Chris Christie is having a retirement that is the envy of virtually all others who have served in public life.

He is surrounded by the love of a wonderful family, including a wife and four children, all of whom are accomplished individuals of character.  In his weekly appearances on ABC Television, he displays both major policy and political expertise and communication skills that could make him a leading political commentator for the next decade.  A rabid baseball fan, he is that rarity who sits on the Board of Directors of his favorite team, the New York Mets.

Chris Christie seems to have it all, yet probably in his own mind, he does not.  Like the late former Governor of New York and Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, he has no real confidence in the ability of anybody other than himself to handle our nation’s affairs.  He is an individual of irrepressible ambitions, which could only be satisfied by his election as President of the United States.  Asking Chris Christie to relinquish this ambition would have the same chance of success as imploring Kim Kardashian to embark on a lifestyle of abstinence and monogamy.

Christie has stated that he is considering a 2024 run for the White House.  He does not have a scintilla of a chance, however.

The reason is simple: his popularity polls, which show that support for a Christie presidential bid never rises above a subterranean level.  These polls have two effects.  They make all political and media people who feel aggrieved by past Christie actions salivate.  And they make it impossible for him to raise the funds necessary to run a credible presidential campaign in 2024.

If one reads my numerous columns on Chris Christie since I began my journalistic career as a columnist in 2009, one would think that two different people wrote them.

If one reads my columns regarding Chris Christie, the US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, the reader would think that Chris Christie had no more fervent supporter than Alan Steinberg.  In my view, Chris Christie was the finest New Jersey US Attorney in the 20th Century.  Indeed, I believe future historians will regard Chris Christie, the US Attorney, as New Jersey’s Thomas E. Dewey, a fearless corruption fighter who brought rich and powerful criminals to justice.

Yet if one reads my columns regarding Christie’s record as Governor of New Jersey, the reader would conclude that Alan Steinberg was a most outspoken Christie opponent.  I criticized emphatically the style, policies, and actions of the Christie administration.

It is the outstanding US Attorney record of Christie, however, that could result in a President Ron DeSantis appointing him as US Attorney General.  If DeSantis nominates him for this role, Christie would only be 62 years old at the time he took office.  If DeSantis served two terms as president, Christie would be 69 years old during the last DeSantis year in the White House, not too old for Christie to make one last presidential run.

I believe that Ron DeSantis, and not Donald Trump, will be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. The news yesterday of the apparent imminence of a Manhattan District Attorney’s office indictment against Trump  will cause Fani Willis in Georgia and US Special Prosecutor Jack Smith to put the pedal to the metal and hasten their contemplated indictments against Trump.  These three sets of indictments, together with Trump’s abysmal fundraising thus far  will increase the perception, even among passionate MAGA members that Trump is a loser and result in increasing MAGA flight to DeSantis, who is acceptable to them because he is as much the cultural warrior as The Donald.

DeSantis holds a massive lead over Trump in Florida.  A significant DeSantis victory in the March 19, 2024 Florida primary would give him a decisive lead for the nomination.

If DeSantis is elected, one of his most significant appointments would be the nomination of an Attorney General.  Christie’s outstanding record as US Attorney would doubtless result in his presence on the short list for the position.  He wanted to be appointed as Attorney General by Trump, but he was blocked by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Saudi Kushner on account of his successful prosecution of Jared’s father, Charles. There is no such an apparent intimate of DeSantis who would block a Christie appointment.

It would be essential for a President DeSantis to appoint an Attorney General who repudiated both the Trumpian Big Lie about “the stolen 2020 election” and the January 6 insurrection.  Christie has done so.

The career of Chris Christie has often involved a series of comebacks after his being counted out.  A Ron DeSantis presidential victory, followed by an appointment of Chris Christie as Attorney General could set the stage for yet another Christie comeback, the biggest one yet.

Alan J. Steinberg served as regional administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.