was another Blue State governor posing as a conservative.

That might be the rave with all his millionaire king makers, but it is not with the electorate.

One John McCain ever decade or so is enough. Thank you.

Christie is certainly not a pure conservative, that is for sure.

But he is one of the most eloquent fiscal conservative voices for govt reform, entitlement and pension reform, and government restraint we have. He is certainly more eloquent than Romney, Perry, or Cain on the issue.

So I probably would not have supported him for President, but his consideration was more than simple MSM hysteria.

Herman Cain would make a fine POTUS. national service is a big plus! However, those who have not served are no less qualified to be POTUS.

He will not run and have his entire life and family run through the MSM meat grinder. NYC media would have a field day with him after what he did to Corzine and all of his money.

If he did serve in the military tell us about that. Sorry running Pizza Palors is not my idea of exceptional service to America.

A year ago, who would have ever thought Mitt Romney would be the best the Republican party has to offer, It’s unbelievable a flip flopper is now the prohibative favorite to be the nominee. What happened over the last year to make this possible?

I’ll tell you what happened. The best candidates we had to offer this cycle just didn’t want to put in the effort. They thought Obama was unbeatbale even though he always was. Guys like Jeb, Christie, Thune, Daniels, Barbour, and Ryan decided it was better for them to fight for an open seat in 2016.

What has become of the conservative movement and the Republican party that so many are more interested in the own self interest than a country in dire need of help? I’m tired of hearing these guys go on TV and tell us how bad Obama is only to say they’re not running. If he’s bad for America, then run.

This has always been, remains, and will be the considered the most embarrassing presidential field of modern times. I just can’t believe Mitt Romney is going to be so lucky. What happened?

n/t

First, he is not a supporter of second amendment rights & therefore I would not vote for him in the primary.

Second, the push for Christie illustrates something about the Tea Party/constitutional movement: it is not yet mature enough to field a strong candidate at the national level. In 2010 the TP had strong and not so strong candidates at the state and local level, who (Marco Rubio et al) are maturing as national candidates for 2016 and 2020. There will be more such candidates arising out of the 2012 state level elections..

Thus you have the strange sight of the Tea Party wing poaching on the establishment territory (and Christie is very establishment, despite his pugnacious persona) to find their candidate (Kristol, Coulter et al). Though he would probably beat Obama, it’s hard to see how he could win the nomination, being well to the left of Romney and entering the race late. Romney has no problem attacking Perry from the left (on SS) and the right (on immigration). He would have a field day with Christie.

I’m not saying the Presidency is unimportant in 2012, exactly, but rather that the search for the conservative messiah is misguided. Obama and his socialist agenda have failed, and he will lose no matter who the Republican nominee is. That no conservative Obama has arisen (the One we have been waiting for, etc) is actually a good thing. It shows the movement is a genuine grass roots one, not a cult of personality as the Obama campaign turns out to be.

In my view Romney would be a weak President because he so obviously lacks core political principles. I truly hope someone else is nominated. Still, he would move the ball own the field, if only because he would be guided by expediency in dealing with a very conservative House & Senate.

I agree that a big part of the obsession with Chris Christie is that he’s in the NY-NJ-CT Tri-State area where the Media people live as well.

But there’s another dimension at work too, I think.

Quite a few people are in agreement with the conservative movement on fiscal issues. If I had a dollar for every liberal Democrat acquaintance who claims to be fiscally conservative but socially liberal… why, I could afford Obama’s taxes.

It so happens that fiscally conservative, socially liberal is an unthinking position lacking self-examination, but fact is that quite a few people supposedly support such a thing.

Christie is, in a way, the poster boy for that particular brand of politics: fiscally tough, fighting the unions, slashing budgets, telling the blunt truth about the numbers… but socially well to the left of the GOP base on issues such as Second Amendment, gay marriage, and the like.

He’s possibly the perfect Republican governor for a blue state like NJ. Nationally, he won’t get much traction within the GOP base.

I suspect Democrats and their Praetorian Guard Media instinctively understand that Christie would flame out in the GOP primary race, despite his strong fiscal record and positions. I suspect that is what they want to see most of all, which would then allow the Left to brand the Tea Party and conservatives as being really motivated by racism, sexism, and homophobia instead of putting the nation’s finances on sound footing.

It’s a clever strategy. I hope Christie understands that he’d be used simply as a pawn to discredit the conservative movement, and that he would stay out of the race.

He was relentlessly consistent and then got very strongly wooed in the last few weeks but I’m glad I was right when I said he wouldn’t run.

I’m bittersweet about him not running even though I didn’t think he would. I have the feeling he’d be the best prepared debater on the stage anywhere and he’s absolutely right – he could win. He can win. But he’d have a hard time escaping from the perception that he used New Jersey as a stepping stone to the Presidency and I’ve always really believed that he wanted to be Governor there to keep doing what he started and … most importantly … follow through. You can’t do that if you’re going to announce your Presidential candidacy in the beginning of this month, it would have been a constant distraction.

Christie has a long career ahead of him and I think he made the right decision.