Christie opts out

Chris Christie ended months of speculation over his presidential ambitions this week by announcing that he would not run for the 2012 Republican nomination. “Now is not my time,” the New Jersey governor said in Trenton, the state capital. “My job here isn’t done.” Christie had repeatedly declared his noncandidacy all year, but was cajoled into reconsidering in recent weeks by Republican donors eager for an establishment alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Christie is likely to be the last candidate to flirt with a late entry into the race. The first ballot deadlines are less than a month away, leaving little time for holdouts like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to throw their hats into the ring. “The reality is, the field is set,” said Republican strategist Jim Dyke.

This whole episode of Christie mania “underscores the remarkable tumult within the GOP,” said USA Today in an editorial. A party that once valued “electability and experience” over ideology has spent a year casting around for any candidate able to pass the “rigid litmus tests” imposed by its hard-line base. That’s how Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and now Christie—a governor who, after all, “has held office for less than two years”—have found themselves thrust into the spotlight. The GOP must now accept that its “search for a savior” is over.

That’s good news for Mitt Romney, said Jim O’Sullivan in TheAtlantic.com. Now that Christie has bowed out, the Republican establishment is beginning to accept Romney as the only viable option. Many key figures in the “Draft Christie” movement are already flocking to him, including Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone. Romney has money and “top-flight talent” on his team, and his conservative opposition has “splintered” behind less viable candidates like Perry and Cain. Despite his liabilities, “Romney is now in a commanding position.”

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Let’s hope he makes the most of it, said The Wall Street Journal. Next year, Republicans need a presidential candidate who can challenge Obama’s big-government philosophy on “practical and moral grounds.” Romney is an able technocrat, but he has seemed unwilling to tackle the fundamental debate this country needs to have over the role of government. His Republican rivals must now test him on “how much reform he really believes in.”