Chris Christie moves aggressively into the "no-hoper" category

By Richard Barry

Kudos to Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight for one of the funnier opening lines of a post this campaign season.

Regarding New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, he writes:

We may be about to find out whether a politician can have a negative chance of winning a presidential nomination. 

Enten provides a graphic of the standing of various GOP presidential contenders and notes:

As the chart indicates — at this point in the race — most eventual nominees are either well-known and well-liked, or not well-known. There’s no precedent for a nominee who’s this well-known and this disliked.  

On Friday two people were indicted for that nasty bit of political payback called Bridgegate. One of them was a former member of Christie's staff. Christie has long argued, rather unsuccessfully, that he had no idea how two of three access lanes to the George Washington Bridge came to be closed in September 2013 causing horrific traffic delays in Fort Lee, New Jersey and a massive headache for local politicians. 

So, there's that. And, as we have known for some time, Christie's politics, enlightened enough to allow him to be the governor of a very blue state, are hardly palatable to the Republican base.

There aren't many rules in presidential politics, but being a lout and a bully still typically disqualifies a candidate from serious consideration. Let's keep that rule.

Meanwhile I'll chuckle through the day at the thought that Christie could actually have a negative chance of winning the GOP nomination.