Christie spends holiday hiding
Beach bum breaks vow to be back at shore
Embattled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spent his Fourth of July cowardly hiding out in a state-owned, oceanfront mansion — despite defiantly declaring that he’d go back to the beach where he was caught sunbathing while it was closed to the public.
“He’s inside. He’s resting now. We’re not doing any press today,” a state cop told The Post.
The Garden State’s most-hated beach bum had vowed to return to the Jersey Shore after signing off on a $34.7 billion budget deal late Monday.
“Whenever I get done tonight, I’ll go back to the beach. That’s where my family is and that’s where I’ll go back to,” he said.
The lame-duck Republican also tried to downplay the wave of controversy generated by photos that showed him lounging outside the gubernatorial getaway in Island Beach State Park on Sunday.
“If they had flown that plane over that beach and I was sitting next to a 25-year-old blonde in that beach chair next to me, that’s a story,” he said.
“I wasn’t sitting next to a 25year-old blonde. I was sitting next to my wife of 31 years.”
Island Beach was temporarily shut down — and longtime bungalow owners were given the boot — when lawmakers failed to meet a Friday deadline to pass the state budget.
Beachgoers who hit the park Tuesday were outraged by Christie’s sand grab.
“It was like he was telling everyone, ‘ Go to hell.’ Like he was kicking sand in everybody’s face,” fumed Christopher Onanuga, 44, of Trenton.
Bill Tenpenny, 58, of Bayville, called Christie an “arrogant bastard. He thinks he’s better than everybody else! And I voted for the guy at one point. Total disappointment.”
Tenpenny’s wife, Marianne, also 58, said that while Christie and his family often stroll the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, “I’m sure he doesn’t want to show his face, not today. People — the voters — are too angry. If I was his wife, I’d be too embarrassed, too.
“This is the biggest blunder since Bridgegate.”
At Liberty State Park in Jersey City, visitors also blasted Christie, who’s currently saddled with a historically low 15 percent approval rating.
“He may be the governor, but he needs to show he’s also one of us, and yesterday he didn’t do that,” said Tiana Sharp, 38, of Jersey City.
Even Chris Christie’s handpicked successor had a hard time figuring out just what New Jersey’s governor was up to. “It’s beyond words,” Lt.-Gov. Kim Guadagno posted on Facebook in response to the photo of Christie, his family and friends relaxing at a state beach — one that the state-government shutdown made off-limits to the rest of the public.
Christie ridiculed his critics for harping on the closure of just a few miles of the Jersey coast, since most beaches aren’t staterun. But what was he really fighting for?
New Jersey saw only the second shutdown in its history over the weekend, after Assembly Democrats refused to go along with a budget deal between Christie and Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney.
Christie had promised to sign a budget loaded with Democratic spending — pro- vided lawmakers also backed his bid to let the next governor raid Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield’s piggy bank.
Christie wanted $300 million now for his drug-treatment programs, and sought the right to grab the cash from the nonprofit (but taxpaying) insurer. The Senate passed a bill letting the next gov seize the money for public-health causes, but Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto wouldn’t go along.
With no budget signed by June 30, state government had to shut down.
The final deal will limit how much cash Horizon can stockpile, but obliges it to devote any surplus to its policyholders, not broader public needs.
Just as well the accord didn’t empower the next gov to spend the cash, since Christie’s antics just upped the odds that his successor will be a Democrat.