a “professional” as hisdeputy —that is, someone who knew his way around federal court. A few weeks later,Christie and Torricelli saw each other at a Christmas party, hours after the Senate hadapproved Christie‟s nomination. Christie made a beeline for Torricelli to thank him andthe two embraced



Associated Press

Christie has boasted that Joe DiVincenzo (center) has been with him "right from dayone."

Torricelli may have had other reasons to want Christie in the job. At the time, the rakishDemocrat was under investigation for illegal fund-raising during the 1996 campaign. When it came time for Christie to select his “professional,” his first pick was a formerfederal prosecutor and close Torricelli confidante. Then it emerged that Christie‟s choicehad not been candid about a visit he paid to Torricelli‟s home while it was under FBIsurveillance, and Christie had to find someone else.

Soon afterward, Christie reshuffled the top staff in Newark. One of the apparent losers was Michael Guadagno, the head of the frauds division who had led the initialinvestigation into Torricelli. Christie sent Guadagno down to the satellite office inTrenton, a demotion that some in top legal and politicalcircles linked to Guadagno‟s work on the Torricelli case. “Christie exiled him to Trenton,” says one New Jersey legal veteran. (The case against Torricelli was dropped after he decided not to run forreelection. He told me he had “no knowledge” of Guadagno‟s involvement and praised

Christie‟s performance as prosecutor: “Chris kept the commitment that he made tome.”)

It wasn‟t the cleanest beginning. But Christie had a plan for quashing any doubts abouthow he got the job: He would unleash the full might of his office against corruption.Fighting public fraud, he announced, would be his office‟s top priority after terrorism.“Corrupt politicians will steal your trust, your taxes, and your hope,” he told a New



Jersey crowd in 2007. The problem was not, he noted, “an insufficient number oftargets.”

Soon after Christie took office, Essex County‟s Republican executive, Jim Treffinger, wasout walking his dog when seven police cruisers surrounded him. Treffinger knew he wasunder investigation for awarding no-show jobs to friends and extorting campaigndonations in exchange for contracts. He had repeatedly offered to surrender toauthorities when the time came. Instead, his wife and daughter watched from the houseas he was thrown up against a car and frisked, an image that appeared in the next day‟s Star-Ledger, which had been tipped off to the arrest.

At first, Christie said the arrest had been left to the marshals. But later, he castTreffinger‟s treatment in moral terms. Corrupt officials, he said, shouldn‟t be coddled—they were “worse than the street criminal because the street criminal never pretends to be anything but what he or she is.” (Local lawyers wondered whether the public shamingmight be linked to Treffinger‟s observation, caught on a wiretap, that Christie was a “fatfuck” who “wouldn‟t know a law book from a cookbook.”) “The perception was that the

U.S. attorney was sending a message,” one lawyer told me.

The next seven years unfolded like a never-ending perp walk, as Christie racked up morethan 130 convictions and guilty pleas for elected and appointed officials. He had a knackfor extracting the maximum p.r. from every arrest or indictment. “The office leaked likea sieve,” one Democratic operative recalls. “I had reporters calling me at four in morningand saying, [so and so] is going to get pinched.”

Democrats howled that Christie was on a partisan witch-hunt, since he targeted so manymore Ds than Rs. But it was hard to take such accusations very seriously. After all, NewJersey‟s power structure was dominated by Democrats, and Christie was uncovering

undeniable cases of abuse. One state senator pleaded guilty for accepting a low-show jobat a medical school in exchange for state grants, another to accepting a $25,000“success fee” for helping a mining company obtain permit approvals. Longtime NewarkMayor Sharpe James got 27 months on charges stemming from the sale of steeplydiscounted city properties to an ex-girlfriend. (James‟s successor, Cory Booker, is thefirst mayor of Newark not to be indicted since 1962.)

Besides, to accuse Christie of protecting Republicans over Democrats was missing thepoint. True, his office had knocked out a swath of New Jersey‟s biggest Democratic power brokers and weakened their organizations in crucial parts of the state. But thatmeant the bosses left standing had only grown stronger.

In 2002, an insurance firm in Mt. Laurel received an unexpected e-mail from a mannamed George Norcross. Congratulations, Norcross told the firm: It had won a bigcontract for the Delaware River Port Authority, which oversees four bridges in thePhiladelphia area. The e-mail was unexpected because the firm hadn‟t bid for the job.But there was no need for thanks. The company was simply expected to send Norcross‟sinsurance company $410,000 over the next few years, as a “finder‟s fee.”



