American Governor by Matt Katz

Author:Matt Katz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Threshold Editions

A POLITICAL PROFESSIONAL named Bill Stepien roamed the gilded hallways at the resort that weekend. Stepien was an Alex P. Keaton wunderkind among New Jersey Republican operatives, known for winning, at barely the age of thirty, Christie’s underdog 2009 gubernatorial campaign.

Now he had just been tapped as Christie’s point man at the RGA—and the chairman of the New Jersey Republican Party. He’d be preparing the Christie presidential campaign while enforcing GOP obedience back home.

Small-statured and clean-cut, Stepien looked like a Republican. His ascension began at fifteen, when he worked at the Chimney Rock Ice Rink in Central Jersey and met a Rutgers kid named Mike DuHaime, who drove the Zamboni machine. Once Stepien got to Rutgers, DuHaime was his hockey coach. DuHaime went into politics and brought Stepien on as an intern for a state Senate campaign. Stepien then made his mark running a successful underdog campaign for Bill Baroni, a Republican assemblyman and state senator who would one day become deeply entangled in the Bridgegate affair.

Stepien and DuHaime were dubbed the “dynamic duo.” They worked together on the 2008 presidential campaigns of New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and then–Arizona senator John McCain. When they hooked up with the Christie for Governor campaign in 2009, DuHaime was the outside strategist while Stepien was the campaign manager on the inside. DuHaime’s disposition was warm and welcoming; Stepien’s was cold and cautious.

In the 2009 Christie campaign, Stepien was viewed as an elder statesman compared to the kids in their twenties with backward baseball caps who worked for him. He had an intensity—4:30 a.m. emails and doors shut on those who showed up at 8:31 a.m. for 8:30 a.m. meetings—that attracted a sort of respect beyond his years.

Sometimes, he just attracted resentment. In the waning weeks of the campaign Stepien called a meeting. “Nobody in this office is irreplaceable,” he said, according to people in the room. “You’re all replaceable. And there’s a thousand other people who will step into your role for the last couple of weeks and do your job. So do your job.”

This little chat dispirited the staff. “It was like a bomb went off,” remembered one. “Nobody wanted to work. It was a hugely demotivational speech.”

Stepien was described to me as a brilliant general and a loyal soldier. Once, a campaign worker committed a transgression. Years later that person remembered Stepien’s reaction word for word: “Nobody’s going to cause Chris Christie to lose what he’s worked all his life for.”

His nickname in the office was Smoke—now you see him, now you don’t. His interactions with the press were limited to quietly standing on the sidelines at press conferences. When I ran into him at the 2012 Republican convention, we laughed about his unwillingness to talk to me, but even after a couple of beers I couldn’t get him to tell me anything at all about the Christie political operation.

Clearly, Stepien had an innate understanding of the power levers of local politics. Sources told me he had the governor’s trust, and his ear, known for being willing—and able—to voice dissent to the boss.

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