Previously: How To Write A Satirical Pop Culture Book Sold At Urban Outfitters

Jon Methven is the author of This Is Your Captain Speaking, due out in 2012 by Simon & Schuster. He can be reached here, or follow him on Twitter @jonmethven.

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Paul, the gnomic Texas Congressman who has already led two quixotic presidential runs as a staunch libertarian, wound up winning the poll with 30 percent; Mitt Romney brought in 23 percent and after that the field split into drips and drabs of 6 percent and below. Trump's typically belligerent speech—he wondered if America was becoming "the laughingstock of the world"—won him one percent. Not bad, considering the write-in campaign was as light and hollow as his hair. It stemmed entirely from his accepting the invitation of GOProud—an organization of gay conservatives whose inclusion at the conference is a source of a controversy of far greater interest to reporters than most attendees. At the GOProud booth, they gave out black-and-white Xeroxed flyers asking people to write-in Trump, but were not so very enthusiastic about it. "We do not endorse any candidacy or campaign," two said, almost in unison. What about the flyers? "We want him to be considered."

The unassuming booth, where they also pass out stickers bearing the slogan "Our gays are more macho than their straights," is the reason why a some conservative groups—including the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council—backed out of the event rather than share oxygen with open homosexuals.

Anticipation of a wide open and contentious 2012 primary contest ballooned attendance of CPAC. The American Conservative Union attests that they recorded the largest number of registered attendees in the conference's nearly 40-year history: 11,000 "conservative leaders and activists." Mainstream news outlets arrived in large numbers as well though the two groups were after very different things. Reporters sought tea leaves to read (and Tea Partiers to mock); the students were largely concerned with their careers. (Honestly, both constituencies would be better served by trading goals.) Reporters crowded around elected officials and interviewed the guy walking around in a Revolutionary War costume. Students crowded into meeting rooms for sessions such as "Secrets to Landing a Conservative Job," "Getting Started in Hollywood," and "Becoming a Columnist."

Though larger than ever, and certainly attracting as much attention as ever, CPAC in 2011 was curiously unmoored. The exhibit hall was a riot of competing ideologies. There are not one, not two but three groups that claimed to support "liberty": Young Americans for it, a Campaign for it, and Students for it. The latter two actually work in concert, while the third eschews politics in favor of a "purely philosophical" agenda. "We do not support any candidate, campaign or party," the representative said, handing out pamphlets on becoming a "Students for Liberty" campus leader. I ask what a leader would lead toward, if not a specific campaign. "You'd be a leader for liberty."

A lot of exhibit hall booths had the same buoyant directionlessness. Maybe conservatives have become so good at co-opting the language of generically good goals—who could argue with the titular premise of Americans for Prosperity?—that their messaging strategy has fallen in on itself, relying on a conservative audience's ear for hidden meanings to such an extent they have no hope of reaching anyone else. A friend and I, as University of Chicago graduates, were drawn to the "Youth for Western Civilization" booth, for example, thinking maybe to score some free copies of The Illiad, only to discover that, as my friend put it, "They don't mean Western Civilization"—with its riot of competing philosophies and constantly evolving definitions of freedom—"they mean us, in the building, right now."

GOProud's booth was just around the corner from "The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property"—a Catholic organization that fancies itself a home for modern-day Crusaders. Its representatives wore jaunty red capes that are somewhat at odds with their literature, which condemned the opening up of CPAC to the gay group. It is also an all-male group, with fantasy camps for boys where attendants dress in the white tunics of Crusaders and practice archery. Asked if there isn't some concern that aligning itself with the Crusades—the Pope has apologized for them, after all—a representative told me that the Crusades are misunderstood: "It was a defensive war."

The TFP boys recognized that they were fighting a defensive war themselves when it comes to keeping the conservative agenda staunchly anti-gay, but their attitude toward the battle conformed to the marketplace-of-ideas calculus that imbued the event: "We wanted to make our voice heard."

For a party that has planted its flag on the backs of our armed forces, talk of the war on terror at CPAC was limited mainly to discussing incursions on the homefront. Early on I was accosted by a leafleteer drumming up support for "Secure America Now," a militant-sounding group that actually (thankfully?) interprets its mandate metaphorically: "We want to alert people to threats to the American way of life." Even the appearance of Don Rumsfeld to accept an award —and a surprise cameo by Dick Cheney to present it—made for weirdly parochial rhetoric. A contingent of the crowd reminded everyone of what Cheney and Rumsfeld left unsaid: pro-Ron Paul hecklers shouted "War criminal!" and had to be escorted from the hall.

