Yeah, I know — “he’s only been in office four months!” — but still. He’s the Trenton thunder, baby, waging a one-man crusade to break the union stranglehold on state budgets. Not a day passes lately without some righty magazine or website heralding him as the Jersey Reagan. His standoff with the teachers union is supposed to rally the public to his side in a burst of fiscally conservative tea-party fee-vah, not drive his approval down to sub-Obama levels. It’s not supposed to be this way.

Actually, it isn’t this way. I don’t know what sort of sample Survey USA was using, but as of four days ago, Rasmussen had him at a cool 53/45 split among likely voters. Not great, but for a budget-slashing Republican in a blue state, not bad either. Here’s the news coverage of the new poll. You’ll know the exit quotation to this post, which made me laugh out loud, when you hear Christie say it. Click the image to watch.