Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Beware of beaches

Gov. Christie cautious about a bad-weather visit

Wild weather predictions washed out Chris Christie's planned stroll on the Ocean City and Cape May boardwalks Tuesday.

While cautiousness seems uncharacteristic of New Jersey's hard-charging governor, he may have had history in mind.

And not merely his own recent health scare.

Recall that two of Christie's predecessors were physically injured after making ill-advised decisions about Shore visits.

In 2007, Gov. Jon Corzine was nearly killed in a Garden State Parkway crash following a speaking engagement in Atlantic City. Corzine was not wearing a seatbelt.

In 2002, Gov. James McGreevey broke his leg on a Cape May beach. The governor fell while chasing his windblown cap in the dark after ditching his security detail; his then-wife, Dina, who was present, offers a lively account of this moonlit misadventure in her otherwise tedious tell-all book, Silent Partner.

And let's not forget that mishaps are not the exclusive domain of Democrats: In 1999, Gov. Christy Whitman also broke her leg.

The fabulously wealthy daughter of Somerset County horse country was skiing in Switzerland, a rather posh outing that really would seem out of character for her fellow Republican.

Anything is possible, however: Christie might someday be tempted to try the 600-foot indoor slope at Xanadu, now being repurposed as "American Dream Meadowlands."

That's the famously stalled, spectacularly ugly and stupendously expensive mega-mall project for which the otherwise tight-fisted governor engineered a fabulous public bailout, including a $200 million tax break.

A decision proving he's quite capable of throwing caution to the winds after all.