The Ron Paul contingent was so weirdly, asymmetrically present at CPAC that it disturbed conference regulars. As one co-sponsor said, "I don't know what to expect next year. It'll be a different conference."

As for this year's conference? The conservative movement is so divided they can't even decide how to delegitimize an election. "The Paul people bought it," said a guy from Americans for Tax Reform of the Straw Poll. Isn't that the point? You guys believe in a free market, right? And on abolishing campaign finance reform? He paused. "You have a point," he said. "But that doesn't mean it means anything."

Ana Marie Cox is GQ's Washington correspondent.

Photo by Mark Taylor.

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But it's true: after I signed on for a day following around the Giuliani campaign, and filed a few little stories, my editor had to write back to tell me we couldn't just publish mean things about him. And I was like, but that's all there is! It's just him, walking down the street, getting yelled at by homeless people, and cutting people off in town halls, and being rude and sarcastic to people, and bumbling around like a rich fish out of water! You'd never seen a press corps so delighted and aghast. David Corn looked like someone had pasted a three-foot smile over his face.

And now? It has been a long recession. (Less so for Giuliani, as his outfits have spent the time lobbying for drug companies and charging Mexico City millions of dollars for telling them to get rid of "squeegee men" and so on.) We've been through tough times as a country!

And so the editorial staff of this publication would like to remind all of America that we must remember the healing power of laughter. Run, Rudy, run. We beg. Also now that you mention it, a Rudy Giuliani-Chris Christie ticket would be a dream come true—like a top-notch Abbot and Costello movie, but where they're both dicks.

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I'm going to need a job, David, after 2013, you know? And so whether it's going to be being governor of New Jersey or doing something else, I have four kids between 7 and 17—I'm working the rest of my life anyway. So it's going to be doing something, David, so maybe it'll be that. Who knows? – Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), Meet The Press, 7 November 2010.

I love it when millionaires pretend they have Ordinary People problems. The implication is that Chris Christie is just another Jersey working stiff, sweating it out in the streets of a runaway American dream. The Kevin James of governors.

Now get this: in 2009, Chris Christie was technically unemployed—running for governor all year, he did not have "a job, David." Yet that same year, his household income went up by almost $100,000.

That's right: in this crash economy that Obama is supposedly strangling with the strength of ten Kenyan anti-colonialists, Mrs. Christie saw her Wall Street salary rebound, big time—oh? You didn't know that Mary Pat Christie is a senior vice president in the high-yield corporate bond department of Cantor Fitzgerald? No? Gee, it's strange that the in-depth Today Show profile less than a week after their tax returns went public made no mention of her profession, listing her only as "CHRIS CHRISTIE'S WIFE," even though she is the family's breadwinner.

And what a loaf it is. The Christies earned something around $596,000 in 2009. You remember 2009.

Unless Christie plans to send his kids to school the Meg Whitman way—"YOU get a 'residential college'! And YOU get a 'residential college'!"—I think he's going to be able to retire with a decent modicum of comfort.

Because consider this: the governor of New Jersey makes $175,000 a year. Now, add that to 2010's even-better Wall Street gains. If that's the Jersey death trap suicide rap, baby, sign me up. I am born to run.

Christie, on the other hand, is not. At least not in 2012, anyway.

Right now, Christie's breaking a lot of hearts on the right by playing the 'No way, no how' card. Some admirers are so convinced that he is the person to beat Obama in 2012 that they think the administration is actively trying to take him out. As proof, they point to a new Justice Department report detailing his taste for the high life. Turns out Christie was the fairest U.S. Attorney of them all, regularly billing taxpayers for fancy hotel rooms way above his government allotment. Oh no! Run for your lives! Obama's going to slaughter his Enemies List! With sternly-worded REPORTS!

What noobs. Before the Republican trendspotters had even laid their eyes on Scott Brown's happy trail, Christie's Pretty Woman habits were well documented, along with several other peccadilloes: circumstantial evidence that he conjured subpoenas to influence the 2006 U.S. Senate race; the nondisclosure of his financial relationship with an assistant U.S. Attorney who was delaying FOIA requests on... wait for it... his government travel expenses; turning the wrong way down a one-way street and sending a motorcyclist to the hospital—and not getting ticketed after he identified himself as the U.S. Attorney.

Look, what I'm saying is that no one is going to dig up any new dirt on Chris Christie. That opposition research file was done and done in 2009. Know why? Because the guy Jon Corzine hired to do his dirty work was a Pulitizer Prize-winning buyout fatality of the Star-Ledger, whose last beat just happened to be… ding! ding! ding! Chris Christie's U.S. Attorney's office in Newark!

