Christie's temperament spooks Wall Street

Chris Christie has seemed on top of the world to donors and supporters in the days since the GOP racked up big wins in gubernatorial races with him leading the charge for the Republican Governors Association. He’s dined in Manhattan with millionaires, sat for an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer and privately marveled at his party’s midterm scorecard.

The New Jersey governor sees his position within the party restored and the Bridgegate scandal as ancient history, according to several people who’ve spoken with him. As a center-right governor from next door, he’s confident New York’s conservative money set will be behind him in a 2016 presidential campaign. As for the complaints about his aggressive behavior? Meaningless whining.

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Some of Wall Street’s biggest donors take a different view. Many of them believe the New Jersey governor still represents too risky an investment, at least at this stage.

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Christie has an avowed fan base among some New York investors and bankers, with Home Depot founder Ken Langone leading the pack. But a number of donors, feeling flush after an election cycle in which the GOP establishment worked hard to tamp down tea party insurgents and pick mainstream winners in primaries, want to flex their muscle in picking the next nominee. That means they’ll be taking their time to choose.

One problem, they say, is Christie’s decision not to resign as governor if he runs for president, despite federal securities rules that could seriously complicate his fundraising from the finance sector.

But the bigger concern is temperament.

“People who know him realize he has an unusually frank way of expressing himself and find that refreshing,” said Richard LeFrak, CEO of a privately held New York real estate empire, who recently lunched with Christie at the Four Seasons’ Grill Room in Manhattan along with casino magnate Steve Wynn. “But I’ve never been to Iowa and I don’t really know how it would play with voters there.”

In recent interviews, several donors, including several who are high on Christie, mentioned his showdown with a protester at a Hurricane Sandy-related town hall just before the election. “Sit down and shut up!” Christie scolded the man, whom he referred to derisively as “buddy.”

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“I sat and took it for awhile,” Christie told “Today” show host Matt Lauer the morning after the election. “The hundreds of people that were there deserved to hear what we had to say that day. That person had had their say. I sat and listened to it. It was time for them to sit down.”

“I’m not going to change, Matt,” Christie added. “This is who I am.”

That moment did not sit well with wealthy donors, nearly all of whom asked not to be identified lest they trigger their own confrontation with the potential presidential nominee. Several also did not want to run afoul of firm rules on engaging in partisan politics.

“There’s a sense he could melt down at any time,” said one donor who has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Republican candidates over the past several election cycles, and would be well-positioned to help Christie.

Even longtime Christie allies think the governor’s unwillingness to even dial down his approach even a notch or two could make it harder to get the Republican nomination.

“He helped himself enormously in the governors’ races both in terms of his ability to raise money and getting around the country and meeting a lot of people and helping a lot of people,” said David Norcross, a former Senate candidate and chair of the New Jersey Republican State Committee. “But when I saw that ‘sit down and shut up’ comment I kind of winced. That’s not something I would have done. But I’m not Chris.”

It also underscored why so many in the industry are pining for Jeb Bush to get in the race, and at the same time eyeing other non-Christie options if Bush says no. Among them are Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

“A lot of these people around Wall Street are more pragmatic conservatives,” said a donor who often serves as a liaison between GOP politicians and Wall Street donors. “And the ‘sit down and shut up’ stuff does not seem presidential to them. It seems disqualifying.”

Another donor, a senior executive in the private equity industry, voiced concern about the federal investigation into the Bridgegate scandal. The governor’s aides closed access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in an act of apparent political retribution. Christie hasn’t been implicated but the investigation is ongoing. He publicly pointed to a September WNBC report suggesting there had been no evidence found of wrongdoing by him as a sign that it is time to move on.

“He is spiking the ball a little early on the bridge stuff,” the senior executive said. “And he has just got to stop alienating people.”

There's a sense he could melt down at any time."

To all of this, Christie and his band of ardent backers say, in so many words: sit down and shut up.

“He responded to a heckler in what I consider to be an entirely appropriate way,” Langone said in an interview. “And look at this George Washington Bridge thing? What’s come out of that? Nothing! If anything could connect him to that episode it would have leaked by now.”

Tony Fratto, a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies in Washington and a former George W. Bush White House official, said Christie’s bluntness would be an advantage for him if he runs for president.

“That sort of authentic personality is something Republicans have been searching for,” said Fratto, who added that he would back Jeb Bush if the former Florida governor gets in the race. Bush, who has been working with Barclays bank, has his own extensive donor network developed over his family’s long history in politics.

As for Bridgegate, Christie has told people privately in recent weeks that he believes he will continue to be unscathed by it,...