The head of New Jersey's largest teachers' union called on Gov. Chris Christie to resign Sunday after the governor suggested the group's national counterparts deserve a punch in the face.
Wendell Steinhauer, president of the New Jersey Education Association, said in a statement Christie "should resign as governor immediately" after the Republican presidential hopeful assailed teacher unions for putting the interests of adults ahead of students.
"Chris Christie's instinct is always to threaten, bully and intimidate instead of build consensus and show true leadership," Steinhauer said.
"That's not news in New Jersey, where voters overwhelmingly reject his immature and inappropriate behavior as well as his failed policies and lack of leadership," he said. "It is clear from polling that voters in the rest of the country also reject his rhetoric and his behavior."
Christie's happy about all this attention, that's for sure.
He finally broke through the 24/7 Trump coverage with something outrageous that got him some headlines, outrage on social media, and attention from one of his favorite adversaries, the NJEA.
He's built a career on this sort of thing but Donald Trump stole his thunder by saying even more outrageous things and getting almost all the media coverage in the GOP primary story.
So Christie had a good morning yesterday, from his perspective, by saying he'd like to punch the national teachers union in the face.
No matter - right after that, he got booed long, loud and hard in two separate choruses by 61,000 horse racing fans at Monmouth Park yesterday.
That booing - which the Asbury Park Press described as a "bombarding" and NJ.com described as "merciless" - reminded him how people in his state feel about him (where he has a 58% disapproval rating and 57% saying he should resign) and how his fellow Republicans feel about him in the GOP primary, where he will just barely make the Thursday FOX News debate cut with 3.2% support.
Christie's a very unpopular governor in a state with one of the worst economies in the nation and an aging infrastructure that Christie has made much worse through negligence and inaction.
Christie has overseen the near destruction of the state pension system and nine debt downgrades for the state.
Yesterday Christie tried to relive his "Glory Days" by going back to the teacher-bashing and union-bashing schtick he used early on in his administration to great acclaim and rode all the way to a 2013 re-election.
But those glory days are long gone and now Christie's left with the mess he's made in New Jersey, the hostility a majority in the state feel for him and the disdain GOP primary goers have for him.
As Bruce Springsteen, Christie's hero, once sang "Glory days well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye Glory days, glory days..."
They're over, Chris, they're over.
