Chris Christie spoke the truth about Trump loudly and clearly. Larry Hogan? Meh.

Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, bowed out of the Republican presidential campaign tonight, and as I reflected on his effort over the last several months — his loud and consistent takedowns of Trump as a threat to democracy — I thought of another former Republican governor, Maryland’s Larry Hogan.
Where is he? What has he said that comes close to what Christie said with such conviction? Christie said, again tonight, that Trump is unfit for office, and Republican candidates who refuse to acknowledge that are themselves unfit.
Hogan has never gone that far.
He decided not to run for president, opting out of the opportunity to argue to more Americans, and Republicans specifically, that Trump should never get near the Oval Office again. Christie, on the other hand, knew he wouldn’t win, but he knew the campaign would provide a forum for his urgent calls against another Trump presidency.
Hogan went for the mealy-mouthed both-sides-badism that is the credo of his No Labels operation.
In July Larry Hogan claimed that Joe Biden was facing “legal problems” similar to Trump’s. Nothing could have been further from the truth — then and now. It was a deeply dishonest thing for Hogan to say.
“We have two very unpopular potential nominees,” Hogan tweeted in July, “and both of them potentially face very serious legal troubles.” Then, on MSNBC, he said that there are “investigations going on on all sorts of things involving the Biden family,” though Republicans have come up with nothing on President Biden. I thought Biden sliming was beneath Hogan. But, in trying to make the case for a third-party presidential candidate, he chose to equate Biden with Trump.
Third party candidate?
It’s not going to happen. But Hogan talked a lot about it, though nothing would better guarantee a Trump victory in November.
A couple of months ago, Hogan claimed on CNN that he was “doing everything possible” to stop Trump from getting the nomination. But there’s little visible evidence of that, and the so-called centrist Republican continues to knock Biden, never issuing him a single credit for the nation’s strong economic recovery.
Hogan, a lifelong Republican, should have joined Christie in warning the nation, loudly and clearly, about Trump rather than joining in criticisms of Biden that will serve no purpose other than helping Trump in a general election.