Now that Larry Hogan’s man crush Chris Christie has exited the race after his presidential campaign experienced failure to launch, what is the Governor to do?

Hogan explained to Ovetta Wiggins of the Washington Post that he does not believe in the transitive property of endorsements, so Hogan is not following Christie’s jump on to the Donald Trump bandwagon. At least not yet. Hogan says that he “hasn’t decided” who to support. Hogan also hasn’t found time to return repeated calls from former BFF Christie who wants to talk Trump.

The Gov has no good options. While the media focuses on to Trump or not to Trump, Rubio and Cruz would be the most right-wing nominees ever and destined to lose Maryland by an even larger margin than McCain or Romney did against Obama.

All three are very anti-immigrant in a state that voted heavily for the Maryland DREAM Act. Both Rubio and Cruz oppose abortion even in cases or rape and incest – an extreme position on an issue that Hogan worked hard to avoid. They also want to continue the now lost marriage equality wars, which would raise the salience of yet another issue that Hogan is on the wrong side of Maryland voters and assiduously avoided in his campaign.

As almost all of the others have been voted off the Island of Misfit Candidates, it looks as if Trump, Rubio, or Cruz will be the nominee. If the nominee is Rubio or Cruz, I imagine Hogan will support them but be really quiet about it in the hope of not having to answer whether he agrees with them on a whole range of issues.

Trump is apparently still in the mix for Hogan, even if he cannot seem to touch base with Christie. But if Trump does as well as expected tonight, he’s not going to be able to stay silent much longer. Not an easy political place to be as supporting Trump could be a career killer but many of Hogan’s supporters will vote for him enthusiastically in Maryland’s primary on April 26th.