Christie feels heat after day at the beach

Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J.

There’s Gov. Chris Christie, lounging in a beach chair in the Oval Office. There he is again, sitting in the sand as the lovers from the movie “From Here to Eternity” roll around in the surf. And there he is, relaxing outside the meat store from “The Sopranos.”

Christie is getting blistered online and in the real world after he was photographed with his family soaking up the sun on a beach that he had closed to the public over the Fourth of July weekend because of a government shutdown.

A deeply unpopular Republican serving out his final six months in office, Christie was lambasted Monday as selfish and arrogant, and jokesters online inserted the picture of him in sandals, shorts and a T-shirt into various photos and movie and TV scenes.

“Tell Gov. Christie: Get the hell off Island Beach State Park,” read a banner carried by a plane flying up and down the New Jersey coast Monday. The banner plane was paid for by Joshua Henne, a progressive New Jersey-based political consultant, and mocked the time the tough-talking governor told people to “get the hell off the beach” during a hurricane in 2011.

New Jersey state beaches and parks were shut down over the weekend along with motor vehicle offices and other services deemed nonessential after Christie and the Democratic-controlled Legislature failed to agree on a budget for the new fiscal year that began Saturday.

New Jersey Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto said Monday that they have a budget deal to end the state’s government shutdown.

Sweeney and Prieto unveiled the deal at a joint news conference Monday at the statehouse.

The deal calls for a $34.7 billion budget that includes more than $300 million in Democratic spending priorities and is part of an agreement to overhaul the state’s largest health insurer.

Christie defended his visit to the shore, saying that he had previously announced his plans to vacation at the state-owned governor’s beach house and that the media had simply “caught a politician keeping his word.”