This is a love story.

And in many great love stories, some will be punished and some will be pardoned. In this tale of woe, though, the punishment was meted out on national television: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey was scorned, in his hour of need, by the man whose embrace he had so fervently sought and only recently secured.

In the day we sweated out on the streets,

Stuck in traffic on the G.W.B.

For years, it had been a love unrequited — the kind of one-way affection fueling rock songs from the days of poodle skirts and bobby socks.

Mr. Christie, a man of outsize emotions, has loved Bruce Springsteen, the boss and icon of New Jersey, since he was a boy.

But even after attending 129 concerts and attaining the highest political office in the state, Mr. Christie, a Republican, had met Mr. Springsteen only twice — once on an airplane in 1999, and again in 2010, when they exchanged pleasantries at a ceremony at the New Jersey Hall of Fame.