On Stage Was Springsteen, in the Audience, Chris Christie
NEW YORK — Three Jersey boys packed into Walter Kerr Theater in Times Square Wednesday night: a rock star, a former governor (as of Tuesday) and this reporter. What follows is what I saw, with apologies to Bruce Springsteen purists.
Posted — UpdatedNEW YORK — Three Jersey boys packed into Walter Kerr Theater in Times Square Wednesday night: a rock star, a former governor (as of Tuesday) and this reporter. What follows is what I saw, with apologies to Bruce Springsteen purists.
Since before he entered public life, Christie, a Republican, has idolized his local hero, Springsteen, but the love has often been one-sided. Though they have no ties that bind them beyond a shared home state, they both were, at least at one time, the pre-eminent icons of working-life Jersey, and two of its most famous citizens.
Now, one is fetching many hundreds of dollars per seat on Broadway, wrote a critically acclaimed memoir and shows no signs of slowing down. The other has just ended eight years as governor of New Jersey, following a failed push for the presidency and has a murky future.
But on Wednesday, Christie spent his first night out as a private citizen at the tiny Walter Kerr Theater to catch Springsteen cut his own boogaloo on Broadway. The lights dimmed at 8 p.m., and Christie bought a drink and found a seat in a corner off in the dark.
They never quite saw eye to eye, but the two men had a brief détente following Hurricane Sandy, when Christie was at the apex of his popularity. A sign of how far he’d come and how high he’d climbed, Christie told reporters that the two men had hugged and that “we’re friends” after a hurricane relief telethon in 2013.
But Christie soon began to stumble. There was the battle over public pensions in which unions accused him of feeling no pain. His allies shut down the George Washington Bridge, charged with doing things he can’t explain.
Springsteen even mocked him on a late-night show, in a song set to the tune of “Born to Run,” singing: “They shut down the tollbooths of glory ‘cause we didn’t endorse Christie.”
Christie’s subsequent endorsement of President Donald Trump in 2016, whom Springsteen called a “con man” in a protest song, likely dashed any hope of another embrace, either with Springsteen or with many of his constituents.
On Wednesday, there was no need to rehash the glory days, or the battle outside that’s still raging across that Jersey state line. At the end of the show, Christie stood and applauded, his second-row seat now just feet from his idol making his way down the frown row.
But he didn’t reach out his hand for a post-show clasp. Instead he moved out with the crowd, proclaiming it a “great show” as some cameras focused on him outside. He smiled, said it was a “good first night out” and headed to his SUV.
And the car door slammed.
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