Geraldo Rivera isn't having a good run lately.

Fresh off getting smoked for a Twitter post challenging conservatives to "put up or shut up" when it comes to the corruption charges surrounding Hunter Biden, Fox News' resident liberal decided to offer a definitely unsolicited opinion about whom Republicans should be looking for in a standard bearer for 2024.

Don't put any money on the GOP taking him up on it.

In a Twitter post on Sunday, Rivera claimed former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has what Republicans need:

Chris Christie could be the strongest GOP alternative for POTUS; savvy, swagger, moderation, toughness

— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) March 19, 2023

"Chris Christie could be the strongest GOP alternative for POTUS; savvy, swagger, moderation, toughness," Rivera wrote, in a post likely to be a comic footnote when the history of the 2024 presidential cycle is written.

In the most charitable light, there's nothing wrong with the second half of the post. The qualities of "savvy, swagger, moderation, toughness" are a prerequisite for any kind of success in politics. And for a Republican to win the top spot in the deep blue Garden State is no small achievement (as befits a man of Christie's ... stature).

But to say a contender who ended his 2016 bid for the GOP nomination after placing sixth in the New Hampshire primary "could be the strongest GOP alternative" in 2023 is stretching the word "could" beyond its normal breaking point.

And social media users let Geraldo know it.

By just before 1 p.m. EDT on Monday, the tweet had been viewed more than 2.3 million times, with under 1,300 "likes." The rest probably felt something like this:

This is insanely out of touch.

— Marc Lobliner - IFBB Pro (@MarcLobliner) March 20, 2023

This is your brain on drugs

— David Giglio (@DavidGiglioCA) March 19, 2023

Jerry stop. I like Chris Christie as a person but his politics are too squishy to win a GOP nomination. He's fine for being a Republican in NEW JERSEY but he is not where the majority of the party is politically.

— NeoUnrealist (@NeoUnrealist) March 20, 2023

And then there was this, short and to the point: "Stop it, Geraldo.".

Stop it, Geraldo

— Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) March 20, 2023

To be fair, Rivera isn't the only one who doesn't think the idea is completely insane. Apparently, Christie himself sees a possibility of a new presidential run. He told the Washington Examiner in a story published last week that he'll decide "in the next 45 to 60 days."

So, there are at least two of them.

Geraldo can hold out hope. The rest of us can move on.

[firefly_poll]

Whatever his own considerable opinion of himself (no one who runs for president is going to be a wallflower) it's doubtful Christie even had a realistic shot of winning in 2016, as the New Hampshire results showed. (Eventual nominee Donald Trump 35.3 percent of the Granite State GOP vote, compared to Christie's 7.4 percent.)

And that was before the Democratic Party's descent into Trump Derangement Syndrome heightened the stakes involved in the American election system.

It seems hard to believe now, but it wasn't much more than a decade ago that reasonable men and women could disagree about political parties with at least some middle ground.

However, the Democratic lurch to the left under former President Barack Obama, which became a lemming-like headlong rush in the Trump years, has become the party's new center.

And in that context, "moderate" in the sense that Rivera uses it is essentially a synonym for surrender for conservatives. What's a moderate in the second decade of the 21st century?

Someone who rejects "Drag Queen Story Hour" for toddlers but will accept sexual grooming of children for, say, 30 minutes? A supporter of enforcing border laws on alternate days, like parking rules in major cities? Someone who accepts rioting as long as the establishment media blesses it as "mostly peaceful?"

Genuine question, does he know what year this is? https://t.co/xnIAYxSgyl

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 19, 2023

Christie's chances in 2016 were never that good, in large part because of his warm reception for then-President Barack Obama when Obama came to New Jersey in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

That was a picture few Republicans could stomach. (During the 2016 campaign, Christie denied he hugged Obama. It didn't do much good.)

And the baggage he's accumulated since 2016 has only made it worse:

Wallowing on a public beach that he'd closed to the actual public; embarrassing himself by claiming he would have been a better president than Trump, while being interviewed by the Trump-hating "comedian" Stephen Colbert, no less; using his last day in office to take a final shot at the Second Amendment.

Really, it's a wonder Christie is guy is a Republican at all. At best, he's the right wing of the John Kasich wing of the GOP -- and it's safe to say that most Republicans aren't there with him.

But Geraldo Rivera thinks he "could be the strongest alternative"?

Well, Geraldo will find out in "45 to 60 days" whether his wish has a chance of coming true.

He shouldn't bet on it.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.