UPDATE: For my story in Thursday's paper with the background on how the video came to be -- and a look at what it signifies -- click here.

While a new poll out this morning says that New Jerseyans don't believe Christie would be satisfied "playing second fiddle" as Mitt Romney's vice president, Politico has a story out, based on anonymous sources, that portrays Gov. Christie as desperately wanting the job. He is "said by insiders to want it the most and also to annoy some aides with his aggressiveness."

And we have a story today, by my colleague Joelle Farrell, that looks at how low tax revenues could derail Christie's plan for a tax cut. Any tax cut, if approved, would play hugely well on a national stage if Christie were to become the vice presidential candidate, by the way. 

The Christie-as-VP question was a popular topic last night at the New Jersey Press Association's Legislative Correspondents' Club Show, in which reporters "sing" songs making fun of politicians. Since yours truly sang in a number of tunes, fortunately there isn't any video out there of the event (as far as I know), but I can report that my voice forced the governor to call me out in his speech for needing singing lessons. 

Christie also brought down the house last night with the debut of a hilarious self-deprecating video that ends with Christie's supposed desire to be veep. It features the other political star in Jersey, Democratic Newark Mayor Cory "I save women in burning buildings" Booker, and hours later it has already gotten national cable news coverage and more than 15,000 hits on YouTube. Check it out:

I had this story in Sunday's paper:

TRENTON - Inside the Statehouse on Wednesday, Gov. Christie's office formulated a scathing response to revelations that millions of tax dollars pay for government employees to do work for their unions.

Meanwhile, across the street, leaders of the state's largest union were reviewing a tentative contract agreement, OKd by Christie, that continues the very same practice: paying workers to do the union's work. In fact, in the first year of the new contract, there is to be more of that than before.

The agreement belies the statement Wednesday from Christie's spokesman, Michael Drewniak, who said the findings by the State Commission of Investigation shed light on an "egregious practice and abuse of taxpayer dollars" that Christie has railed against since he took office.

Drewniak added: "This shady, often-hidden public subsidy of union leave from paid public employment costs us all millions every year and must end. It's just another rip-off of the taxpayer."

Asked Friday how this jibed with the new contract, Drewniak said his statement referred to the totality of the report's findings, including revelations that some union officers were on paid leave for decades and taxpayers sometimes ponied up for union officers' cars and computers.

Regardless, Christie's office last week found itself agreeing to paid leave even as it was lambasting paid leave. The moment illustrated the tricky balance and frustrating limitations for a governor in a labor-friendly state who's worked his way to the short list for the Republican vice presidential nomination in part by taking on public unions.

To read the rest, click here.

Full story in Friday's paper, here.

No ChristieCare for New Jersey.

Gov. Christie became the first second governor in the country today to veto a bill that would set up a state-run health care exchange. Such exchanges, which are intended to group consumers together to get deals and offer choices on health insurance, was a key provision of the Obamacare health reform. Ten states have so far enacted health care exchanges, a handful of legislatures have rejected the exchanges and many states (including Pennsylvania) have legislation pending.

Christie rejected the bill, passed by the Democratic Legislature, for several reasons, including the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule on Obamacare in the coming weeks. “I am concerned that a hastily created exchange in New Jersey will impose unnecessary obligations upon the State’s taxpayers,” Christie said. “The very constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is cloaked in uncertainty, as both the individual mandate to procure health insurance as well as the jurisdictional mandate to establish an exchange may not survive scrutiny by the Supreme Court.”

In recent days the bill had become topic du jour among tea partying Christie watchers. If he didn't veto this bill, they argued, he would be responsible for creating "ChristieCare" in New Jersey. 

“First, we had RomneyCare. Next, we had ObamaCare. If the governor does not veto the health care exchange bill on his desk we might as well call it ChristieCare in New Jersey,” said Steve Lonegan, who had challenged Christie from the right in the 2009 gubernatorial primary, in a statement yesterday. Lonegan is the state director of Americans For Prosperity, which is affiliated with the conservative Koch brothers, who in the past have also expressed their support for Christie.