This is how things work in the world of George Norcross III. Officially, he is thesupremely wealthy chairman of Conner Strong & Buckelew, one of the largest insurancefirms in the nation; the chairman of Cooper University Hospital in Camden; and, as oflast year, the majority owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Unofficially, he is the mostpowerful man in New Jersey never to have held elected office. Close observers of state

politics have estimated that more than 50 elected officials in South Jersey owe theirpositions to Norcross (including his brother, a state senator). Much of the money heraises for candidates comes from people and companies eager to secure government work or development deals, as documented over the years by his local paper, theCourier-Post , among others. Norcross‟s own firm holds sway over New Jersey‟s largemunicipal insurance market. (He declined to comment for this article.) “George isprobably the smartest politician we have now in the state of New Jersey,” says formerRepublican State Senator John Bennett. “He knows where the power is and goes to thepower. Whether that power is a Republican or Democrat.”

One reason that Norcross is so good at working the machine is that he was born into it.His father, George Norcross Jr.—“Big George”— was a much-loved union chieftain, and

he would bring “Young George” along to meetings around the state with governors, statelegislators, and CEOs. Young George would go on to drop out of college—Rutgers wasn‟tteaching him anything about politics he didn‟t already know—and start selling insuranceout of a basement office. In 1989, after Big George was snubbed for a spot on the NewJersey Racing Commission, Norcross entered politics, motivated by a specific grudgeagainst the legislator who‟d stiffed his father and a more generalized resentment overthe slighting of South Jersey. Thanks to Big George‟s lessons and his own hyper-confidence, it wasn‟t long before he gained control of Camden‟s Democratic organizationand set his sights on the rest of South Jersey. Today, Norcross is silver-haired andimpeccably dressed and runs his operation out of well-appointed boardrooms. He isonly foul-mouthed in private.

One Jersey Democrat described to me the first time he experienced the Norcrosstreatment. Not long after this politician announced his candidacy, he was summoned toa meeting with the man himself. Norcross was all magnanimit y. “He said, „You don‟tneed to do anything. I‟ll raise all the money. You just go out there and meet people,‟ ” thecandidate recalled.

There was no need for Norcross to spell out the rest of the arrangement: The fate ofthose who cross him is well known. When Bennett dared to oppose state financing forthe arena of a minor-league hockey team Norcross co-owned, Norcross got in a shovingmatch with him at the State House. In the following months, a stream of critical stories

about Bennett appeared in a paper edited by a Norcross friend, contributing to Bennett‟s2003 reelection loss. “He does everything in his power to go after you,” Bennett told me,almost admiringly. “He said, „I‟m going to get you,‟ and then he gets you.”

On numerous occasions, Norcross‟s operation has come under legal scrutiny—from theSecurities and Exchange Commission (SEC), state investigators, and the FBI. The casesare labyrinthine, but they all involve some dubious overlap of his many public andprivate interests. One case in particular threatened to get real traction. In the early





secured $200,000 in state grants that benefited a day-care center run by his then-wife.Charges were brought against other legislators for directing money to entities in whichthey held a personal interest, but not Stack.

There was also Joe DiVincenzo Jr., lumbering and gregarious, the protégé of legendaryNewark community leader Steve Adubato Sr. In 2002, “Joe D.” ran to replace Treffingeras executive of Essex County, the largest source of Democratic votes in the state.Rumors raged that he, too, was under investigation, for conflicts between his freeholderduties and his job (one of four he held at the time) at a produce company with a countycontract. Then, right in the heat of the primary, Christie released a statement denyingthat Joe D. was under investigation. “It was totally unprecedented. I‟ve never seen thatdone by a sitting U.S. attorney,” said DiVincenzo‟s opponent, now -Assemblyman TomGiblin. “Trying to get a letter out of the U.S. attorney‟s office is usually like pulling a wisdom tooth.” After Joe D. took office, he invited Christie to give county workers asymposium on ethics.

Finally, there was Glenn Paulsen of Burlington County, who had become the most

powerful Republican power broker in the state in part because of his symbiotic détente with Norcross. Norcross got a lot of business for his insurance firm in BurlingtonCounty, while Paulsen‟s law firm got plenty of municipal work in Norcross territory. In2006, Christie‟s office secured a guilty plea from a Republican operative, Robert Stears,for hugely overbilling several million dollars of lobbying work for the Burlington CountyBridge Commission. According to one person with knowledge of the matter, it seemedlikely that more revelations would follow and that an investigation of the commission‟sspending could draw in Paulsen, and perhaps even Norcross. Stears, according toChristie‟s announcement, was cooperating with an “ongoing criminal investigation.” Incourt, he explained that he had been “sucked into a corrupt group of people” and that hehad been directed how much to bill the commission and how much to donate to the

county Republican Party, which had been led by Paulsen. “Everyone was waiting for thesecond shoe to drop,” David Von Savage, the former GOP chairman in Cape MayCounty, told me. It never did. “Chris essentially dumped that investigation—heabsolutely dumped it,” says one lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous for fear ofretribution. “As a favor to these guys, he tanked the investigation completely.”

