If you are the sort to slow down at the scene of a car crash, then tap the brakes and behold the wreckage of the New Jersey Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union.

"They would be better off with new leadership, then we can start anew," Sen. Steve Sweeney, the senate president, said Friday.

"That's the best thing they could do, I absolutely agree," says Sen. Loretta Weinberg, the majority leader.

"An apology at this point is just too late," says Sen. Joe Vitale. "They should step aside."

Mark the moment, because this is rare -- a full-throated rejection of the state's most powerful special interest group, the mother of all public worker unions, and by far the biggest spender on elections and lobbying in New Jersey.

The NJEA is a pillar of the Democratic establishment, and it still has a kissy-face friend in Phil Murphy, the governor-elect. But this union team is poison in the Democratic legislature now, and it is personal.

Anger at them - not against teachers, but at these leaders -- is unifying every faction of the party. Sweeney is a centrist from the South. Weinberg is a liberal from the North. And Vitale, the most respected policy voice in the Senate, is from Middlesex, a county that is flexing its muscles more and more.

So, what was the sin? The union tried to knock off Sweeney, breaking all spending records to buy a flood of vicious TV ads and mailers, under the motto "Time to take out the trash."

It's a pity they didn't read Machiavelli first, because he had some advice centuries ago for political assassins: Be sure you hit the target.

The NJEA missed its target in a spectacular fashion, as nearly everyone predicted. Sweeney won by his largest margin ever, matching their money step by step, and hammering at the fact that the union candidate was a Trump supporter who volunteered to campaign for Chris Christie in New Hampshire.

Awkward. They are mad at Sweeney for messing with their pension and health benefits, and as their battering ram they chose a Trump guy, Fran Grenier, who once supported a Christie funding scheme for schools that would have led to mass teacher layoffs. Strange bedfellows.

As a bonus, we learned during this campaign that this same crew at the NJEA is paying itself Wall Street salaries. Ed Richardson, the executive director, earned total compensation of $1.2 million in 2015, according to the most recent IRS records. The top five earners, including Marie Blistan, the new president, earned an average of $764,000 that year.

I went to the NJEA convention Thursday in Atlantic City to ask classroom teachers what they thought. A survey of 100 teachers by my colleague Kelly Heyboer found they were split down the middle on the move against Sweeney, and that's what I found, too.

But those Wall Street salaries? New Jersey teachers earn $70,000 a year on average, with mandatory union dues of about $900 a year. The fat-cat salaries are not going down well.

"It's sickening," said Laurie McGowan, a reading specialist from Franklin Township.

"I believe it's too much, I really do," said Joseph Meola, a retired NJEA member who taught in Newark.

Many more said the same, but did not want their names attached.

If this leadership team gave a damn about teachers, they would step aside and let a fresh crew take over.

Teachers have a lot at stake in the Legislature, from pension and health benefits to school funding. With senior Democrats openly condemning this leadership team, and demanding a new one, it is beyond dispute that classroom teachers would be served best by their resignation.

But here's a safe prediction: This crew will not give up those fat Wall Street compensation packages. They may be poison in the Legislature, and that may undercut the interests of classroom teachers. But they will still have nice homes and fancy vacations.

Blistan and her team, faced with the wreckage after this election, said they did everything right. No regrets.

"We showed New Jersey that we will not back down when our values are at stake," Blistan said in a written statement.

Wow. The champion of those values, remember, was the guy with Trump and Christie.

Blistan just began a two-year term, elected by members. And there is no mechanism to remove her, a union spokesman said this week.

So, it seems this team would have to fire itself, which means they would have to be capable of feeling shame. No trace of that yet.

My condolence to classroom teachers, and I mean that. They are the real victims in this story. Their union is losing access to Democrats in the Legislature. Their dues are being squandered.

And their leadership team still thinks it made all the right moves.

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.