EWING, N.J. — They call to complain about their pension payments, to grumble about their children’s teachers, to vent about the fine they just paid for stacking firewood incorrectly. They dial in by the thousands, from Toms River to Park Ridge, jamming the five phone lines here at the studio of WKXW-FM (101.5).  What the people of New Jersey receive in return is the unfiltered id of their governor, Chris Christie: over-sharing, thin-skinned, openhearted and needy. It is the quality, repellent or endearing, that his supporters say is missing from the buttoned-up rivals now crowding the Republican presidential field, whose demeanor they quietly dismiss as too stilted (Mitt Romney) or too cerebral (Jeb Bush).  When Chris from Camden, wanted to know why the governor was giving firefighters like himself such a hard time about their salaries, Mr. Christie turned the conversation into a scorching interrogation. “What are you making now?” the governor demanded. The answer, $72,000, struck him as suspiciously low, given the contractual perks afforded firefighters. “No, no, no, Chris. Don’t play games me with me now. What do you make?”  When Debbie in Roxbury called to congratulate Mr. Christie on a budget address in which he had pledged no new taxes, Mr. Christie paused to gloat about the superiority of his speechwriting skills, concluding that they surpassed those of the first President George Bush. “Much better than ‘Read my lips,’ ” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s just much better.”  When an anonymous homeowner from Plainsboro rang to ask why he was paying $5,000 in property taxes, despite having no children or a yard, Mr. Christie one-upped him, divulging the tax bill for his own home: $38,000. “I can’t control whether you have children or not,” he said.  As Mr. Christie explores a White House run built around personality, pugnacity and spontaneity, there may be no better laboratory for studying that unconventional approach than his radio call-in show, “Ask the Governor,” a high-wattage rumpus that beams his many moods into the kitchens, cars and smartphones of those he governs.  There is Gratuitously Mean Christie (he labeled a state employee who wanted to work from home a “coward”), Mischievously Populist Christie (he encouraged a hurricane victim angry with federal bureaucracy to “start yelling and kicking and screaming”) and Warmly Paternal Christie (he informed a young woman that, based on the wisdom of her question, he wanted to adopt her).  Mr. Christie is a gifted performer on many stages — his town hall rants have become YouTube sensations, and his volatile news conferences are a television news director’s dream — but in the quiet of the studio, over the intimacy of a telephone line, a layer of artifice falls away.  On air at WKXW, personal disclosures tumble out. Listeners have learned that Mr. Christie was denied the gift he most coveted as a child: a motorbike; that his family owns goldfish, but no cat or dog, because the governor’s son Patrick is highly allergic; and that a governor’s prerogative allows him to bypass the body scanners at Newark Liberty International Airport.  “When you’re governor,” he explained, “you’re unlikely to hijack a plane.”  Less flatteringly, the show has offered a glimpse into Mr. Christie’s preoccupation with power, hierarchy and popularity. When Richard, a self-described “average guy,” asked whether Mr. Christie would take the time to meet with him at the Statehouse, Mr. Christie breezily declined. (“It ain’t happening.”) He proceeded to explain who was worthy of such a session: Joseph DiVincenzo, a Democratic power broker based in Newark (“He’s not an average guy,” the governor said), and Adam Geller, Mr. Christie’s pollster.  And even as he engages in such spontaneous exchanges, Mr. Christie is always assessing his own performance — favorably. Walking out of the studio, he admired the candor of his answer to Richard.  “How about that question?” he asked his staff. “Could he have put the ball on the tee any higher for me?” Other politicians would have lied to the man, he suggested. “ ‘Well, if it’s an important issue, and you call and do this?’ No! It’s not happening.”  During the December broadcast, Mr. Christie wondered aloud which alumni of his administration were listening. “They should be. For God’s sake, I made these guys,” he said.  As messages started arriving on his iPhone, not just from former staff members but friends and relatives, Mr. Christie read them one by one, as if taking attendance: “My cardiologist is listening. How great is that?”  Mr. Christie has embraced the show with a passion lacking in his predecessor, Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, who seemed flustered by its unscripted nature. After a few episodes, he all but stopped appearing, said the host, Eric Scott, and advised Mr. Christie not to bother with it. Mr. Christie ignored the recommendation, and the show has become the station’s most listened-to program. On any given night, as many as 50,000 people call in.  The show serves another function: public accountability. The governor has ordered his entire cabinet to listen, and he assigns commissioners tasks, by name, during the broadcast.  Those who fail to text him back immediately are shamed for all to hear. “Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Come on, Bob!” Mr. Christie yelled, when his environmental commissioner, Bob Martin, failed to contact him in the final moments of a 2012 appearance.  “It haunts me to this day,” Mr. Martin said dryly. Follow-up can be swift. When Rob in Saddle River called to complain about a $25,000 fine for constructing a backyard wall at an improper height, an infuriated Mr. Christie assured the man that Mr. Martin would meet with him in person to resolve it. Mr. Martin did so. The fine went away.  Not all callers are satisfied. Sandy from Atlantic Highlands, asked Mr. Christie to intervene in her battle with a utility company whose environmental cleanup hurt her business. Mr. Christie promised to “get to the bottom of this.”  Tracked down years later, Sandra Craig-Barry said the governor had let her down: His staff called her promptly, but upon realizing the case was the subject of a lawsuit, she was told there was nothing they could do.  “You are so pumped when you talk to him,” Ms. Craig-Barry said. “You think, ‘He’s going to save me.’ ”  This year, as Mr. Christie travels the country to woo Republicans, “Ask the Governor” may be one of his few remaining undiluted connections with constituents in New Jersey. Each show is different, but five years of transcripts reveal unmistakable habits and quirks. There is, for example, his Austin Powersesque fondness for the word baby (used 47 times). “New Jerseyans are thinkers, baby. They’re thinkers,” he said of Brittany from Belmar, who suggested he star in a reality show to increase state revenue.  There is his penchant for belittling those who challenge him. He dismissed the two Democratic lawmakers leading the probe into lane closures at the George Washington Bridge as “desperate” partisans (before they discovered incriminating emails from his top aide) and labeled reporters questioning pricey gifts from the owner of the Dallas Cowboys “aluminum foil on their heads conspiracy theorists.”  And there is Mr. Christie’s weakness for emphatic statements that seem regrettable in retrospect. “I’m committed to being a one-termer,” he declared in 2009. He is now serving his second term. “The fact is,” he said in 2012, “that I don’t have any aspiration for national politics.” Mr. Christie is now mulling a White House run.  As he does so, the governor will share those private deliberations on his radio show, with listeners who have already learned that his older daughter, Sarah, 18, a college student, is lukewarm (particularly about “the whole idea of Secret Service agents living in your dorm”), and that his younger son, Patrick, 14, is against it.  “ ‘We’d have to move to the White House in Washington, and your school’s in New Jersey,’ ” Mr. Christie recalled telling Patrick, who lives at home. “And that pretty much put him off.”  A version of this article appears in print on January 26, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Christie on Air: Undiluted and Pretty Great, if He Says So Himself. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
A radio show featuring questions from the public provides an unfiltered picture of Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey and would-be presidential candidate.