Chris Christie names transition team

Chris Christie greets several NJ mayors in Toms River, NJ, on November 6. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

New Jersey Governor-elect Christopher J. Christie (R) announced the final selection of his ten-member transition team yesterday afternoon (Nov. 11). In a decision that has already raised some eyebrows among conservatives in New Jersey, Christie's picks were mostly old political hands, not fresh-faced reformers. They include two Democratic politicians (Christie has a close family tie with one) and a number of unaffiliated voters who have served in prior Democratic administrations or worked in prior Democratic transition teams.

Their names are:

1. David Samson, the chairman, who once served as attorney general under Governor James McGreevey.
2. Susan Cole, president of Montclair State University, who has worked with five previous administrations.
3. Alfred Koeppe, former head of Public Service Electric and Gas and now head of the Newark Alliance. He has worked on three previous transitions.
4. Debra DiLorenzo, chairman, Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey.
5. Jon Hanson, chairman and founder of the Hampshire Real Estate Companies, who served on transition teams for Governor Tom Kean.
6. Senator Joe Kyrillos (R-Monmouth), former chairman of the Christie campaign.
7. Mike DuHaime, Christie's former chief strategist.
8. George Gilmore, chairman, Ocean County Republican Association.
9. Senator Sandra Cunningham (D-Hudson).
10. Mayor John McCormac (D), Woodbridge.

Many observers praised the "bipartisan" nature of the selection. Others observed that the team is smaller than most; the McGreevey transition team, for example, had 88 leaders. Those same experts praised Christie for establishing relationships with current Trenton officeholders, a thing that Jon Corzine failed to do.

Rick Shaftan, campaign strategist for Steve Lonegan's campaign, is not pleased:

They did not vote to bring back the McGreevey-Corzine team...This isn’t a transition, it’s a continuation.

Many commenters on the Star-Ledger's online articles on the transition agree. They point out that none of the transition members has any "real world" experience, and all seem to be Trenton insiders, a spectacle not in keeping with his declaration, in his acceptance speech, that he would "turn Trenton upside down." A significant number of commenters lament that the State's independent voters did not rally behind any of a large number of independent governor-candidate slates besides Chris Daggett, the one who had garnered all the attention. But one commenter pointed out that Christie must build relationships with the members of the legislature, which remains in Democratic hands and many of whose members did not even have to stand for re-election last week.

Separately, Chris Christie had said in a radio interview two days ago that the transition did not seem to have any money for it in the budget. But the Star-Ledger reported yesterday that Christie's transition would have a budget of $250,000.

Christie has agreed to follow the "pay-to-play" rules for raising funds for his inauguration, this although those rules currently apply to election campaign committees, not to inaugural committees. In fact, Christie has already said that pay-to-play rules must apply to all political fundraising, or none of it, and he promised during his campaign to have those rules have a much wider application.

More ominously, New Jersey faces a deficit of 8 billion dollars. He refuses at this point to raise taxes to cover this, and mentioned that he might, among other options, declare a state of emergency in order to have wider powers for workforce reduction.