Dawidziak: Cuomo, Christie a dynamic duo

Michael Dawidziak is a political consultant and pollster.

Partisan gridlock in the federal government has reached an all-time high. The results are a complete lack of action on economic development, continuing unemployment and poll numbers that are approaching all-time lows for Congress. Despite the fact that the American people are demanding action, Washington politicians seem incapable of putting their innate political natures aside.

Two of our nation's governors, however, are demonstrating how things can be done better and are being rewarded with stratospherically high poll numbers. They're our own Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. These two young firebrands, one a Democrat and one a Republican, have shown their states what can be done when a leader decides to put good government in front of politics.

Not content to rest on their impressive in-state accomplishments, the two have teamed up to address issues that affect the region and the nation as a whole. Last Friday, Cuomo and Christie joined with the governors of Pennsylvania (Republican Tom Corbett) and North Carolina (Democrat Bev Perdue) to blast Congress for its stalemate over funding FEMA disaster assistance. Their joint statement declared that "federal assistance for the victims of storms and floods should be beyond politics."

In an interview with public radio, Cuomo said, "[Disaster assistance has] gotten caught up in politics and the gridlock like everything has, it seems, recently in Washington, and this is inexcusable. This is the last issue that they should play their politics with."

He's right, but in this time of economic crisis, there's a wide range of issues that should be immune from partisan game-playing. Unity of purpose on fixing the economy and creating jobs should come first.

Miraculously, three days after the governors' joint statement, the Senate announced a bipartisan agreement to end the dispute over disaster relief spending that also threatened to cause a partial shutdown of the government at the end of the week. While it's still unclear what the House will do, credit Cuomo and Christie for accurately capturing and venting the public's frustration and calling our national leaders to task.

And this isn't the only important issue the two united to tackle last week. They also jointly ordered a wide-ranging audit of the Port Authority. Questions have swirled about employee compensation and the ever-rising costs of rebuilding the World Trade Center. Charges of mismanagement have been raised by officials, particularly Christie. These costs were cited by the authority as a contributing reason for the recent toll hikes. Again tapping into the people's frustration, Cuomo and Christie put forward an initiative that was neither Republican nor Democratic -- just common sense and good government.

In a very short time, the two governors have racked up an impressive list of victories inside their states, and now they're teaming up to extend this outside their borders. Their approach has been strong and as nonpartisan as possible in the world of state government. With the poll numbers the dynamic duo are getting, you'd think that our Washington leaders would pay attention and even emulate them.

It's certainly not surprising that talk about Cuomo in 2016 has been circulating among political insiders for months -- nor is the recent buzz about Christie's possible entry into the 2012 presidential sweepstakes.

In a country paralyzed by the inaction of partisan gridlock, Cuomo and Christie look very attractive to a weary electorate crying out for strong, independent and effective leadership.