Christie picks trusted friends for kitchen cabinet

As Gov.-elect Christopher J. Christie begins the arduous task of assembling an administration, his most important group of advisers already is sitting comfortably at the table.

Christie's kitchen cabinet is a tight group of old friends and a few new stars who have his ear and are unafraid to speak bluntly.

They include family, Christie's wife, Mary Pat, and brother, Todd; friends Bill Palatucci, State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R., Monmouth), and former First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Chiesa; and advisers such as Lt. Gov.-elect Kim Guadagno, former state Attorney General David Samson, political consultant Mike Duhaime, and former Gov. Thomas H. Kean. None is from South Jersey.

"These are people who know me best," Christie said. They're "people who know me well and are able to tell me the truth and aren't worried about the blowback."

Palatucci helped birth Christie's political career when he hired the then-30-year-old lawyer to work on President George H.W. Bush's 1992 reelection campaign in New Jersey.

The men remained close, and Christie hired his friend at the Cranford law firm of Dughi & Hewit, later renamed Dughi, Hewit & Palatucci. Palatucci and Kyrillos helped get Christie the job as New Jersey's U.S. attorney.

Palatucci, who was a campaign adviser and major fund-raiser for Christie, sees himself as a sounding board for the state's 55th governor.

"I'm an ear when he wants somebody to bounce something off," he said.

Christie selected his younger brother Todd and Palatucci to head his inaugural committee. Todd Christie became an issue in the campaign because his former company was fined by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a stock-fraud case. The government found him guilty of no wrongdoing.

Christie has said his closest friends are his wife, Mary Pat, and his brother. Mary Pat Christie, who works part-time as a bond trader, often made campaign appearances and helped with fund-raising.

Kyrillos was a fellow staff member on the 1992 New Jersey Bush reelection committee. He served as the state committee chairman and swore in Christie when he was elected to the Morris County freeholder board in 1995.

Kyrillos shares Christie's views on politics and policy. "I'm very fortunate that my interest in seeing my friend be successful completely and wholly intersects and overlaps with my interest in fixing the state," he said.

He was named to the governor-elect's transition committee, which will help Christie hire members of his administration and shape policy decisions.

As executive director of that team Christie named Chiesa, whom he has hired twice before. When they were in their 20s, Christie invited Chiesa to work at the Cranford law firm. He later hired him as an assistant U.S. attorney.

Chiesa has a unique view of Trenton: He prosecuted some of its most powerful figures, including former Democratic Senate President John Lynch. He and Christie also share a sense of irony.

When Christie was nominated for the U.S. Attorney's Office in 2001, a newspaper cartoon showed him sitting across a table from President George W. Bush. The president held Christie's resume, which noted he had no experience as a criminal prosecutor.

Chiesa framed the drawing and gave it to Christie. "You and I both know how wrong this is. We'll laugh about this cartoon," Chiesa has recalled telling his friend.

Christie ran for governor partly on his success as U.S. attorney. The office secured convictions or guilty pleas from more than 130 corrupt politicians.

Chiesa works in the West Orange law firm of another Christie adviser, Samson, whom Christie has named chair of the transition team.

Samson, a Republican, was attorney general for a year under Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey. During his tenure, he made headlines for suing companies whose bad accounting had cost the state's pension funds deep losses, as well as for battling with former State Police Superintendent Joseph Santiago over Santiago's alleged ethical lapses.

Christie struck up a relationship with Samson when he was U.S. attorney. "I've got extraordinary respect for him personally," he said.

Samson is well-known in political circles and was one of Kean's lawyers in the recount of the tight 1981 governor's race, which Kean won by 1,797 votes over former Gov. Jim Florio.

While U.S. attorney, Christie hired Samson's firm to monitor a medical-device company accused of giving doctors kickbacks for recommending its products. His campaign hired the firm for election-related legal work.

Another former prosecutor in the inner circle is Guadagno, who headed the corruption unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office and is the state's first lieutenant governor-elect. Guadagno, the Monmouth County sheriff, will have her hands full after January when she is sworn into office. Her goal is to consolidate the state's economic-development programs and review state regulations, recommending that those hampering business be tossed.

Christie decided to name his chief political consultant, Duhaime, to the transition team. Duhaime, of Hoboken, previously ran the unsuccessful presidential campaigns of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.).

Christie met Kean when he was 14 years old and volunteered to work in Kean's unsuccessful 1977 gubernatorial campaign.

Kean, who had made it a policy to steer clear of primary politics, took the unusual step of endorsing Christie in the GOP primary, something he previously had done only for his son, State Sen. Thomas H. Kean Jr., when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006.

Kean was an important political adviser during the campaign, and Christie said he would call on the former governor for advice as his administration geared up.

"It's a good group," Christie said of his kitchen cabinet. "They were a rock for me during the campaign. When things would get difficult, one would step up and buck me up."

With a budget deficit of $8 billion or more awaiting him after he is sworn in, Christie will need all the bucking up he can get.