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Gov. Chris Christie endorses GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump during a campaign event in Fort Worth, Texas, on Feb. 26, 2016.(Laura Buckman | Getty Images)

The moment I heard that our governor had endorsed Donald Trump for president I thought of something I saw on TV at one of the early debates.

The cameras showed the candidates walking in. There was Chris Christie tagging along with Trump, looking up at him with an expression of obvious admiration.

He was making small talk with the Donald as well, hardly the sign of a bitter opponent.

In fact, Trump is all that a guy like Christie could ever hope to be. Take airplanes, for example. Christie has a penchant for private jets that he could no longer afford once his finances began to dwindle.

As for Trump, he's got his own airliner. He also gets all the luxury boxes at sporting events he wants, as well as the other accoutrements of wealth and power.

And of course, he's got the same public persona as Christie, loud and wisecracking.

The speculation is that Christie's angling for some sort of post in a Trump presidency. I wouldn't doubt that for a moment. The Guv seems tired of New Jersey and an escape on Jan. 20, 2017, would be perfectly timed.

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno would welcome the chance to run in the fall race as an incumbent. And no one would miss him, certainly no Republican.

And then there's that hatchet job Christie did on Marco Rubio in the final New Hampshire debate. That was a big favor for the Donald, one he made a point of mentioning in the debate Thursday night.

Rubio has little to no chance of getting the nomination, of course. To do that he'd have to actually win a few states, and that seems highly unlikely.

Also, I think Christie really does look at Rubio the way he framed it in that final debate. He thinks the guy is a bit of a pipsqueak.

Ted Cruz? Not for Christie. Christie is a transactional politician. He is deeply suspicious of principled politicians. He and Cruz are opposites.

And Cruz has little chance of winning either. I expect a good showing from Ted on Super Tuesday, but those delegates are awarded proportionally. When it comes to the winner-take-all primaries, Cruz would need to win a bunch of them but most are on Trump's turf.

The Southern states are mainly early with the Northern states later. Not a good schedule for Cruz. And when you consider John Kasich will take away votes in Ohio and Michigan it starts looking even grimmer for Cruz.

And then there's Ben Carson. He has no chance of winning, but the 5 percent or so of the vote he gets comes out of Cruz's base.

The general election? It doesn't matter at the moment. Christie first has to get on the good side of the likely primary winner. And Trump becomes a lot more likely with a big-state governor endorsing him.

In the event the party insiders want to try any shenanigans at the conventions, they've now got a major enemy -- one who's pals with every member of the Republican Governors Association.

Not only that, but now that Christie has given his imprimatur to Trump, you can expect other mainstream pols to join in. At a certain point they may have to accept his nomination as inevitable and start prepping him for a run against Hillary Clinton, assuming she wins her party's nomination.

As I've written before, I think Trump has a lot of hidden strengths against Hillary. He's made it clear that he rejects the entire "neo" conservative/liberal internationalist approach to the Mideast.

Clinton remains married to it, as it were. She not only backed the Iraq War; she was a primary supporter of the misguided "Arab Spring" -- which ended up springing a lot of radical Arabs into positions of power.

Clinton is perhaps the worst possible candidate the Democrats could nominate when it comes to foreign policy.

Trump is the best the Republicans could nominate. He also rejects all that nonsense about starting World War III with Vladimir Putin for no discernible reason.

So this was a smart move politically for the Guv. Not only that, it gives him an excuse to do what he likes most: Get out of Jersey.

Expect to see him on the stump in a lot of places far from Trenton. As a hatchet man, he's among the best.

Hillary better watch her back.

PLUS: I guess it's safe to say Christie's views on Trump have evolved: