Charles Stile

NorthJersey

Gov. Chris Christie may spend his next career trashing elite sports stars on talk radio, but for the moment he appears content trashing candidates angling to succeed him.

And that includes his long-time sidekick, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the front runner for the Republican nomination.

Without mentioning Guadagno by name, Christie took aim Thursday at her promise to wrench hundreds of millions of dollars from state government programs after conducting an audit. That money would help finance an ambitious property tax credit. The project's price tag: $1.5 billion.

"You are not going to audit state government and save $1.5 billion,'' Christie told reporters in Secaucus Thursday. "Not going to happen."

Outgoing governors tend to fade into the background as they round the final lap of their tenure. And as a general rule, they tend to lend at least tacit support for the next standard bearer of their own party or refrain from making overt criticism.

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Not Christie so far. The self-anointed truth teller is vowing to suit up in a referee's zebra stripes and call out the candidates if he believes they are trying to "hoodwink" the public with reckless or unrealistic promises.

And that includes Guadagno, the tight-lipped Christie administration loyalist who spent the past 7 1/2 years bouncing around the rubber-chicken circuit of plant openings and chamber of commerce dinners for Christie. Her reward for all that below-the-radar drudgery is a stinging critique from her soon-to-be departing boss.

"I’m going to referee this stuff and if people are making irresponsible claims, I’m going to let the public know what to expect as a result,'' Christie said.

It's difficult to believe that the public will rely heavily on Christie as they try to keep a scorecard. His credibility was shredded by the George Washington Bridge lane closing scandal. But Christie really wasn't really offering up his services as a nonpartisan fact checker for confused voters.

Thursday's injection into the race was likely about protecting his own legacy. He is simply putting the candidates on notice that he's not going to sit idly by as they cast him as the absentee governor who let the state go to seed while he cavorted about the country in his failed quest for the presidency. The "One Constituent,'' as his once-slavish aides described Christie, is making one last attempt to revive some of his first-term glory. This isn't about voters. It's about himself.

"There are so many plans that are undoable that have been proposed so far, I wouldn’t distinguish one from the other,'' Christie said of the promises so far by the candidates.

Christie's backhand of Guadagno's "circuit breaker" property tax plan isn't entirely a surprise. Christie fumed last year when Guadagno criticized the "tax fairness" deal he cut with the Democrats, which included a 23-cent hike in the state's motor fuels tax.

Needing distance from Christie and his toxic poll numbers, Guadagno depicted that deal as irresponsible waste and she campaigned against a voter referendum dedicating the new revenue to transportation projects, again angering Christie. She also railed against Christie's "Palace of Versailles" plan to renovate the State House, and opposed his negotiations for cabinet level pay hikes.

Guadagno's campaign didn't seem to be all that ruffled by Christie's remarks.

"It wouldn't be the first they've disagreed and I'm sure that there are disagreements going forwards,'' said Ricky Diaz, her campaign spokesman. "The campaign is about her own plans and visions for the state for the next four to eight years."

Diaz also noted that Guadagno's property tax plan, which could reward homeowners with a credit of up to as much as $3,000, did not rest solely on savings from an audit. Her plan relies in part on so-far largely vague calls to squeeze savings from health and pension benefits, and redirecting "adjustment aid" subsidy for some school districts.

And it is banking on the fairy dust of robust "economic growth,'' the when-all-else-fails crutch of every candidate for generations.

Christie saved his sharpest critique for Phil Murphy, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Murphy, a one-time Goldman Sachs executive and former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, has hammered Christie at every turn, offering himself as a progressive, amiable alternative to the hard-knuckled, tongue-lashing Christie.

Murphy is promising to fully fund the state's school funding formula, make good on the state's annual pension payment, which is scheduled to cost $2.5 billion this fiscal year and climb by climb by an additional $650 million next year. Murphy has supported raising taxes on millionaires and closing tax loopholes and revenues from a revitalized economy.

In other words, Murphy was promising a wish-list that was either ignored or cut under Christie. But the governor argued that Murphy was promising a fantasy. "If folks are making claims on the campaign trail that I know from eight years of experience in this job they can’t possibly do," he said, well, then, he'll speak his mind.

Derek Roseman, a spokesman for Murphy, was also unfazed. The campaign is thinking that any analysis from a governor hit with 11 downgrades of the state's credit under his watch is not something that is going to keep the Murphy campaign up at night.

"If (Christie) want to make this campaign a referendum on stewardship of the past 71/2 years, we will gladly take it,'' Roseman said.

Christie has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Mike Francesa, the popular afternoon sports-radio host on New York's WFAN, who is retiring next years. Christie has fanned the speculation by serving occasional fill-in stints on the morning show, and most recently tested out his acerbic, combative style.

He attacked NY Giants Quarterback Eli Manning as a "liar" for his alleged role in a fake sports memorabilia scheme. Christie generated a lot of buzz by trying to tarnish the reputation of a New York sports legend.

But Christie may find it lot harder garnering that same kind of attention as he tries to restore his own.