The Chris Christie Fantasy.

There are (at least) three reasons that Chris Christie will not be a candidate for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

First, he doesn't know anything about the wider world. Second, he's not even trying with the GOP's evangelical base. Third, he's in no condition to run for president.

Begin at the end. I would guess that Christie is 50-75 pounds overweight. Maybe more. That means he needs to quit drinking, exercise for an hour or more every day and reduce his calorie intake to 1200-1500 per day. He has shown no interest in doing anything like this. That tells you he really doesn't want to run.

Christie can have all the fat cats in the world begging him to run, but it isn't going to get him anywhere if he can't build a relationship with the party's evangelical base. Christie has made zero effort to do anything of the sort. That tells you he really doesn't want to run.

Finally, every successful presidential candidate has a stream of foreign policy, national security, economic policy and domestic policy wizards and experts doing briefings every week to keep the candidate on top of the news and in some cases ahead of it. Is anyone doing that for Christie? There appears to be no Christie brain trust.****

Add it up and you have a guy who is not up to the task, who is not working the GOP's most important constituency and who is not getting up to speed on the major policy issues that are of critical importance to the nation's future.

To be fair to Christie, he has said from day one that he is not and will not be a candidate for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.


Addendum****: Oops! Turns out that Christie has been receiving briefings on a regular basis and from some of the smartest, most capable people in the areas of national security and foreign policy. My mistake. Points 1 and 2 stand.