In an article for the conservative Daily Caller, the director of health policy studies for the libertarian Cato Institute (where Christie was honored last week, incidentally), upped the ante further, writing yesterday: "...it’s not an exaggeration to say that how New Jersey handles this legislation could determine whether Obamacare lives or dies. Obamacare can only work if states do the heavy lifting."

Assemblyman Herb Conaway (D., Burlington), a doctor and one of the sponsors of the bill, said this afternoon that “the governor has sent a clear message to the 1.3 million uninsured New Jerseyeans and the many others who are underinsured and struggle to afford their existing insurance: He doesn’t care."

“Health care is not a commodity. No one should have to choose between their health and paying their bills...By vetoing this bill, Gov. Christie has failed New Jersey’s uninsured residents, hurt New Jersey’s chances of fully benefiting from federal health care reform and ignored the need to provide relief to hospitals for uncompensated care. I am disappointed that Gov. Christie put national political pressures ahead of the well-being of New Jersey. His actions have once again shown his complete disregard for our most vulnerable populations.”

It should ne noted that if a state does not set up an exchange, the federal government will create one in that state.

Full story in Thursday's paper, here.

A report released this morning shows that New Jersey taxpayers spend millions each year so public employees -- cops, firefighters, teachers -- can take leave from their public jobs and do union business.

Once Gov. Christie reads the report, if he hasn't already, he is likely to add these tidbits into the rhetorical arsenal he aims at public employee unions.

In Camden, $2.3 million has been spent over the past five years to pay the salaries and benefits for three cops and three firefighters who do full-time union business (not policing or firefighting), according to the report from the independent State Commission of Investigation. In the Camden schools, the report found that the district is reimbursed by the teachers' union for a union official's salary -- but such reimbursement payments have not always been made.

We're working on getting responses from all of the Camden unions, but in an initial interview the Camden police union president says there are only two, not three, government-paid union officials in the city. 

Statewide some union officials have been on paid leave for decades while "occupying government job titles but doing no government work," according to the SCI. Contracts -- and in some cases, unofficial agreements -- allow some union officials to get a salary, health coverage and additional benefits like perfect-attendance stipends, overtime, cars, office space and computers.

The report said: "Although it is not uncommon, nor it is necessarily improper, for government employers to grant some form of time-off for union work, the Commission found significant and questionable variations in how such leave is authorized, who qualifies for it, who keeps track of it, how it is constituted and who ultimately pays the bill." 

The state's largest teachers' union, the New Jersey Education Association, released a statement in response saying that the report indicates that these “work release arrangements” are “legal and commonplace,” and had been negotiated by school employees before being ratified by school boards.

NJEA President Barbara Keshishian said: “Providing negotiated release time for the purpose of conducting union business saves both time and money in districts and provides for a better school environment for all concerned…. The fact that the release of this report comes in the midst of a sustained attack on public education and public sector unions in New Jersey is a remarkable coincidence.”

The investigation looked at more than 120 school districts, 17 municipalities, all 21 counties and 12 departments of state government. In that slice of public sector, between 2006 and 2011, government-paid leave for public employees cost taxpayers more than $30 million.

The commission recommended that taxpayer-funded union leave be eliminated or at least "substantially curtailed."

I've been to several states for Republican primaries in the past few months. Beyond partisans and political fanatics, the average, apolitical South Carolinian, Georgian or Tennessean rarely had much passion about the guys I was covering: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum.

And then I came to Wisconsin this week, which I had read is the "most polarized state in the country."  Turns out that's an accurate assessment. 

The desk clerks at my hotel outside Milwaukee nearly got into an argument with each other after I mentioned that I was in town to see Gov. Christie campaign for their governor, Scott Walker.

"They try to make him seem so bad," one said, referring to the collective bargaining fight last year that has led to Walker's recall election next month.

"That's because he was born bad," the other said.

The anger continued even after I left Wisconsin. The woman sitting next to me on the plane RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE (Delta WiFi in the sky...much thanks) was looking over my shoulder and saw what I was writing. She couldn't help but share her anger that Walker has cut benefits for the poor people she works with as a paralegal.

Her relatives disagree with her: "They just want cuts, cuts, cuts." But, she notes: "The problem gets bigger and bigger the more resources you take away."

