It is extremely hard for me to understand why members of Romney’s campaign decided to tell Politico that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was Mitt Romney’s first choice as a running mate and that some members of his team thought Christie had actually been offered the job. I see that some people are arguing that this is a sign that the campaign is unraveling and starting to point fingers at each other. As further evidence of this, people are pointing to an Associated Press article about Paul Ryan’s future plans as a non-vice president. I don’t really see these two articles as a tandem. The piece about Christie seems to be clearly a conscious choice of the Romney campaign, while the Ryan piece is unmistakeable evidence that people around Ryan know that Obama will be reelected.
My suspicion is that the Romney folks wanted a Politico piece that explained why Gov. Christie wasn’t chosen as Romney’s running mate. What they got instead was a piece that made it sound like they preferred him to Ryan but couldn’t put up with his tardiness at a couple of campaign events. The result is an article that makes Paul Ryan sound like a reluctant choice.
There may well be members of Team Romney who think Paul Ryan was a stupid pick and that Chris Christie would have been better. I’m not sure you can really argue that in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy because Gov. Christie would probably put his state first even if he was on the ticket. I think everyone should be grateful that Gov. Christie can dedicate his time to helping his constituents rather than trying to campaign for office.
