Our prayers might be answered: Christie to decide on 2012 bid.

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Better than Perry, but overrated.

The fact that he said he wouldn't entire a while back makes it easy to paint him as a liar. Also, some policies in New Jersey might be too moderate to attract the crowd Perry has.

If he enters, he'll sink Perry, probably damage Romney to some serious degree with actual attacks, and then lose his appeal.

Right now, my prediction rate of "Candidates who people claim will win but are actually unelectable" is four for four (Trump, Cain, Bachmann, Perry). In fact, I'm going to add an extra: Huntsman, no matter how much people on this forum or in the media want him to do well, isn't going to win. At best, he might perform well in New Hampshire and beat out Ron Paul. More likely, he'll end up somewhere between 2-6%, perform okay in New Hampshire, and flop elsewhere.

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The fact that he said he wouldn't entire a while back makes it easy to paint him as a liar.

Yeah, that will gain traction for sure. 

If Christie reached first place, he would be the same target Perry is. The fact that he flip-flopped regarding his candidacy is as good a place as any to attack him from (though he has his own weak points besides this)

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The fact that he said he wouldn't entire a while back makes it easy to paint him as a liar.

Yeah, that will gain traction for sure. 

If Christie reached first place, he would be the same target Perry is. The fact that he flip-flopped regarding his candidacy is as good a place as any to attack him from (though he has his own weak points besides this)

Good point.  Remember when Obama lost the nomination after Hillary Clinton dug up quotes of his back in 2004 when he said he wouldn't run?  That flip-flopping label sure stuck to him!

Obama said he wouldn't run four years before the elections. Christie said he wouldn't run several months before the elections. Bit of a difference.

Also, Obama (as of 2008) had far, far less flaws in the eyes of the Democratic voters compared to Christie.

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The problem with Romney is that he is a status quo type of guy...he's not going to be real change....I would trust Christie a lot more than I would Romney.  NJ>>MA

How is Romney status quo? He will be a Republican taking over from a Democrat, which suggests that he will hold different views than Obama does on the government's role in a free market economy. Romney is likely to change economic policy quite a bit. Not to mention he will shape the trajectory of Obama's health reforms, or kill them entirely.

And you can't compare records that simply. Christie is shaking things up in Jersey, sure, but did Romney really need to do that in MA?  As governor, Romney faced a 2000s Massachusetts which had vastly problems than a 2010s New Jersey.

He doesn't have a single view that he isn't willing to sell out the instant it becomes unpopular. He has no real beliefs, no principles, and would change exactly nothing after beating Obama except pulling the rug out from under anti-spending Republicans.

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Christie is basically a more economically-orientated version of Rudy Giuliani.

And we all know how Rudy Giuliani dominated the race in 2008

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-coughfredthompsoncough-

Ok...uh...let's try not to use this every time someone gets into a contest "late."

Late doesn't do this justice.

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"By far the most liberal candidate." Excessive stupidity on the poster. Ten yard penalty.

I'm not saying that Christie won't catch hell from some for his "moderate" or "liberal" (or as us sane people would say mainstream conservative) positions on climate change and civil unions, for example, but conservatives love his style and he is certainly more of a conservative than a moderate. And he won't be like Huntsman who is actually running to the left.

Two words: gun rights

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3. He, like Huntsman, expilictly believes in antropogenic global warming
4. He supports civil unions
5. He supported the "ground zero mosque"
6. He has actively called out anyone who thinks Sharia Law is an issue in the US, along with the Tea Party in general

Ah, so he should do well with the sane, mainstream conservative wing of the party that still dominates. Nice.


What's this about him running ads tying himself to "Obama's message?" The "change Trenton, change Governors" ad? Oh, no. Challenger running against incumbent calls for change! I didn't know Obama owned that.

The only thing Obama-esque about those ads: Obama voters saying they were voting for Christie. No one is going to have an issue with that. The thought of that being an issue is so asinine. Christie wasn't embracing any of Obama's ideological beliefs; he was simply the alternative to a horrible Governor and used smart political strategy to make Obama voters (a clear majority of his state) feel comfortable supporting a conservative Republican.

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That, more than anything else, guarantees that Christie won't win the nomination, or even come close to it. Standing against gun rights is a bit of a suicidal view in a Republican primary (especially in this climate), and those other ones certainly won't help.

Anyway, the bulk of his support would come from Romney, and that just results in Bachmann, Paul, Cain et al flying ahead.

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Actually the polls suggest to the contrary. Mittens holds most of his support. Christie drains the rest. Of course, that could change after Christie is "exposed" as some horrible Northeastern "liberal."  But I tend to doubt it. Deep down, the Pubbies "know" the rest of the field just are not in the hunt for anything - nor should they be, except for my boy Huntsman, but he's done.  He just can't sell himself, and he has a lot of selling to do.
 
Palin is still hanging out there. 

What polls? The most recent polls I recall featuring Christie were from a long, long time ago in an economy far, far away.

Mittens held his support against Perry because, as I said when people thought he had any chance and was a frontrunner of any kind, Perry is a bumbling moron who destroys his own campaign with every fourth word that comes out of his mouth. His attacks against Romney were utterly pathetic and he found himself the actual target of the field's attacks due to his (entirely media-fueled) incredible growth in the polls and thus crumbled.

Romney's supporters aren't an incredibly loyal vanguard willing to do anything to support him and incapable of changing views, they just hear that the race is "down to two candidates", look at Rick Perry floundering about in debates, and decide that Romney is the lesser of two evils. Were Christie in the race, the more moderate wing of Romney's support would break off, as would the "We want results and beating Obama is a priority" crowd.

Alternatively, if no one new enters and Perry remains beaten, just about any of the "second tier" or "one-and-a-half tier" could do a better job at hurting Romney than Perry did. Bachmann, Perry, Paul, Gingrich, Santorum even could put up a better fight, if only because they don't have the mass of easy targets that Perry had. If Romney attacked any of them, he might actually have to fight a spirited opponent rather than a sparring dummy.