It was into this civil war that Christie landed yesterday. Here's my story in today's paper about the two campaign events he went to: 

OAK CREEK, Wis. - Gov. Christie parachuted into the middle of the country Tuesday to lend some of his self-styled Jersey tough-guy firepower to a beleaguered and controversial Republican governor on the front lines of the war to roll back spending on public employees.

Carrying his union-battling reputation, his possible vice-presidential-candidate aura, and his perch as No. 2 at the Republican Governors Association, Christie rallied the faithful and helped fill the coffers of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is facing a recall election.

Almost immediately after entering office last year, Walker became a lightning rod around the nation for his push to end most collective bargaining rights for nearly all unionized public workers. Protesters slept in the halls of the state Capitol, and Democratic legislators fled the state for a while to delay a vote. More than 900,000 signatures were collected to recall Walker.

If the winner of a Democratic primary next week defeats Walker in the June 5 recall election, Walker will become only the third governor in American history to be recalled.

But while Christie said he spoke to Walker regularly during last year's controversy, the New Jersey governor mentioned the word union only once in two appearances with Walker on Tuesday.

Instead, Christie listed his own fiscal accomplishments in New Jersey, promised an income-tax cut in the state by July 1, and spoke broadly about "special interests that have owned these state capitals for too long."

Continue reading the story, here.

PLAINSBORO -- During a visit this morning to West Windsor-Plainsboro North High School's AP history class, a student asked Gov. Christie if he would consider being Mitt Romney's running mate. Christie began giving his standard answer -- that he would listen if he gets the call, but he loves his current job.

Then, for the first time in public, he added this about Romney: "He might be able to convince me -- he's a convincing guy."

Following the veepstakes is a grand political tradition in America, and since it only happens every four years there's tremendous interest. As soon as I tweeted his comment, it blew up on Twitter. Check out the video below.

Perhaps Christie enjoyed his time in Washington this past weekend and hopes to return in a more official capacity next January. On Saturday night Christie attended the White House Correspondents Dinner, where host Jimmy Kimmel skewered him for his weight. 

Asked how he felt about that at a news conference after meeting with the students today, Christie noted that he was sitting next to the bombshell from ABC's "Modern Family," Sofia Vergara:

"Luckily, for me, I had Sofia Vergara next to me to console me. And when you have her next to you to console you, let me tell you don't care what Jimmy Kimmel says...The fact of the matter is when you're overweight there are those who are going to make awful comments about you and people who are going to make jokes about you. And you gotta live with it."

He added: "What Jimmy Kimmel said to me is moderate compared to what people call me on Twitter daily."

Closer to home, Christie laughed off a challenge from Democratic Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald (D., Camden), who in more than a half-dozen press releases challenged the governor to a debate over their tax cut plans. The challenge was in response to a statement Christie had made about being ready to debate the merits of his plan.

"Tell him not to hold his breath," Christie said. "Tell him I have something better to do: I have to rearrange my sock drawer tonight."

Greenwald's office countered with this statement: "If the governor thinks re-arranging his sock drawer is more pressing than working to boost property tax relief to working families, then that says a lot about his disregard for the middle-class. Still, I’d be more than happy to come over to help him as long as we can have this conversation."

Gov. Christie attended the annual White House Correspondents Dinner last night as a guest of the ABC network (he sat next to "Modern Family" bombshell Sofia Vergara), and he listened as host Jimmy Kimmel directed not one, not two, but three fat jokes at him:

1) After referencing First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts at curbing Americans' obesity, Kimmel said to her: "Look, it's Chris Christie, get him!"

2) "Ya know they say that inside every American governor is a president struggling to get out. In Chris Christie's case it's the only one where you can still hear him screaming."

3) "Gov. Christie, I think you might be misunderstanding New Jersey's slogan. It's not the Olive Garden State."

CSPAN aimed the camera at Christie, who was seen laughing off all of the jokes. He has said in the past that he doesn't mind fat jokes -- as long as they're funny. Even one of his political friends, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, has cracked a fat joke about Christie.

In other news, I wrote two stories about the governor Sunday. In one, I examined how his administration is moving toward privatizing at least 12 elements of state government -- including the state lottery. That story is here.

