1. ’Tis the season to negotiate state budgets — or try to, at least.

Maine has shut down nonessential state offices. Illinois is on the brink of a devastating credit downgrade. New Jersey’s state parks and beaches have been closed, despite a heat wave. In all three, outspoken Republican governors clashed with Democrat-controlled legislative bodies.

The most outspoken of them all, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, is dealing with the fallout from a widely circulated photograph that caught him and his family enjoying Island Beach State Park — near the governor’s official retreat — while others were being turned away.