Change the plans. Find a pool. There are some very nice private clubs in New Jersey. I hear Donald Trump owns a few.
In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, Nachum, a beggar, goes up to a townsman and asks for alms for the poor. The man hands him one kopek, to which Nachum says, “One kopek? Last week you gave me two kopeks.” The man replies, “I had a bad week.” Nachum’s retort: “So, if you had a bad week, why should I suffer?” Of all the memes of Gov. Chris Christie sunning on a beach that was closed to all in New Jersey except him and his family, that is the one I long to see.
I don’ t begrudge the governor his moment in the sun — literal and figurative — but the optics of the whole thing were a little much to digest. For those in a cloistered convent these past few days, New Jersey government shut down Saturday because there was no state budget. There was an impasse between Republican Christie and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, a Democrat.
Christie had cut a deal with Democrats in the state Senate to connect the state budget to a bill restructuring of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield. In exchange, Christie would not use his line-item pen to scratch out about $300 million for education and other services. It was a bad compromise, because tinkering with the internal structure of the state’s largest health care insurer should not be part of a budget deal. So it stank of politics, which might have explained the governor’s need for fresh sea air.
The differing sides did come together in a deal late Monday — but too late for Christie to avoid becoming a social media sensation.
He said he was at an official residence at the disposal of the governor. He was right. He said he planned to stay at the beach with his family. I take him at his word. And he also said he would sign a budget if it came to his desk, which he did.
But here’s the thing: He’s the governor of New Jersey and he shut down its government. Change the plans. Find a pool. There are some very nice private clubs in New Jersey. I hear Donald Trump owns a few.
Clearly, the governor doesn’ t care. He’s term-limited. He’s not running for anything. And even when he was, he was never apologetic about enjoying perks. He gave a famous quote to The New York Times about squeezing the last drop of juice from the orange. But it is such a waste of raw talent.
If Christie had stayed at home, he could have focused a spotlight on the 20-plus Democrats in the Assembly who have abstained from voting on a budget. Christie of the Blue Fleece would have relished doing just that. He also would have walked the state’s beautiful boardwalks and worked up a sweat over how Democrats can’ t even agree among themselves. But that Christie is gone.
Old Christie would have worked out a backroom deal that would have given him exactly what he wanted in the end, but allowed Prieto a moment in the sun right now.
But there was no sun sharing to be found over the weekend. Not in the State House. Or on a vast, empty stretch of sand in Island Beach State Park.
Christie’s lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, the Republican candidate for governor, said in a statement issued by her campaign, “It’s beyond words. If I were governor, I sure wouldn’ t be sitting on the beach if taxpayers didn’ t have access to state beaches.”
But she’s not the governor.
Christie has always done it his way. I’ m not sure what he was thinking as he looked up from his beach chair at the small plane carrying a photographer from NJ Advance Media.
Perhaps another Fiddler on the Roof tune, “If I were a rich man.” Christie will be one, I am sure, soon enough.
Yet I come back to Nachum’s line and imagine Christie asking us: “If you had a bad week, why should I suffer?”
Because you’ re the governor of New Jersey during a government shutdown.
Alfred P. Doblin is the editorial page editor of The (Bergen) Record, where this column first appeared. Follow him on Twitter: @AlfredPDoblin
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