By taking down some of the state‟s bosses while leaving others off -limits, Christie hadeffectively turned the supposedly apolitical role of prosecutor into that of kingmaker. It was a brilliant strategy. New Jersey offered such a target-rich environment that Christie was able to get credit for taking down a slew of crooked officialsand build alliances withsome of the most powerful bosses in the state at the same time. Christie‟s allies insist

that he wasn‟t playing favorites. “I can‟t imagine Christie would suggest in any way, „I want you to lay off of this guy or go after this guy.‟ It‟s inconceivable to me,” says EdStier, a former federal and state prosecutor. Still, by the end of his tenure, Christie began showing up to administer the swearing-in ceremonies of town officials who werereplacing the ones he‟d pursued. No one could recall a prosecutor doing so, says onelongtime Jersey hand: “It was like he was giving them his blessing.”



In 2004, Todd Christie started showing up at state GOP functions—at one, hedistributed boxes of “Christie‟s Popcorn” in a not-so-subtle attempt to build his brother‟s brand. By now, Chris‟s name was regularly surfacing as a potentialgubernatorial candidate, although protocol prevented him from openly campaigning.Given this restriction, Todd proved to be a useful surrogate. A Wall Street trader, he hadmade $60 million when his firm was sold to Goldman Sachs. Not long before Christie‟snomination as U.S. attorney, he gave tens of thousands of dollars to county Republicanorganizations; not long afterward, he gave $225,000 to a subset of the Republican

National Committee. Todd‟s generosity won him entrée to exclusive events at the 2004GOP convention—an ideal venue to talk up his brother. “You want to do everything youcan to stay active at a time when he can‟t,” he told a reporter. “I‟m not shy in saying I‟mone of the people who chirps in his ear that I think he would make a great governor.”

Even though Chris was prevented from overtly running for anything, there were ways hecould use his position to quietly lay the groundwork. In 2007, Christie announced a $311million settlement of a probe into kickbacks given by five manufacturers of knee and hipreplacements. Rather than pressing charges, Christie opted for deferred prosecution

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“perception of a quid pro quo” when Kelley was awarded a contract after having let Toddoff the hook. “No, sir, because my brother committed no wrongdoing and was found notto have committed any wrongdoing, both by the Southern District of New York and theSEC,” he answered. The answer begged for a follow -up. The SEC had found wrongdoing,and it was precisely the Southern District‟s finding of no wrongdoing in his instance that

was at issue

1

. But the lawmakers didn‟t get a chance to press the matter, becausemoments later, Christie abruptly announced that he had to catch a train and walked out.“It was a strange hearing,” Tennessee Representative Steve Cohen told me. “He just gotup and left.”

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Rowan University .2 The result was a well-funded university that will further expand theNorcross empire— boosting beleaguered Camden, yes, but also putting even more jobs,money, and development projects at his disposal. (A former Navy SEAL attendingRutgers-Camden challenged the merger at a town-hall meeting. As he was escorted out by police, Christie hollered after him: “After you graduate from law school, you conduct

yourself like that in a courtroom, your rear end is going to be thrown in jail, idiot!”)

Christie‟s administration had set out to change the way Trenton did business. But its behavior has turned out to be all too familiar. Those with close ties to the governor havethrived. According to one senior lawyer, it was made clear to supplicants that theirprospects would improve if they hired the lobbying firms that employed Samson (nowthe Port Authority chairman) and Palatucci (the Bush connection). A Louisianacompany that wanted to win the $68 million contract for overseeing Sandy relief funds brought on Glenn Paulsen, the GOP power broker from Burlington County. Last May,Paulsen‟s law firm made a $25,000 donation to the Republican Governors Association, which Christie leads, and soon afterward the Louisiana company got the Sandy job.Torricelli, too, has flourished as a lobbyist in the Christie era.

Any hard feelings Michael Guadagno might have had about his 2002 move to Trenton would seem to have been allayed: Christie named Guadagno‟s wife to be his runningmate in 2009 and he himself was elevated to an appellate judgeship three years later.*But there was no lenience for those who bucked the system. Take Democratic StateSenator and former Acting Governor Richard Codey, a Norcross nemesis. First, Christieslashed funding for an anti-postpartum-depression program founded by Codey‟s wife.Then, Codey‟s former chief of staff lost his state job and Codey‟s cousin was fired fromhis high-paying post at the Port Authority. A personnel report on the cousin‟s sexualharassment of another man, years earlier, was leaked to the press. Legislators told me ofseeing GOP colleagues who had threatened to defy Christie on key votes leaving his

office in tears or drenched with sweat.

In early 2013, as Christie‟s reelection neared, the operation kicked into o verdrive.Christie was fixated on securing Democratic endorsements to bolster his image as aRepublican with crossover appeal. It didn‟t matter that he was expected to waltz backinto office—people needed to get on the list. The administration‟s intergovernmental-affairs staff, who knew which mayor or county official had gotten which grant, wasmoved almost wholesale to the campaign. Christie himself made repeated calls to merecounty-level officers: clerks, sheriffs, registers of deeds.

