From a surprise win at the Virginia Tea Patriots straw poll to… this.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, just one week after definitively announcing he will not run for president in the 2012 race, plans to endorse Mitt Romney for the job Tuesday afternoon, Fox News has learned.
The event is set to take place in Hanover, N.H., the site of the Republican presidential debate being held Tuesday night. The endorsement will be made in advance of the debate.
We shouldn’t be too surprised. Christie’s donors and Romney’s donors shared 99 percent of their DNA – a fact parodied in an eerily prescient Saturday Night Live skit four days ago. Romney worked over Christie after his final, final, final exit speech. If he’d run, Christie would have faced (and failed) some of the ideological litmus tests that Romney keeps facing (and passing by default, because no one can lay a glove on him). He was probably to Romney’s left on immigration. He’d made the same slow shift on environmental policy – from green to “whatever you say, Americans for Prosperity” – as Romney, but done it later. Thinking more about this move, I think of the pissed-off answer Christie gave to a reporter who asked why the nomination of a judge, Sohail Mohammed, had been controversial. It was because of “the crazies,” and Christie was sick of them. After a weekend spent jawing about whether or not Romney is a cult member, that’s a popular sentiment.
