MOUNTAIN LAKES — Governor Chris Christie was the keynote speaker on Tuesday, July 17, at the Morris County Republican Club Unity Breakfast held at Zeris Inn.
The fundraiser was billed as a unity breakfast after a contentious race for county chairman. Ron DeFilippis, who was Christie’s appointee to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, defeated Rob Zwigard.
Christie has been keeping a low public profile since leaving the Governors Office on January 16, but with Democrats making much noise in his home county of Morris, the former governor couldn’t stay silent.
Christie began his political career in Morris County when he won a seat on the Board of Freeholders in 1994. He lost a Republican primary for State Assembly in 1995 and was defeated in his bid for re-election to a second term as freeholder in 1997. He won huge pluralities in Morris County when he ran for Governor in 2009 and 2013.
More than 250 people attended the breakfast, including virtually all county and state elected officials representing parts of Morris County.
Two Morris County congressional seats are in danger of flipping Democratic: the 11th, where Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen is retiring, and the 7th, where Representative Leonard Lance faces a tough re-election campaign. In the 11th district Jay Webber is running against Democrat Miki Sherill. Three freeholder seats are up in November, as well as what is becoming an interesting race for county clerk. Democrats haven’t elected a county clerk since before the Civil War.
Christie said “I’ve been a winner in this county and a loser. I’ve supported winners who won county committee votes by one vote and I supported losers who lost county committee votes by two votes. It’s never fun to lose, it sucks. Winning’s always better. Believe me, it’s always better, but I’ll tell you what’s worse. Losing in November is always worse than losing in June. When you lose in June, there is still light at the end of the tunnel for you and there are people who are on our county ballot this year that can prove that. Won before and lost before. If you’re persistent, if you have good ideas, if you got good energy, you can always come back and because of our open system, you’re not precluded from doing that. There’s not a group of people will sit in the corner of that room over here and decide your day is over. You have the right to run, but by the same token everybody, if you have that, then you got to be with the people who the people support.”
“I want you to remember this and whenever any Democrat comes up to you and talks about how our party is finished in New Jersey and we are relevant and there’s nothing for us to do any more, remind them of this. There hasn’t been a two term democratic Governor in 40 years, but there’s been three two term Republican governors. Think about that. Why? Because in the end we need a Democrat every once in awhile as Governor to remind the people in this day just how good we are,” he said.
“Losing in November is always worse than losing in June,” Christie said.