For those who got behind the governor, there were incentives. To give but one example:The close-knit Orthodox community in Lakewood had endorsed Corzine in 2009. InMarch, a coalition of the town‟s rabbis and businessmen announced it would be backingChristie this time around. Two months later, the state granted $10.6 million in buildingfunds to an Orthodox rabbinical school in Lakewood, one of the largest expenditures forany private college in the state. (The yeshiva was not exactly cash-strapped: A copy of itsapplication I obtained noted that its endowment “far exceeded” the $1.84 million it wasexpected to contribute to the project.)







As Election Day neared, you could be forgiven for mistaking Christie for a Democrat.State Republicans were frozen out; candidates were told not to include his name orpicture on their literature. “We didn‟t get the support,” says George Wagoner, a losing Assembly candidate. Meanwhile, the weight of the Democratic machine swung behindthe Republican governor. More than 50 Democratic elected officials endorsed Christie,

including Brian Stack (who was hit with a $68,725 fine in July for failing to properlydisclose campaign spending) and Joe D. (who also has a large fine looming). In photosand media appearances, Christie kept showing up smiling alongside Sweeney and otherprominent Democrats. Norcross didn‟t formally endorse Christie, but he made hisapproval clear. At one event, Norcross said he‟d recently seen a man in a “Chris Christie:too big to fail” t-shirt. He told Christie: “You‟re not too big to fail—you‟re too good andtoo important to fail us.”

Meanwhile, Barbara Buono, the state senator who had volunteered to challenge Christie when more prominent Democrats, such as Cory Booker, declined, was unable to raiseanywhere near enough money for a credible campaign. Numerous Democratic donorsrefused to give above the $300 threshold where their names would be disclosed, fearing

Christie‟s retribution. “I‟d say to people, „What is going on?‟ ” Buono recalls. “This is anelection, not a military junta.” She attended one campaign rally in a North Jerseychurch, at which Sheila Oliver, once a reliable ally of the bosses, railed against unnamedpowerful people who were supporting Christie only because he had a “dossier” on them. A month before the election, a picture surfaced on Twitter of Christie and Norcross, armin arm at a Cowboys-Eagles game in Philadelphia. “I didn‟t think [Norcross] wouldembrace me,” says Buono. “But I didn‟t think he‟d work directly against me.” In the end,Christie won by 22 points and Republicans gained not a single seat in the state Senate.

(Read More: Why Hillary Clinton Continues to Get a Free Pass)

And now we come to the national uproar over the mother of all traffic jams in Fort Lee.Christie has denied any knowledge of the ruse. But it has become increasingly hard tocredit his ignorance, given how deeply involved he had been in his team‟s politicaloutreach to local officials, not to mention that the names of many of his closest aides were surfacing in communications about the closures. Among national Republicans,even some of Christie‟s most vocal backers have started to waver. One Republicanstrategist told me: “No one‟s rushing out there to defend him, because they don‟t know where this could go next.”

The Democratic bosses, though, are standing by their man. Norcross declared that,instead of obsessing over the bridge, national Democrats should be “pretty concernedabout circumstances involving the implementation of Obamacare right now.” Joe D.struck a blasé tone: “Every place I go, people say, „What do I care? Why are we talkingabout it?‟ ” And Brian Stack blasted the claim that Christie had threatened to withholdSandy aid from Hoboken as “far-fetched.” “My relationship with the governor and hisstaff and this administration has been one of the best,” Stack said—as if that wasn‟t partof the problem.

What Bridgegate has laid bare is the skill and audacity with which Christie constructedhis public image. “It‟s almost like people were in a trance,” Buono told me. Christie may

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have been misunderstood for so long because his transactionalism diverted from thestandard New Jersey model. He wasn‟t out to line his own pockets, or build a businessempire. He wasn‟t even seeking to advance a partisan agenda. And yet it wastransactionalism all the same. Christie used a corrupt system to expand his own powerand burnish his own image, and he did it so artfully that he nearly came within striking

distance of the White House. When he got cozy with Democratic bosses, people only sawa man willing to work across the aisle. When he bullied his opponents, they only saw atruth-teller. It was one of the most effective optical illusions in American politics—untilit wasn‟t.

Alec MacGillis is a senior editor at The New Republic.

*Corrections: This article initially misstated Steve Sweeney's former trade. The title ofthe Delaware River Port Authority official whom Gov. Christie consented to keeping on,John Mattheussen, was CEO, not chairman. And Michael Guadagno's promotion to anappellate judgeship was made by the state's chief judge, a gubernatorial appointee.

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The New Republic on Chris Christie and George Norcross