By David Cruz
NJ Today
Administration officials say the governor’s been doing shore tours to start and end the summer every year, and the fact that this year he’s running for reelection doesn’t change anything. Today the governor’s two-a-day shore stops started in Bradley Beach.
On the final day of his week-long end of summer tour, the governor encountered something he hasn’t seen all week — demonstrators. They chanted, “Jersey strong, Christie’s wrong.”
“They should just show up at Barbara’s events so that maybe she’d have a few people at them,” Christie said.
“I think he’s bothered by it,” said Tony Weill of Piscataway. “I think he doesn’t like people who tell him where he’s going wrong, which is in most cases. As far as I can tell, he’s done really one good thing for this state, which was fight the Republican Congress and call them out for not providing aid. But virtually everything else I see from him has not benefited most of the people in the state of New Jersey.”
But, by and large, the governor’s crowds have been nothing short of adoring. In Bradley Beach, the crowd grew the longer the governor stayed and if the protesters were looking for a confrontation, the governor mostly didn’t take the bait. Over in Seaside Heights, where the boardwalk is still not entirely open and cranes still dot the shoreline, hundreds waited patiently on line to greet the governor. Christie said reports of a mixed economic recovery down the shore this summer weren’t unexpected. Neither was the criticism of his starring in the “Stronger Than The Storm” TV ads.
“Listen, I knew all along when the ad company recommended that I be in the ads, that it was going to be controversial. I knew that. But I also know that for better or for worse for New Jersey right now, there’s no one more identified both here and around the country with this state than I am. And if I had not done it, it would’ve been political. And I wasn’t gonna do that. What I cared about most is what I care about now, which is getting our state back,” Christie said.
Inland, where folks were still trying to get their homes back together, the reviews were somewhat mixed. Sandy Goldfarb says she’s been playing a waiting game with the administration.
“I’ve left him a couple of messages. He said to expect something in six months. That was back in February. I haven’t heard anything. And after I hadn’t heard anything for a while, I called the administration and I don’t get a return phone call. So that’s disheartening,” she said.
When asked how the governor’s words made him feel, Seaside Heights resident Daymian Gomez said, “I was happy but then at the time I was nervous because I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I was freaking out because I was scared.”
This weekend marks the traditional end of the summer and the traditional beginning, if you can believe it, of the political season.