Chris Christie 2012

So my track record on predictions isn't that great. I famously predicted that Obama would never get the nomination, much less win the presidency, but bear with me. I have a gut feeling about this one. I mean, look at the GOP field. The current consensus is it's now between Romney and Newt and I think that's true. Despite Newt's rise in the polls, there are signs pointing to a narrow race between them that will go all the way to the convention.

Neither one of them stands a chance to beat Obama. But keeping the race to a virtual tie stands a good chance of ushering in a rare brokered convention. Enter Chris Christie. The base loves him and even liberals have on ocassion expressed admiration for his "in your face" style. He would only have to withstand a couple of months of scrutiny. Not much time to build an oppo narrative against him. And his bombastic persona speaks of a certain kind of strength in direct contrast to the "weak Obama" narrative that's been building for for years on both sides of the fence.

This comes to mind, because I saw Christie blast Obama just yesterday with this exact "weak president" meme. He surfaced briefly in the news cycle to holler, "Well, then what the hell are we paying you for?” He was blaming Obama for the Supercommittee's failure.

Meanwhile, while Ann Coulter's profanity caught some wind yesterday, more significant to me was a brief glimpse I caught of her while I was channel surfing the other night. Only caught the one remark, and don't remember it exactly, but she said something along the lines of, "If we don't get Christie to run, the game is lost."

If I was a GOP power broker, this is the strategy I would use. It could work.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]