In the Republican heartland, they are crazy about Gov. Chris Christie, the fire-breathing conservative and the object of Rush Limbaugh’s professed man-love.

They see Christie as a different kind of politician, tough enough to speak his mind and keep his promises. And the results are showing as he slaps some sense into that liberal backwater known as New Jersey.

If you know Christie only from his appearances on YouTube and cable TV, as most people do, you might think that storyline is true.

But here in Jersey, we live with the man full time. Like the wife of a movie star, we see him at home without his makeup, when he is an unshaven mess reaching for his first cup of coffee in the morning.

And we know this: He’s not as great as his groupies think. Most people here like the job he’s doing, and he has scored some big wins. But he can’t race cars and jump out of airplanes, and he has not healed New Jersey’s wounds by any stretch.

So it’s time for the rest of the country to dig a little deeper, now that Christie has been granted the coveted keynote speaker role at next week’s Republican National Convention.

In that spirit, here are five things — good and bad — that the rest of America probably doesn’t know about him:

1. He lies like the rest of them, and then some.

Here’s what Sean Hannity said when he introduced Christie on his national program on Fox in 2010: “He’s doing something very rare in politics these days: He’s actually following through on the promises he’s made on the campaign trail.”

Let’s check that. During the campaign, Christie promised he would not cut spending on education, the single biggest item in the state budget, and would not cut property tax rebates for seniors. He also vowed that he would never, ever cut union pensions. “The notion that I would eliminate, change or alter your pension is not only a lie, but cannot be further from the truth,” he wrote to the firefighters’ union.

After he won, he broke all those promises right away. The centerpiece of his first year in office was the following: cut pensions, cut education spending and cut property tax rebates.

And for the Bible-thumpers in the South, here's a revealing coda on Christie's style:

Bill Lavin, the firefighters' union chief, later attacked Christie over the flip-flop on pensions. He said Christie sent a personal emissary who stated he was instructed to relay these specific words to Lavin: "Go f… yourself."

Neither the emissary nor the governor’s office denies it.

2. He breathes fire, but he governs effectively as a moderate.

This is the key to his success. He fought hard to win over the public on pension and health reform, and on tenure reform. But in the endgame, he made weighty compromises to win passage.

On pensions, he wanted bigger concessions from the unions than Democrats would give him. On tenure, he wanted to end seniority rules that force school districts to fire good young teachers in times of layoffs. But Christie understands that his job is to produce results, so he cut deals.

Notice, too, that he picks issues where there is potential bipartisan agreement.

Democrats were hard at work on pensions and health care before he arrived. And tenure reform is winning bipartisan backing across the country.

3. The "New Jersey Comeback" is a fiction, and he knows it.

In his early days, Christie taunted the governors of Connecticut and Illinois for signing tax increases, saying he would welcome the jobs that would come flooding our way.

Oops. Since then, New Jersey has done worse than either state. The unemployment rate is at 9.8 percent, the Garden State’s highest since the Jimmy Carter era.

That’s not all. The state’s credit rating has dropped on Christie’s watch, mainly because pensions and transit costs are rigged to explode over the next few years.

As for the state’s worst problem, its property taxes, the report is mixed.

The rate of increase has slowed, but the cut in rebates means the burden for the average family has increased by 20 percent during Christie’s first two years.

So will Christie drop this line? Probably not. When it comes to spin, this man shows undaunted courage.

4. He's not extreme enough for the Republican base.

Christie is not among the troglodytes in his party who reject the advances made during the Enlightenment period. He believes in science, and says climate change is a problem caused in part by man.

He’s expanded subsidies for solar power, and supports plans for a giant wind farm off the Jersey Shore. Imagine that.

Christie appointed a Muslim lawyer, Sohail Mohammed, as a judge, even though Mohammed had once defended suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks. And when Christie took flak over that from the paranoid nuts who saw that as part of the conspiracy to impose Sharia law on America, he offered this classic rebuttal: “Ignorance is behind the criticism of Sohail Mohammed. … This Sharia law business is just crap … and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.”

On immigration he believes, as Ronald Reagan did, that there must be a path toward citizenship for the undocumented people already here, now estimated at 11.5 million. And, of course, he has been preaching the gospel of compromise for months.

If word of this rational thinking gets out during the convention in Tampa, it could cause the governor problems.

5. He has a secret weapon: New Jersey's Democratic bosses.

Christie’s smartest strategic move was to make friends on Day One with Democratic bosses George Norcross in the south and Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo in the north.

These two control Democratic votes in the Legislature, as do smaller bosses such as Sen. Brian Stack (D-Union City).

What that means is Christie doesn’t have to herd cats in the Legislature to round up the Democratic votes he needs. He just has to keep the bosses happy, then watch them round up the votes.

That’s happened over and over. Pension reform. Property tax cap. Tenure reform. Higher education reorganization.

“New Jersey is unique in having these machines,” says Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. “I can’t think of another state like it. There is no South Carolina equivalent of George Norcross.”

If the rest of the country is wondering how Christie manages to work so effectively with a legislature controlled by Democrats, there is your answer.

Tom Moran: (973) 392-5728, tmoran@starledger.com, Twitter: @tomamoran

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