New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been coy about a possible nod for vice president. But his ambition peeked out this week.

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Chris Christie (Creative Commons)

“If Gov. [Mitt] Romney called and asked me to sit down and talk to him about it, I’d listen… Because I think you owe the nominee of your party that level of respect and who knows what he’s going to say. He might be able to convince me, he’s a convincing guy,” the former U.S. Attorney for the Garden State said Monday ^[2].

The Republican governor was fielding questions from students at a local high school when he seemed to leave the door open on the VP question. He did add, however: “But I really love this job, I really want to stay in this job.”

Romney, the presumptive nominee for the Republican party, is likely months away from announcing a running mate, but analysts have already assembled a ‘short list’ ^[3] of sorts. Christie is near the top of most of these lists, with two recent national polls placing him ^[3] at the very top of the potential running mates. One poll found that 86 percent of Republicans prefer Romney with Christie on the ticket, while the number drops to 82 percent without Christie.

And while Christie has previously been adamant ^[4] about not wanting to leave his gubernatorial post, he has been an early and vocal supporter of Romney.

Christie came to prominence in his home state while serving as U.S. Attorney from 2002 to 2008. He edged out Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine to become governor in 2009.