Bruce Springsteen song skewers Chris Christie. Will 'Jersey Traffic Jam' sting?
Chris Christie鈥檚 "bridgegate" affair has already generated lots of jokes. But none may sting the governor of New Jersey as much as a skit on the most recent 鈥淟ate Night With Jimmy Fallon鈥� that lampooned the subject with a parody of a Bruce Springsteen song.
Why might it hurt? Because Governor Christie loves Mr. Springsteen鈥檚 music. He has been to more than 130 Springsteen shows. He knows all the Boss hits by heart. He dances. He famously cried after finally getting a hug from Springsteen after a show.
And Springsteen himself appeared on Mr. Fallon鈥檚 stage to sing the 鈥淪tuck in Jerseyland鈥� song. Triple ouch.
That鈥檚 right. The skit opened with comedian Fallon, dressed in Bruce-like jeans and a sleeveless denim shirt, carrying an acoustic guitar. He played the familiar opening notes to 鈥淏orn to Run.鈥� But the words were different.
鈥淚n the day we sweated out on the streets stuck in traffic on the GWB,鈥� fake Springsteen sang. 鈥淭hey shut down the tollbooths of glory 鈥檆uz we didn鈥檛 endorse Christie.鈥�
And so on. You get the idea. Then about a minute or so in, the real Springsteen comes walking out of the dark at the back of the stage, dressed in identical clothing. (Did we mention Springsteen has a , coin-ki-dinkally? Surely that had nothing to do with this politically charged appearance, since Springsteen is a well-known opponent of the corporate machine.)
Bruce began with a bipartisan nod.
鈥淐鈥檓on and let me in/I wanna be your friend/there鈥檒l be no partisan divisions,鈥� he sang.
But no, the target here was just irresistible. Springsteen rocked into the chorus, singing, 鈥淚 really gotta take a leak/but I鈥檓 stuck in Gov. Chris Christie鈥檚 Fort Lee New Jersey traffic jam!鈥�
OK, as we said, this might actually offend Christie. He is quintessentially a Jersey boy, after all. He was born in Newark, went to the University of Delaware (which is pretty Jersey-oriented since Delaware is the Garden State鈥檚 kid brother), and has worked as a New Jersey lawyer and politician his whole adult life.
Springsteen is New Jersey鈥檚 most famous product, excepting perhaps traffic. He is such an icon of his generation that because he鈥檚 emblematic of older folks.
After years of rejection, Christie finally met Springsteen when the rocker agreed to participate in charity concerts to raise money for victims of superstorm Sandy. Now the estrangement may rise again.
But the biggest trouble sign here may just be the comedy. As we鈥檝e written before, one of Christie鈥檚 biggest obstacles to overcoming the political effects of the Fort Lee scandal is that it鈥檚 funny. Take traffic jams, tollbooths, Fort Lee, and put them together, and you have an endless array of material for Fallon, Jon Stewart鈥檚 鈥淒aily Show," "Saturday Night Live," and so forth. The New York media machine is just over the George Washington Bridge, after all, and it鈥檚 always desperate for new comedic material.
Right now, the public isn鈥檛 really interested in bridgegate, per se. That鈥檚 seen in a recent Pew poll that shows voters followed it less, as a news item, than the winter weather that swept the nation last week. As a result, it hasn鈥檛 changed opinions about the New Jersey governor that much.
But if David Letterman, Jay Leno, et al., make it a running gag? That could effectively prolong the story and publicize it, making it more difficult for Christie鈥檚 favorability ratings to escape its effects.
[Editor's note: The original version of this story misconstrued the audience's reaction during the Jimmy Fallon show.]