Corzine's guy did an ace job at tearing down Christie, and they probably would've won had their candidate been any other Democrat. But Corzine was just so unpopular, Jersey could've been bluer than a hypothermic choking victim and he still would've lost.

The point is that Christie's closet has been cleared out. If anything damaging were to arise, it's going to be related to his conduct as governor. Or his personality.

It's the personality that's turned him into a contender. See, the day Chris Christie was taking the oath of office, all of America's Republican energy was in Massachusetts, rallying around another rich guy who went around in a barn jacket saying, "I drive a truck." Scott Brown would have the Kevin James bit down, too, were it not for his Cosmo bod. And he was all set to bury Obamacare with Kennedy until, well, the GOP collectively realized he is kind of a flake. And did you hear about this other guy from New Jersey who yells at people?

It was about four months into his term when Christie scolded a columnist at a press conference for asking about his “confrontational tone.” And in doing so, he basically gave the gubernatorial equivalent of, Wha-wait, I’m the asshole? No, buddy, YOU’RE the asshole! (This is how we usually settle our disputes in Jersey.)

But then video of the encounter went viral, and then so did a bunch of other videos of him telling middle-aged women teachers that they’re garbage and, several Neil Cavuto appearances later, voila! Cult of personality complete. A Kevin James who moonlights as an insult comic.

In ways, the videos of Christie letting his Jersey run loose is a lot like the Jersey Shore. We grew up with people like Pauly D and Snooki. We went to high school with them when they were just beginning to discover the full extent of their guidocity. Sometimes they were cool and other times they were complete dicks. But there was nothing really exceptional about them. It was just how they were. And then all of a sudden, somebody puts some cameras on them and says to America, 'Hey get a load of this,' and blamo: they're superstars.

Because believe it or not, Christie was getting short with people way before he was a viral video sensation. It sometimes made the news during the campaign, yet it was less celebrated. In fact, it was a liability, because his impatience was not taken as a sign of endearment. He was just another loudmouth pushy crank in a state full of loudmouth pushy cranks. A lot of us still see him that way—locally, at least. So he'd get testy with someone, and our mothers would roll their eyes, lean back in their chairs and exhale audibly as if to say, Here we go again.

The thing is, all of a sudden you want this, America. We're still ashamed when our cousin Nicole heads for the Shore looking like a skank. (Sorry, Nicole.) Only now she might get a tanning salon endorsement out of it. And those temper tantrums we sigh at? They could be the foundations of the 45th American Presidency.

Christie clearly eats this attention up, and it's all going straight to his head. And laugh all you want at the fat jokes, but he's working with a personal trainer and has lost some serious pounds (the first 30 of which were negated by the 30 pounds he gained during the gubernatorial transition).

Besides the weight loss, he's offering up other tell-tale signs that he's considering a national run. What with his saying, 'Thanks but no thanks to that tunnel to nowhere Manhattan.' Or like last week, when he essentially said he's not sure if he believes in pollution. I mean, why else does one go to Iowa and inflate his poll numbers by a good ten points?

That's right: the AP's Mike Glover reported that Christie was telling those people of the corn that he was elected with less than 50 percent of the vote and after yelling at people through a conservative megaphone, his approval rating was nearly 60 percent. Except that it wasn't. Scott Rasmussen, perhaps the most biased and inaccurate pollster of 2010, found him at 57 percent on August 31, but every other poll has had his approval rating hovering in the mid-40s to low 50s. It's like the guy who makes out with a girl and then tells everybody at school that they went all the way. It wasn't even the latest poll before his trip: a Monmouth U/Gannett poll (which is a poll we actually pay attention to) had him at 45 percent two weeks before his Iowa stop.

I write about this because no one else has. After I read that AP story, I asked a friend of mine who works in Jersey Democratic politics if maybe I was imagining things (the questions we ask ourselves after days on end with minimal face-to-face human interaction). No, he said, he had noticed it. It had even happened before and he brought it to the attention of a reporter—one who shares that Pulitzer with Corzine's opposition research guy. According to my friend, the reporter kind of brushed it off, saying that Christie didn't deserve the presidential-level dodging-bullets-in-Bosnia scrutiny yet.

(Come to think of it, those guys won that Pulitzer for writing about how Jim McGreevey is gay after he came out of the closet.)

What I'm saying is that Christie has gotten through the door, and he's sitting pretty. He's a Republican rock star, his wife is racking up the bucks on Wall Street and he's got the media totally bowed to him. No more ex-reporter oppo-research guys rifling through his files making him look bad—now they're all frightened of getting stomped in a viral video.

