Barack Obama just set the bar too high. Nobody will ever find a candidate that can match him. McDonnell was purged. Christie was attacked by first his own and then the media. Those two could have been great. Rubio is as dull as Pawlenty and Walker though being Cuban is a major help in electoral ability - still no BHO, and may fall yet. Susana Martinez seems smart enough not to get involved and Paul Ryan knows it's best to operate behind the scenes (perhaps hope for him way down the road a la FDR)
Jindal is pretending to be something he's not and is 4 years too late.
Christie would've given Romney a serious run for his money in '12. I think he would have actually taken it as the angry conservative alternative. It's a shame that he try to moderate himself and even more so that the base vilified him. You're right that even when he led polls this cycle that his chance was quite small, but first term was magical. Certainly some home state bias in there, but there was always a lot of charisma there.
