The return of Governor Chris Christie (he actually never left)

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
[illustration by Jack Brummet]

The Drudge Report reported today that President Barack Obama told a top fundraiser that Romney wants to choose Gen. David Petraeus for the vice presidential slot.  That would be interesting.  But it also appeared in The Drudge Report, so the veracity of that rumor is immediately called into question. 

Politico today reported that  Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, Marco Rubio, Kelly Ayotte, Bob McDonnell, Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal were out of the running, since they have all been assigned speaking slots at the Republican convention in three weeks.    I still think that Rubio and Ryan are in it, but I have nothing rational or factual to back that up.  Jeb Bush must have bigger plans for 2016 (assuming Romney survives his income tax problems and remains on the ticket).  The Condoleezza Rice VP-ship was always just a GOP opium pipe-dream.

What's also interesting is that, after being more or less out of the running the last couple of months, Chris Christie is either being considered as a possible VP, or his name is being conspicuously tossed around just to keep things interesting (anything to get people to quit talking about Mitt Romney's taxes, and his disastrous European Leadership Tour).  His loud, brash, blunt style would be an interesting, and most likely extremely-awkward, adjunct to Mitt Romney's near-total absence of charisma, charm, and, as we have seen the last few months, political intelligence, and a crippling inability to connect on any sort of retail level with the voters.  Christie on the ticket wouldn't be an actual personality transplant for Ex-Governor Romney, but it might not hurt.

No one is voting for Mitt Romney; they're voting against The President.  Mitt's big dilemma now is to figure out how to make people like him.  And that, friendos, is a Sysiphean rock to push up the hill. 

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