Chris Christie to NJ: I know you 'didn't vote for me for my charm and good looks

Chris Christie is not up for reelection as Governor of New Jersey until 2013, but is still out on the stump touting his record. In just 3 years Christie has elevated himself among the most influential Republican legislators in the country, and now out speaking to the people of New Jersey to bolster his record in the Garden State. Robert Costa of The National Review was on the trail with the governor yesterday, and in awe of "The Chris Christie Show:"

"But up close, when you see him pace across the floor, talking for 30 uninterrupted minutes about his achievements, you sense that this isn’t merely an expertly stage-managed politician, another governor with a large entourage, bravado, and a Patton-esque flag background. He is a cut above.

Whip-smart, articulate, and pleasantly pugnacious, Christie has the aura of a bona fide national sensation. The raucous applause he receives in Middlesex County is the same kind of reception that the governor receives in Orange County, the Rust Belt, and the Deep South. Republicans, from tea-party activists to national-committee grandees, can’t get enough. Team Romney, which has used Christie’s talents on the trail, surely notices. Yet at home, among his grizzled and outspoken constituents, the embrace of Christie is warmer and more intense than it is elsewhere. Speaking with the attendees, from members of the carpenters’ union and GOP state legislators to working-class parents, I don’t hear about Christie as just a future president, but as “the next Ronald Reagan.”

During a town hall meeting, the self-deprecating governor told voters that he is well aware that he was put in office to get things done, not sit and look pretty: