Paterson Town Hall, March 12, 2012 (Transcript Below)

Governor Christie: I had an old boss who told me one time—he was a Republican who worked in the Justice Department during the Bush administration, and he came to visit me in New Jersey and I said where are you going next, and he said I'm going to the New York Times editorial board. And I said you're a Republican in the Bush Justice Department? Are you looking for a whipping? I mean, what's going on? You're going to get a beating over there. And he said to me, no, no Chris, you don't get it. He said I'm going over there. You know why? Because it's harder to hate up close, words I've lived by since then, right?

So the purpose of spending this time together is it becomes harder to hate up close. We realize we're all human beings. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. We all have our insecurities. We all have our great successes and our disappointments, and as we get to know each other, it becomes harder then to yell and scream at each other. It becomes a lot harder to storm away and not make a deal.

And let me finish with this: unfortunately in Washington, DC compromise has become a dirty word. Our entire system of government was based upon compromise. Our Constitution was formed based upon great big compromises, between small states and large states, between the North and the South. Compromises, and I feel like you employ me to find those compromises that will help us to work together, because let's face it: you voted for a Republican Governor and a Democratic Legislature. I assume you didn't do it just because you thought it might be funny to watch. I assume you did it because you wanted us to have both those point of views in the state capital and to have those point of views be working with each other to try to reach a reasonable conclusion.

And so I think that's why we get it here in Trenton and why they don't get it in Washington. And I know the way you asked your question was why don't the Republicans in Washington get it, but I would also suggest to you that this is a problem that's on both sides of the aisle, and that we have to push both of them, push both of them to start to get it, because in the end if you're just pushing one side, you know, they're not going to respond. If you push both sides to say we've got to work together. We got to work to get things done. And I know at times there will be elements of both parties who will yell and scream, and you saw, you know, when I reached out after the hurricane for the President, and the President and I worked together, that there were people in both our parties who were criticizing both of us a week before a national election. But what I know is this: my job is to work for the people who elected me, and not to work for my political party first. My first job is for New Jersey, regardless of what party I belong to, and I understand that because that's what I believe is the right thing to do and we've got to force more people to try to do that.

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