"I am New Jersey," Donald Trump said on Fox News Wednesday, and after we suppressed our gag reflex, we tried to discern what this kinship might be based upon.

Because it's hard to relate Trump with our state in any productive way, as most of his connections are built on hallucination, failure or ignominy.

This is the fellow who said there were "thousands of people" on the rooftops of Jersey City in the aftermath of 9/11, though it's not likely he can even locate Jersey City with a compass and a team of bloodhounds.

Four times, his Atlantic City casinos went bust -- or, as he put it, engaged in a "shrewd business move" -- and if his dad didn't bail him out by buying a $3.5 million stack of chips in 1990, there would have been another bankruptcy.

He owned a vanity football team called the New Jersey Generals in the '80s, hemorrhaged $200 million with fellow USFL owners in just three years of existence, and then was humiliated in an antitrust suit against the NFL that rewarded him -- no joke -- three bucks.

(Footnote: He even had trouble keeping the cheerleading squad together, because as actress Lisa Edelstein put it after organizing a walkout in 1983, Trump treated them all "like hookers.")

And he has embraced Gov. Christie Christie (R-Hostage) as his Sancho Panza, even though New Jerseyans would be 42 percent less likely to vote for the GOP this fall if they are force-fed a Trump-Christie woof ticket.

So based on rooftop delirium, business fiascos, leadership flops, and by the dubious company he keeps, Donald Trump says He Is New Jersey. And you wonder why we have an outmigration problem.

More: Recent Star-Ledger editorials.

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