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So soon after celebrating Donald J. Trump's election Tuesday as the capo di tutti capi of America, Chris Christie soon learned that he was unceremoniously dispatched as head of the Trump transition team. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

I suspect one reason mob movies are so popular is that they mirror what happens in real life, just on a more brutal scale.

Typical was the scene (see below) in the 1990 classic "Goodfellas" in which the character played by Jersey's own Joe Pesci is told that he is going to become a made man in the Mafia.

He is instead summarily dispatched with a shot to the back of the head because he did something that displeased the big boss.

That's what happened to our governor last week - on a symbolic level of course.

Chris Christie didn't cross the Don, but he did cross the Donald. So soon after celebrating Trump's election Tuesday as the capo di tutti capi of America, Christie learned that he was unceremoniously dispatched as head of the Trump transition team.

Exactly what Christie did to upset Trump was not made public, but my sources inside the Republican Party say that it was a collection of offenses.

"You can make an agenda of 20 things," said one GOP insider.

What they added up to was a conclusion by the people around Trump that "Christie's all about Christie; he's not about you," he said.

Among the offenses was Christie's effort to put some space between himself and Trump after that "Access Hollywood" video came out with all of those rude remarks about women by the Donald. At a time when Trump needed defenders, Christie called those remarks "indefensible."

Then there was the Bridgegate trial, which took up most of the final month of the campaign.

Imagine Trump had made the mistake of choosing Christie as his running mate.

In that case the national media would have spent most of October making front-page news out of the accusations by Christie's former aides that he knew about the "traffic study" that caused those giant jams during his re-election effort in 2013.

And that in turn could easily have cost Trump the presidency. Fortunately for him, he chose Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate instead. And now Pence has also usurped Christie's role as head of the transition team.

Christie has been relegated to a ceremonial role. Meanwhile the two Jersey guys Christie put on the team, pharmaceutical executive Rich Bagger and lawyer Bill Palatucci, were demoted to the status of advisers.

That was yet another move that irritated the people around Trump, one source said.

"He didn't look for people who knew how to do the job," he said of Christie. "He looks for people who are loyal to him."

Trump of course wanted people who were loyal to Trump, and it might have been a good move to fill the team with such people. But Christie was looking out for Christie.

Unfortunately, not many other people are. During the Bridgegate trial, the mastermind of the scheme, David Wildstein, said that he and the rest of Christie's cronies at the Port Authority made their decisions to please "a constituency of one."

"It meant that the only person who mattered was Governor Christie," Wildstein testified.

Now that the governor's been stripped of his role in the Trump transition, it's starting to look like the term has taken on a new meaning: Christie's constituency is starting to look like it's one person - himself.

There certainly aren't many New Jerseyans who like the governor these days. His popularity has sunk into the teens post-Bridgegate.

That transition role looked like a lifeline out of New Jersey.

Christie would have had a fig leaf for leaving the governorship with a year left in his term. And after giving 4,000 great jobs away, he would have been a very popular person inside the Beltway.

But Bridgegate makes him a problematic nominee for any major jobs with the Trump administration.

"Maybe he could be ambassador to Bermuda," said one wise guy. "The weather's good most of the time and you get a nice house."

It's likely Christie will get a better offer than that. But if he doesn't, then maybe he should just serve out the rest of his term.

"That would be the sweetest revenge," said one pol. "He would hate that."

Perhaps. But in my view that's what he should do.

If Christie were to leave office early, the lieutenant governor would ascend to the governorship.

But the Republican who holds that office, Kim Guadagno, could never leave the state without handing the reins over to the Democrat who runs the state Senate, currently Steve Sweeney.

So that should give the governor incentive to stick around - assuming he needs any.

ADD: Here's the constitutional passage that would cause the Republicans much trouble if Christie were to leave office early and let Guadagno become governor (italics mine):

"In the event that the Lieutenant Governor in office is absent from the State, or is unable to discharge the duties of the office, or is impeached, or if the Lieutenant Governor-elect fails to qualify, or if there is a vacancy in the office of Lieutenant Governor, the functions, powers, duties, and emoluments of the office of Governor shall devolve upon the President of the Senate."

That brings to mind the last time Sweeney sat in for a Republican governor. That was in 2010 when Christie took off for Disney World just as the storm of the century hit New Jersey.

He first had to get an agreement from Acting Governor Sweeney that he wouldn't do anything while the governor was away. Sweeney kept his word. He didn't do anything, including plowing the state highways. Then when he got back, Chrstie traveled to the hardest hit area, Monmouth County, to hold a press conference blasting the very people who were victims of his incompetence.

Is it too much to ask that this guy do the job for the four-year term to which he was elected?

(And here's that scene from "Goodfellas" in which Joe Pesci gets capped.)