Christie fell further from favor in Romney’s inner circle when his convention speech, which campaign officials had approved, dwelled more on the Chris Christie story than on the Mitt Romney story.

“His view was, ‘They saw the speech before I gave it. They vetted it. They said it was fine,’” recalled a Romney adviser. “And the campaign’s view was, ‘We told him that we thought there were more opportunities for him to put in stuff about Mitt, and he didn’t take the hint.’ There was a lot of agitation that led to a lot of sarcasm and the kind of comments that people don’t mean, but they kind of do.”