The vetting for VP did turn up some extremely bad news regard Christie. Romney had a short list of 5 people who consented to undergoing the vetting process, which was thorough. Christie’s submission was incomplete.

What did come out was that as a US Attorney he consistently exceeded his travel allowance without adequate justification. There was an alleged affair with a female deputy, who accompanied him on numerous trips. There were allegations he steered government contracts to cronies and a defamation suit arising out of a political race. His brother Todd who was thoroughly crooked and among other things paid settlement charges for overcharging people on stock sales. Christie was a lobbyist for a while and had numerous dubious clients, unsavory enough that they could become campaign issues. On top of that was Christie was chronically late, has an uncontrollable temper, and expected to be treated like royalty. There’s more, but that’s the gist of it.

And then there was much information Christie wouldn’t divulge. So while he was a great fundraiser, and he was considered to be a super VP nominee by people not privy to the vetting information, he was ultimately considered to be a liability. Those in the know thought he could not be elected governor again, the info was so damning.

A furious Christie, not one to put up with disrespect or disappointment easily (“he don’t put up wid shit from nobody”), retaliated by a less than pro-Romney speech at the Tampa GOP convention, and later spit in the eye of the whole Party by embracing Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The man has a reputation for not just getting even, but getting ahead.

I hesitate to indulge in conspiracy theorizing, but when it comes to internal Republican catfights, its hard to resist the temptation.

A lot of it was about the Romney campaign. It seems that Romney had some handicaps as a political campaigner. He was a reluctant fundraiser, reluctant to prepare for debates and an indifferent speechmaker. He wavered back and forth about his candidacy, needed his wife to prop him up, didn’t have or seem to want to control his staff.

He was hamstrung by the charge he would “flip-flop”, and thought he had to stay with whatever he had said whenever he had said it.

He had ambition, but not much else. When things got tough he would head off to an expensive house he was radically remodeling on the California coast, and then return when his staff begged him.

I think he ran for president because he could, not because of any particular desire. He certainly wasn’t driven in the manner of LBJ, JFK, RN, guys of that ilk.

But he sure looks like a president, doesn’t he?