Ideologically speaking, the last few months have been a trying time for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Only a year ago Christie was the original Tea Party Presidential favorite. He defeated both Sarah Palin and Ron Paul and became the winner of the first ever Tea Party Straw Poll held in Virginia. Now, he can’t even walk outside without something happening that puts him at odds with his supposed conservative principles.

First, in June, he decided to take an $1,800-an-hour taxpayer funded helicopter ride to get to his son’s little league baseball game, almost immediately after having shown off his fiscal conservatism chops by vetoing $3,000 in “wining and dining” bills incurred by the South Jersey Port Corporation. Then, later in the summer, he got wound up in the whole Hurricane Irene situation and had to beg FEMA to start pumping in the Federal aid bucks. This stance, it should be noted, was at odds with many Republican congressmen who refused to allocate any money for disaster aid without finding offsets in the budget.

If all that wasn’t enough, he now has to deal with being the head executive of a state that recently awarded $420,000 of taxpayer money to MTV for producing Jersey Shore. Not even his Democratic rivals think that palling around with Snooki and Pauly D is a good idea:

TRENTON —A Democratic state Senator and a national coalition of Italian Americans are calling upon Gov. Chris Christie to block a tax credit awarded Wednesday to the production company of the hit MTV television show “Jersey Shore.”

“It is disparaging to Italian Americans. He should veto it, ” said state Sen. Joe Vitale (D-Middlesex), a frequent critic of the show who supports the film tax credit but said the state should not reward a television show that paints the state in negative light.

Andre’ DiMino, President of Italian American ONE VOICE Coalition, an anti-bias organization of more than 5,000 members. said, “The Economic Development Authority has abrogated the public trust by awarding a tax credit to a show that not only stereotypes Italians, but promotes violence, and cast members who revel in openly breaking the law.”

He added, “Public monies should never be used to subsidize and promote violence, criminal behavior and ethnic stereotyping. This is disgraceful, and we are calling upon Governor Christie and all our legislators to immediately stop the tax credit for ‘Jersey Shore.’ ”