But Christie deserves his spot on the stage. He’s been running, by far, the most noteworthy campaign. Other candidates are waiting for the dynamics to change. They want scandal, time, exhaustion, and the debates to wear down Donald Trump’s lead. Christie is trying to create those dynamics by frontally criticizing Trump, getting under his skin, and then surviving the blowback being rained down on him on Truth Social from Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster.

[Meh. Christie is running a media campaign, not a real campaign. He’s not talking about issues that matter, other than Trump. The others in the top level of the campaign — DeSantis, Haley, Tim Scott, Pence — are building actual field campaigns and politicking among voters while discussing issues that matter to them. Once again, we’re not even to the first debate, and the organizational focus seems more relevant than whether pundits get satisfaction from talking-head appearances. Christie “deserves” his debate spot because he met the qualifications for it, no more and no less. — Ed]