Chris Christie’s farewell to New Jersey

Believe me, I have asked myself these same questions many times over the past year. Throughout those pressure-packed days and nights of rallies, speeches, debates, media interviews, and adoring crowds hanging onto my every word, I often wondered, “What am I doing here, when I could be back home, sitting at my desk in the Capitol, sorting out the mundane complexities of budgets, legislation, and credit ratings?”

Oftentimes, when I was trapped in the relentless glare of klieg lights and TV cameras, my mind wandered to the bustling traffic circles, colorful strip malls, and spacious parking lots in my home state. As my caravan passed through one monotonous Iowa town after another, how I yearned for a glimpse of a New Jersey McMansion or cul-de-sac. What would I have given, while wolfing down yet another chicken dinner in a New Hampshire diner, to sample the eclectic cuisine of the Molly Pitcher Rest Stop on the Turnpike! When TV makeup people prepped me for Face the Nation or Meet the Press or Morning Joe, all I could think about was spending a quiet Sunday morning alone in a fishing dinghy, casting my line into the Hackensack River as it wends its way through those purple mountain majesties, the surreal garbage hills of the Meadowlands. As I battled through the noise and glitz of Las Vegas, I pictured myself back home with Mary Pat, strolling the elegant Old World boulevards of our own alabaster cities: Newark . . . Camden . . . Paterson . . . Jersey City . . . Trenton . . . Elizabeth . . . The list is endless.

Reluctant conclusion

Alas, it was not to be. I have spent the past year gallivanting around the country precisely because six years as your governor have convinced me that the solutions to New Jersey’s problems lie beyond the state line. I, who wanted nothing more than to serve my native state, have reluctantly concluded that the best way I can serve New Jersey is by staying as far away from it as I possibly can.

It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

From this point forward, please don’t think of me as your governor. Think of me as your ambassador. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of one little state don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Some day you'll understand that. Until then, here’s looking at you, state.

Trump’s two lessons

Now, about Donald Trump. It’s true that I once said, “I just don’t think he’s suited to be president of the United States. I don’t think his temperament is suited for that, and I don’t think his experience is.” It’s true that I said, “I’m not going to answer every crazy thing that Donald says.” (See some of my choice words about the Donald here.) It’s also true that he said there’s no way I didn’t know in advance about the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge. But at the end of the day, Donald has taught me two important life lessons that I want to share with you.

First, every morning when you wake up, look in the mirror and remind yourself: It’s not about you. It’s about me.

Second, over the long sweep of human history, there’s no business like show business, like no business I know. Everything about it is appealing — everything that traffic will allow. Where else can you get that happy feeling when you are stealing that extra bow?

My next job

When I first entered politics, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath in the Morris County Freeholders’ Office, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished. But in the evening of my memory I still recall the refrain of one of the most popular political ballads of that day, which proclaimed most proudly that "old politicians never die; they just fade away." Which is why I’m determined to make sure that doesn’t happen to me.

And so I take my leave of you (but not of my salary). I know not what the future may bring. But this much I do know: Wherever my future may take me — whether to a cabinet seat in the Trump administration or, if he loses, to a job in one of his exciting business enterprises — the abundant oil refineries, gas stations, landfills, and swamps of my native state will never be far from my mind. And when I cross that river — and I don’t mean the Delaware — my last conscious thoughts will be — of New Jersey . . . and New Jersey . . . and New Jersey.

Goodbye.