After the hug heard round the fifty states, Chris Christie, once a presumptive front runner, dropped right out people's favor overnight. In 2012 the party was begging for him to run, to tell you the truth I wanted him to run. Like a chess player he recognized that running against an incumbent, let alone the first black president, was a losing battle. The republicans nominated one of the best general people I have ever had the pleasure of hearing him speak. Mitt Romney was a uniter, a fixer of sorts, the kind of venture capitalist the country needed as our economy was fading under the weight of government regulation, taxation, and government interference. Obama won anyway, it had a lot more to do with his incumbency and the people not wanting to look "racist" by voting him out, leading to his undeserved victory. Why people pushed for Christie over Romney, because he had one quality you can't teach that Romney lacked. A charismatic personality unafraid to speak the truth in an unoffensive way. He would've confronted Obama during those debates when Romney stood silent( at least that's how many felt), he would've brought up the disaster his four year(at the time) presidency was.
Instead he decided to give the president a big ole hug a mere 3 days before the election. (Something completely understandable considering he was a governor looking at a state with billions in damages due to to hurricane sandy, he needed the funds). Yet, largely to the party it felt like a loving embrace in a time when they needed to stand united against Obama and his absolutely corrupt ideology. The biggest birthday president the president ever received and one that conservatives still feel cost them the election in 2012 was that hug, digging Christie, an enormous hole to dig himself out of.
As 2015 approached, almost two year before the election, he elected on a game plan that is sheer brilliant. He knows he has no chance in Iowa, where they prefer soft spoken cordial politicians, but New Hampshire is a place that he could potentially win. He has strong character, he speaks his mind, he's a northern republican and he has gotten things done in a notoriously blue state by working across the aisle, something voters in New Hampshire put a large priority on. Christie recognizing his only chance of obtaining the nomination would be to win New Hampshire( the second state to vote in the primary) to propel him to the top and have the people forget he cost them the election in 2012. The media will start covering him again, he has the right people funding his campaign, and he definitely qualifies for the job. If the question of the hug is ever directed at him, it can be easily deflected by saying, "this was a sitting president visiting my state that was just devastated by Sandy and I needed his support to fund the rebuilding of my state that I was governing."
Either way he put almost 80 percent of his chips in New Hampshire, if he can have a good showing there, than maybe just maybe he can challenge the top three at the moment-Trump, Rubio Cruz for the nomination. In my opinion, it's time for everyone sans who I just mentioned as well as Dr. Carson and Christie, to drop out of the race. Only after ten of the fourteen nominees drop out, or even nine will we truly know who the front runner is.