There was a lot of talk last week about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's presidential hopes suffering a mortal blow after two of his associates, including a former deputy chief of staff, were indicted on charges related to the "Bridgegate" matter, with a third pleading guilty. The only part I would quibble with is whether his hopes were still alive before the indictments or if they were, in fact, already dead for reasons mostly unrelated to the George Washington Bridge controversy. For the first 10 months or so of last year, there were a lot of heavyweight Republicans, many of them big donors, urging Christie to run. They were disproportionately corporate chieftains and Wall Street folks, mostly from the greater New York City area, looking for an establishment-oriented Republican, one more conservative than not, but clearly not from either the tea party or the social, cultural, and evangelical wing of the GOP. The first choice for most of these folks was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, but up until around Thanksgiving, the betting was that the son of one president
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