Chris Christie For President?

Maybe not. We've always known that he has a temper and is prone to hollering at anyone who questions him. In his first term as NJ governor his staff would gleefully post in-your-face video clips on the guv's personal YouTube channel, which helped to build his reputation as a take-no-prisoners tough guy, perfect for New Jersey.

As talk about a possible presidential run bubbles up, however, his temperament is a concern. Is it presidential? Would "Sit down and shut up" play in Iowa? In New Hampshire? Does "straight-talking tough guy" in New Jersey translate to "bully" on the national stage? This week Christie provided evidence that maybe it does. His most recent on-camera tirade against a heckler was so over-the-top that even the Morning Joe crew, normally big Christie cheerleaders, wondered if he needs "anger management classes." Mediaite has the video.

And another thing about Chris Christie, that I had forgotten. In anticipation of Wednesday morning, when the 2016 presidential campaign will kick-off in earnest, I've been re-reading "Double Down," the how-it-happened book about the 2012 election by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. H and H provide a lot of details about Mitt Romney's process for choosing a VP candidate, including the fact that the campaign took a close look at Christie. What didn't get a lot of attention in late 2013 when the book came out, but may come back to bite him if he runs in 2016, is the fact that Christie didn't pass the Romney campaign's vet.

From the book: "For the past two and a half years, Christie had received skin-blanching exposure from the klieg lights of the national media. But the vetters were stunned by the garish controversies lurking in the shadows of his record."

From a 2010 Dept. of Justice Inspector General's investigation of Christie's spending patterns in his job as a U.S. attorney to the fact that Christie worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the Securities Industry Association at a time when Bernie Madoff was a senior SIA official to Christie's decision to steer hefty government contracts to donors and political allies, there was a whole lot of info that gave the vetters pause. And all of it was in addition to concerns about his weight, his health and his temperament and a couple of years before Bridgegate hit the fan.

One member of the vetting team told his colleagues, If Christie had been in the nomination fight against us, we would have destroyed him - he wouldn't be able to run for governor again. When you look below the surface, he added, it's not pretty. (For the entire story, see Double Down, hard-cover edition, pages 349-356.)

If the Romney campaign was able to find all this stuff, the Rand Paul, or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz campaigns will be able to find it too, way before any Democrat has to worry about Chris Christie. (Not to mention that they've probably read the book.) At least superficially, Christie appears to have survived Bridgegate and is talked about as a top-tier potential candidate in 2016. Political junkie that I am, you bet I'm going to be watching to see how this plays out. It all starts Wednesday morning.