Adding to Christie’s Troubles, a Rift With a Former Mentor Widens

Former Gov. Thomas H. Kean (Aaron Houston for The New York Times)

By KATE ZERNIKE, NYT, JAN. 12, 2014

Gov. Chris Christie often dates his entry into politics to age 15, when, driven by his mother, he arrived at the doorstep of Thomas H. Kean, a state assemblyman who was pondering a run for governor, and asked for advice about getting involved.

“If you want to find out, get in the car,” Mr. Kean replied, he recalled in a 2010 interview. “I’m going up to Bergen County; come with me and see if you like it.”

It is a sign of increasing trouble for Mr. Christie, then, that former Governor Kean — a man he frequently calls his mentor — has been leveling some of the sharpest criticism at him after revelations that Christie aides ordered lanes closed to the George Washington Bridge in September as an act of political retribution.

In one interview with MSNBC last week, Mr. Kean, 78, said that Mr. Christie’s two-hour news conference on the lane closings had left “unanswered questions.”

(More here.)