Even the one who sits in the Russert chair—which is apparently no longer the toughest interview on TV—is getting rolled. David Gregory could barely stand up for himself when Christie accused him of "advocating" for tax increases. (Yes, Christie is so brazen that he can even assign tax-increasing motives to the moderator of Meet The Press.) Gregory tried to object but the Governor kept on telling him how to ask questions and claimed victory by saying, “Then we agree” two times in succession, which in Jersey translates to Oh, I’m sorry—sorry you’re too friggin' STUPID to realize I’m right.

Here is a guy with such a short record in elected office, and yet Gregory could produce no skeptical questions, let alone Meet-style adversarial ones. Not like Christie didn't leave himself wide open. He repeatedly invoked "shared sacrifice" and how when it was time to make cuts, "everyone came to the table and everybody had to contribute"—everyone except the millionaire set. They got tax cuts. (Because families like the Christies aren't doing well enough to share in some sacrifice?) And then he brags that he offset it with spending cuts.

That is a LAUGH RIOT for anyone with a grasp of Christie's record. OK, so to do away with millionaires' sacrifice, Christie cut prescription drug funding for senior citizens. But then the socialist cabal in Washington passed Obamacare and sent federal aid to the state that allowed him to restore the seniors’ prescription program. And Christie took credit for it! So yeah, he offset the tax cut: with federal deficit spending. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul only to steal some guy named Barry's wallet to pay Peter back. The same old shell game New Jersey governors have been playing for years.

And seriously, come on, David Gregory, or any thinking person for that matter. By Christie's own admission, New Jersey is "broke" and everything's on the table, yet he's giving tax cuts to millionaires? And if you say, Well, it's to stimulate the economy, then isn't that the same Keynesian deficit approach that Obama's employing, only it's from the supply side? Doesn't make it any less of a deficit. If you want to see some reining in of government in action, check out Britain, where they're cutting spending and raising taxes. Yeah, they've got riots right now, but that's what happens when conservative government attempts to conserve fiscal order and doesn't just rotate the pie tray toward its ever-fattening 1 percent. Until then, Christie is just Christine Whitman 1995 with balls.

(And if you're an out-of-state Republican who doesn't get that reference, then maybe learn a thing or two about Jersey before you take any time away from painting tin cans or whatever it is that you do to draft our governor as the next president. And don't go telling me that you read the National Review cover story because all that guy did was stenograph Christie talking points and write about a Mercedes in the faculty parking lot of his old high school. It's not my fault that he never stopped to consider that maybe it was leased or, you know, that maybe this teacher's spouse was an employee of the high-yield corporate bond department of Cantor Fitzgerald?)

No, Chris Christie does not run for president in 2012, lest people start looking at how his well-regarded rhetoric matches up with his record. Christie celebrates himself as one who stands up to opponents, who is not afraid to take the tough questions, and yet on the other hand, he may be wise enough to know that he shouldn't invite them either. He's like Kimbo Slice, undisputed champion of the viral video street fight, mopping the floor with reporter chumps. Then he steps into the eight-sided cage with the pros, and all of a sudden, we find out he's had a glass jaw all along.

Because Christie's found the magical middle: in the big time, but without the tough questions. And face it: Will you seek the White House in 2012? is not a tough question. It's nothing compared to what you're asked once you're a candidate, the level of scrutiny to which every word and sentence is subjected.

And then there's the argument he'd have to win with the American people. The question he asks them. It's the most important question of them all, and it's asked every time someone has challenged an incumbent president since Jimmy Carter: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Well, for Chris Christie, living large in the figurative (sometimes literal) penthouse of American politics, the answer to that question would have to be "yes."

And for a potential presidential challenger, that's the wrong answer.

John R. Bohrer is so Jersey, he thought ‘forward’ was spelled 'foward' until he was 18 and a half years old. True story.

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It's a good start, I guess, but I wish they'd paid a little more tribute paid to glassing, which, as the black sheep of the knife crime family, never really gets its due. A few scattered shards is all I'm asking for.

This is much more promising. Sure, Little Englanders will be upset by its European characteristics, but they've hit all the major points, right down to the hoodie-style helmet. They should call him "Mr. Shanky," just because.

Overall, I'm very impressed. Blades up, Britain, the games will be here before you know it! Just keep dodging those daggers.

RELATED: Guardian readers have some suggestions of their own. Be sure not to miss the crack-smoking squirrel.

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