SELIN, N.J. (AP) — Chris Christie has had political ambitions his whole life. He was president of his class at Livingston High School and the student government of the University of Delaware, and a committed volunteer for Republican campaigns.
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But a dozen years ago, he figured he was done with running for office when he was bounced from a Republican primary after serving one turbulent term as a Morris County freeholder.
Now he's running for governor, and leading in the polls against the Democratic incumbent, Jon Corzine. Like former Goldman Sachs chairman Corzine, his path to the race came outside the traditional route of moving up gradually from perhaps the town council to the state Legislature before running for statewide office.
Christie, 47, moved into position to make a serious run for governor during a seven-year stint as the state's U.S. Attorney during which he built a reputation as a corruption fighter in a state rife with corruption.
He was an unconventional pick by President George W. Bush. He got the job, and much of his political juice, through the connections he made working for the Bush campaign.
"They got to know me and I got to know them," he said.
Democrats know that, too; one of their main criticisms of Christie is that he's too close to the Bush administration.
The key link to Bush initially was lobbyist Bill Palatucci, who ran the New Jersey campaign of President George H.W. Bush in 1988 — the last time the state supported a Republican for president — and 1992. Christie took a few months off his job as a securities lawyer to volunteer for the second campaign and struck up a bond with Palatucci, who soon joined the Cranford law firm where Christie was then an associate.
In 1994, Christie won a seat on the Morris County Board of Freeholders. Within months after being sworn in, he was already seeking another office, this time a seat in the state Senate. He lost that primary.
And in 1997, he lost a primary to keep his freeholder job.
"When I left electoral politics in 1997," he said, "I never thought I'd come back to it."
In 1998, Palatucci said he was at a Republican Governors Association convention in New Orleans when he ran into Bush, who by then was a nationally known figure as the governor of Texas, the son of a former president and the former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team.
Bush invited him to bring a contingent from New Jersey to Texas to talk about his plans to run for president.
Palatucci's group included Christie, along with some key Republicans from New Jersey. Among them were state Senate President Donald DiFrancesco, and Assembly Speaker Jack Collins.
Christie said he made three or four more trips to Austin in the first part of 1999. When Bush launched his campaign, Christie became his lead lawyer in New Jersey, a volunteer job.
He and Palatucci were also among Bush's most prolific fundraisers in the state. They gathered contributions of about $350,000 for Bush and the national Republican Party, enough to join Bush's elite Pioneer Club.
When Bush was elected, Christie applied to be U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, the top federal law enforcement job in the state. Palatucci said he also sent Christie's resume to Karl Rove, Bush's political affairs director.
Christie said U.S. Attorney was the only administration job that interested him, and the only one for which he applied.
"I had always been someone who had watched the office from afar and had admired some of the people who held the position," he said.
New Jersey's recent U.S. Attorneys included Michael Chertoff, who later became Secretary of Homeland Security under Bush; Samuel Alito, who is now on the U.S. Supreme Court; and Faith Hochberg, who is now a federal judge.
Not yet 40, Christie was not the sort of lawyer who got his name in the paper and not an obvious choice for the job.
"When I became U.S. Attorney, I had never prosecuted a criminal case," he said in a speech this month to a Chamber of Commerce group in Galloway. "There were editorials all over the state of New Jersey that said, 'This guy's not up for the job, he doesn't have the requisite experience.'"
Christie, who radiates confidence, said he knew he would be a good leader if given the chance.
"I think the record over the seven years that I was U.S. Attorney proved that we were right and the editorial writers were wrong," he said.
Even without the expected legal resume of a U.S. Attorney, Christie built support among the state's Republicans.
Christie's confidantes, who include many top Republicans, say the charismatic and sometimes brash lawyer gained the trust of so many leaders because they saw him in action, as a freeholder lobbying state lawmakers on local issues and later as a campaign lawyer.
"People had and have a good feeling about his judgment, his competence, his independence, his ability to be good at that role," said state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, who was then chair of the state Republican Committee. "The proof is in the pudding."
Christie was vetted by a mix of White House aides and career Justice Department employees. The two Democratic U.S. Senators from New Jersey — Corzine and Robert Torricelli — did not block the nomination even though the Federal Bar Association of New Jersey said Christie wasn't qualified.
Bush chose Christie on Sept. 10, 2001. The U.S. Senate confirmed him three months later.
Christie kept longtime Justice Department lawyers in the office's other top spots and put a priority on corruption investigations. Over seven years, he built a following by winning convictions of 130 public officials. His office also got convictions in the high-profile terrorism trials of arms dealer Hemnant Lackhani and of six men accused of plotting to kill military personnel, possibly at Fort Dix.
Within two years, Republicans were reportedly trying to draft him for a gubernatorial bid in 2005, when Corzine ended up running and winning.
The Corzine-Christie matchup, 10 years in the making, is on now.
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