Chris Christie rips Obama's leadership, media in CPAC speech

WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ripped President Obama Thursday in his first speech before base Republican voters since his administration was rocked by scandal.

"We gotta start talking about what we're for and not what we're against," Christie told the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor in Maryland, "Our ideas are better than their ideas and that's what we have to stand up for."

Christie, a pro-life governor in a Democratic blue state, argued that the Republican Party must focus on preserving life from birth to death, meaning "pro-life when they leave the womb as well, for every step of their lives," Politico reported.

He also said the United States doesn't have an income equity problem as Obama has insisted, saying, "we have an opportunity inequality problem."

Christie, mentioned as a possible GOP presidential hopeful in 2016, also ripped public employee unions and characterized himself as reining in an out-of-control labor system, Politico reported.

"Governors are about getting things done," Christie said.

He also criticized Obama over budget negotiations, noting the president hadn't met with the congressional supercommittee, commenting, "Man, that's leadership, isn't it?"

The governor also took jabs at the media, which Politico said was a partisan play because he has been in the national spotlight since revelations surfaced in January that his aides and appointees were involved in deliberately creating traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge as part of an alleged political vendetta.

"We have to stop letting the media define who we are and what we stand for," he said.