NEWTON – Professor Alan Rosenthal is to blame, said Gov. Chris Christie today, for protecting incumbents and blocking the Republicans from making gains in Trenton.

“They won one seat last night,” Christie said of the opponent Democrats, one seat in a 16 point registration advantage district on a ticket led by state Sen. President Steve Sweeney (D-3), of West Deptford. “And they didn’t win anything else…We lost that one to the redistricting process back in the spring.”

In Sussex County this morning, Christie said, “We were on offense everywhere; they were on defense everywhere. With the map they have, they won.”

He said Republicans now control more county government seats than Democrats with commanding wins in Cumberland and Salem counties.

He was disappointed, though, in the losses: “Obviously. I am a competitive guy.”

“The map did what I thought it would do,” Christie said, not pressed on why the Republican redistricting team added tiebreaking member Rosenthal to their list of three in the first place.

Democratic State Party Chairman John Wisniewski (D-18), of Sayreville, said last night that Christie was “all coat and no tails.”

Asked about the remark, Christie said given the registration advantages afforded under the new map, the chairman was “crowing” over foregone conclusions.

He also downplayed any slant that this election was a referendum on the governor: “I never thought, contrary to people’s belief, that my power was unlimited.”

He said the lame duck session will be mostly for education reform, including the Opportunity Scholarship Act voucher program. He attacked the midway proposal by the teachers’ union on tenure reform – from three years to four years and arbitrators instead of courts – with clichéd “rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.”

“It’s not in my mind a serious reform,” he said, although he did say state Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz (D-27), of Newark, was willing to work with the administration on a bipartisan plan.