And in another, I looked ahead to 2013, when a range of Democrats are eying a run against Christie for governor. No other potential contender appears to present more of a contrast to the Republican gov than State Sen. Barbara Buono:

Democrats who believe they should be governor of New Jersey are banking their donors' dollars in the hope that eight years is far too much Chris Christie for the Garden State. 

The Republican governor's approval ratings are still stellar, but voters are also increasingly telling pollsters that he's "arrogant." Will there be a tipping point? Will Christie yell at one constituent too many? Will he belittle one legislator too many? Will he deliver one knockout punch too many at a news conference?

If so (and if Christie doesn't end up in Washington, working in a Romney administration), there's a stable of potential Democratic candidates rumored to be considering a run against him next year. Among those, one stands out not for name recognition or access to deep-pocketed political power brokers, but for contrast. 

Barbara Buono is as much an anti-Christie as you can get.

Read the rest of that story, here.

"My message to the Nets is goodbye...You don't want to stay, we don't want you."

That was Gov. Christie's farewell address yesterday to the New Jersey Nets, who played the 76ers yesterday in their final game in the state. After 35 years as one of the state's two (official) professional sports teams, the Nets move to Brooklyn next season.

Christie argued that the Nets' former home, the Prudential Center in Newark, is a beautiful arena in "one of the country's most vibrant cities," and so another NBA team might be interested in moving in.

The comments, as Christie comments often do, got wide play -- on ESPN and USA Today and in the New York Daily News, which called the remarks "too simple, too arrogant."

"They want to leave and go to Brooklyn? Good riddance," Christie said. "See you later."

Finally putting New Jerseyans' concerns to rest, Bruce Springsteen mega-fan Gov. Christie denied falling asleep during the Springsteen show at Madison Square Garden earlier this month, as the New York Post's Page Six had reported. (And as has been reiterated here, here and elsewhere.)

"I have never fallen asleep at a Bruce Springsteen show, I will never fall asleep during a Bruce Springsteen show, my wife is probably afraid that I'm more likely to die during a Bruce Springsteen show than fall asleep," he said.

He added: "This shows you the level of intrusiveness now into my life -- some joker taking pictures of me at Madison Square Garden."

At a morning press conference I asked Christie about the alleged slumber and he offered a detailed explanation, even summoning his deputy chief of staff, Deborah Gramiccioni, to the podium. She was at the concert with him.

"Get over here! Come here, get up here," he said to Gramiccioni. "Deborah, at any time, did I fall asleep?"

"Absolutely not," she said, leaning into the microphone like a witness at a trial.

Christie explained that during "Rocky Ground," a new Springsteen song that he called "spiritual," he sat down on his seat, leaned his head back and closed his eyes to listen to the song.

At another time during the show, while Springsteen did "one of his little speeches...about the robber barons, the 1 percent, the normal Bruce stuff," a concert-goer in the front yelled in response: "Wake up, governor!" But the two moments were conflated for the Post story, he said.

"When I was fist-pumping during 'Badlands' I'm glad nobody took pictures of that. When I was singing to 'Out In The Street,' no one took pictures of that. When I was contorting myself to 'Because The Night' no one took pictures of that," he said.

Christie, who has been to nearly 130 Springsteen shows, said he got his tickets for this tour from E Street band member Steven Van Zandt, who sold them to the governor at face value. "No one gets comps at Bruce shows, nobody, Bruce is a huge capitalist in that regard. That's how he got his one percent," Christie said.

Newly-scheduled Springsteen shows in Philly on Labor Day weekend indicate that Springsteen has turned down the governor's offer -- made in person and over and over again on Twitter -- to play the new Revel casino in Atlantic City that weekend. 

"I think it would have been a great thing for him to do, I think it would have been a sign of support for the working men and women of Atlantic City to go down there... He has typically not consulted me on bookings, and so in that sense he is remaining consistent," Christie said.

"I was merely an obsessed fan making a friendly recommendation. I'm sure he gets those all the time."

The explanation today did yield a new gaffe. With his wife, Mary Pat, sitting in the front row of today's press conference, Christie listed those he went to the MSG show with, and he said Mary Pat skipped that night.

"I was there!" she called out.

It was a rare moment. Christie looked somewhat embarrassed. "It was dark, what did I know?" he said.