Despite some criticism from within his party for his bear hugs for President Obama during Hurricane Sandy, NAFUSA member Chris Christie is receiving some recognition as a possible front runner for the GOP nomination for the White House in 2016. New Yorker writer John Cassidy, for instance, writes in his blog Can A Certain (Very Popular) Fat Guy From Jersey Win The White House?:

Then there is Hurricane Sandy, a tragic accident of geography and nature with which Christie will forever be associated. A month on, he is basking in record approval ratings: sixty-seven per cent, according to  one new poll; seventy-two per cent according to another; seventy-seven per cent,  according to a third. “Christie never looked more like ‘Jersey Guy’ than when he  stood on the seaside boardwalk after Sandy, and, just about unanimously, his New  Jersey neighbors—Republicans, Democrats, Independents—applauded,” said Maurice  Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “The  Governor gets high marks from the cities, the shore, from every corner of the  state.” And not just in Jersey. More than his flirtation with a Presidential run  earlier this year, more than his speech at the Republican Convention in Tampa,  Christie’s vigorous response to the storm—and his vigorous embrace of President Obama—turned him into a national figure. In a situation crying out for  leadership, here was somebody who seemed willing to set aside partisan politics  and seek help anywhere he could find it, even if that meant putting his arms around a Democratic President who was due to face the voters a week later.

In the meantime, Christie has a relection campaign to face in New Jersey.