back story is tom kean's son is a state senator in new jersey, very ambitious his self-. play that happened late last year, effectively chris christie and his people blocked his ascent in the state senate. as kean told me, he tried to take out my son. that's the back-door story. >> even putting aside bridgegate, it explains why it is hard to climb the greasy pole of politics. in jersey it is especially personal. this is obviously not helpful for governor christie at all. he's still somebody who i think is seen as a very formidable figure in the eyes of a lot of national republicans. what's so interesting is three years ago all of us would have said, well, romney is not that great of a nominee but wait until 2016 when they'll have a great field of republicans. we're close to 2016 now and the field is not as formidable as it once seemed. >> that's why he's got a shot. nobody is out there that's so dominant that christie should just pack it in. >> the establishment is saying jeb bush, you've got to run. there were even this round of rumors they'll run to mitt romney. if chris

i thought one of the most damning apartments of ryan's story out today is former governor tom kean in in ways responsible for christie's emergence on the national political scene. kriszie visited him as a high schooler and was a longtime ally. ultimately, christie attempted to engineer a coup against his son for political expedience which lost him unsurprisingly the favor of his mentors who then says on the record in this piece today, christie doesn't always try to persuade you with reason. he makes you feel that your life is going to be very unhappy if you don't do what he says. then he ends with the piece saying if you cross christie he'll come back at you even years later so his people might have picked up on that kind of thing, referring to the culture of intimidation in this office. >> absolutely. you know, one thing in the ryan lizza piece, there's a great anecdote talking about this roast corpus christiie was recently at where he literally -- most people at a roast kind of take it all in stride and it's all in fun. he was getting up and huffing at joy bay har on stage when she'

tom wolf, self-funded kean. looks like he has a better chance. she's behind.ak out of the pack. it would be interesting if she gets out of the pack whether or not she is still embracing and hugging obamacare in the same way. michelle nunn in a better position in georgia. remember, it's georgia. so she's got to run in a more conservative way down there in her first ad. she talked about her ties to george bush. she, of course, rab tn the poin of light foundation down there. it's a tale of geography and tale of 'ing. one candidate not doing so well. the other one pretty well positioned. >> one thing i love about covering politics is the different pieceses of puzzle. but in pennsylvania if she succeeds, now, even if she doesn't win the primary, if she moves a lot, other democratic campaigns might take notice if that appeal works for the base. >> that's correct. that's something they're hoping for as you're dealing with the president's approval numbers. looking at that latest gallup survey we talked about yesterday. they're not exactly where most democrats would li