Why Christie can’t be president

Paul K. writes (Sept. 5):

I had never seen a picture of Governor Christie without a jacket on until Drudge featured one today. A man who looks like this will never be elected president in this day and age. Whatever his stated reasons for not running, perhaps he understands that:

LA replies:

Here’s another photo Paul sent of Christie in shirt sleeves with Obama:

Comments

Jim C. writes:

Absolutely wrong. This is the perfect time for a fatty to run, given the fact that Zippy the Skinny will go down in history as the most incompetent president of all time.

LA replies:

These are the kinds of issues I like VFR to have debates about, as a break from the weightier matters we normally discuss here.

Mark Jaws writes:

As an eternal fan of The Godfather, I would add to what Jim C. said by comparing Obama and Governor Christie to Fredo and Clemenza. Sure, Clemenza was a big fat slob, but did he get results? He sure did. He told it like it was, and he had a skill set that was invaluable to the organization. We need a man like Clemenza to run our organization, and perhaps we have him in Christie. As Governor Huckabee has proven, a fat politician can always lose weight, but there is no diet to reduce incompetence. I believe the nation has had it with the skinny empty-suit Fredos (Bush and Obama).

Clemenza the bon vivant

Clemenza the teacher

Clemenza the man of action

Richard P. writes:

I guess it’s fortunate that William Howard Taft and Grover Cleveland ran for office before the television age. Actually many of the Presidents of the late 19th century were rotund. Maybe all Christie needs is well sculpted facial hair.

Greg W. writes:

I tend to agree with the original poster, but remember that the same was said about Christie when he was running for governor by his opponent and the Left. If he ran and was attacked for being obese, many would sympathize and feel sorry for him, invoking an emotional response. If he were attacked, again, for being fat, it might just help him. Never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter.

Paul K. writes:

It’s not just that Christie is very fat—I knew that already. It’s that he’s very fat in a particularly unmasculine way. Most men gain weight on their upper body, getting the “barrel-chested” look; think Theodore Roosevelt. However, Christie also has a considerable amount of fat on his buttocks and thighs, the areas where women normally put on weight. I hadn’t realized that until I saw these recent photos. It gives him look androgynously egg-shaped.

James R. writes:

Not his weight, but his support for such things as New Jersey’s new “Anti-Bullying Bill of rights” which reveal him to be a good, mainstream liberal who just happens to be a fiscally responsible governor.

One doesn’t have to favor bullying to see the reasoning behind an “Anti-Bullying Bill of rights” as invidious. Indeed I was bullied more often than I bullied as a youth, and I think this is pernicious.

Let him fix New Jersey as best he can. It needs enough fixing, Lord knows. So does the nation, but he’s not the man to do it, girth or no girth.

Karl D. writes:

In the past I would say that weight could have been an issue for a man looking to hold the office of president. Now? I doubt it. Especially when one considers that he resembles a huge swath of Americans. Colorado is the State with the lowest percentage of obese people at 21 percent. The rest range from 25 percent all the way up to 31.5 percent in Texas. I recently read somewhere that by 2030 no less then 50 percent of the country will be obese. God help our military. They will not only have to deal with homosexuals, women, affirmative action, and watered down standards, but will soon have a limited human pool on which to draw from. The rest will be to busy grazing, wheezing and trying to walk half a city block. So as far as I am concerned Christie shouldn’t have much of a problem. He is the new norm.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 06, 2011 12:25 PM | Send