When Republican Governor Chris Christie stood next to President Obama after a devastating hurricane, the nation gazed with approval at a beautiful image of bipartisan unity.
Today, the big and ugly question is whether the governor in that picture is too fat for the White House.
Comments
If christie decides to run, the media will persecute his weight, he won't have a chance.
It is not Gov Christie's weight that is the problem but his dismissiveness of regular hard working citizens. NJ has an over 9% unemployment rate and declining school achievement. Its infrastructure is crumbling and its budget priorities have moved away from those who actually need some governmental health. On Jon Stewart's show the good governor could not see the correlation between his present disaster and people who have no health insurance. If he took notice 45,000 people lose their lives a year because of lack of insurance and he just turned his head away from this reality. This man does not have the compassion to serve all the people in this country. If he did it would not matter how much he tipped the scales.
Funny how Joan can use a pretty thoughtful column to make cheap shot hits against Republicans. Her slight of George W. Bush whom she suggested might have had more "thoughtful policies" if he had spent more time in "quiet contemplation", was just silly on its head. George W. Bush was a very thoughtful president, who was known to be an avid reader. Yes, he was and is very serious about working out, but that never stopped him from "quiet contemplation". One can only wonder how much more thoughtful the policies of Bill Clinton might have been, had he not been a serial womanizer. You get the picture-this type criticism is just idiotic. I think it will be very interesting to see if Christie can succeed with his weight problem. Since Kennedy and the TV age, optics is now more important than ever, and appearance seems to be more important than competence. Look at our current president.....
"George W. Bush was a very thoughtful president, who was known to be an avid reader."
e.g., "My Pet Goat"?
It was an off-hand remark and, true or not, you're making too much of it. If that's worst thing you can find then I think Ms. Vennochi won the argument.
And then you pretty much destroy any point you might have made by taking you own cheap shot at Bill Clinton.
My own cheap shot is that I moved away from the South 30 years ago to get rid the ignorant people I had to deal with every day, but some of them frequent the Boston Globe forums.
I'll take an obese, competent and compassionate candidate over a trim, fit clone of W or over a Romney any day.
Wow, Joan. You don't miss a beat. We just had an election and you are already trying to deconstruct potential GOP candidates in 2012.
Christie is a great governor but he's one pork chop away from a massive coronary, Republicans are still a little PO'd about him kissng up to Obama during Hurricane Sandy, and the snakechucker wing of the Party won't like his positions on abortion and gay marriage. So, if he wants to sit in the Oval Office (and he'll need a bigger, sturdier chair), his convictions are going to have to evolve (so much nicer to say than "flip flop".)
"One pork chop away from a massive coronary"--speaking of the larger reality, and his judgment and perception concerning it. A marked deficit in the perception of reality, I would say, and in judgment concerning it. Expect these same general qualities to manifest themselves in many other ways throughout any of his administration.
A little early to get into 2016 isn't it? But if you are going to go there the governor's weight is not a political issue nor is it really a deal breaker for getting elected. I doubt his temperment is really much of an issue either. Of course those of us from the NE are usually pretty comfortable with people who's temperment is that of Mr. Christie's, heck he's from Jersey. Whether that turns some off in the south or west who knows. But Mr. Christies problem will be none of the things listed by Joan. Oh no, his problem will be the TP crazies and the right wing nutcases within the Republican Party. We old moderates who used to belong to the Party will like him, but the problem will be we don't vote in their primaries any longer. The fact is unless the Party changes demographics and the nuttier policies, (ie:social issues, religion), even his weight won't counterbalance the insanity.
Christies' weight is the first thing people notice about him, and his abrasive manner is the second. The latter may be refreshing, but the weight is worrisome, and would make his choice of a running mate more of a deciding factor than it was even with McCain.
I suspect that, if Christie really has his eyes on the White House, we'll watch him go through a physical transformation over the next couple of years. But as long as the TPers and hard right people hold sway in primaries, he won't have a chance unless he starts using Romney's etch-a-sketch.
"Christies' weight is the first thing people notice about him, and his abrasive manner is the second." Well put. I'd only add that these are the two most significant and telling things he wants people to know about him. They each tell a lot about who he is and how he relates to reality, including himself and other people. In both cases, excessive, and not respectful of (either himself or) others. In both cases, based on short-term impulsive thinking, not based on any deeper or more informed understanding of the issues (or people) involved. These qualities militate against the kind of good judgment that needs to underly any truly competent performace in the larger sphere. You'll find Christie signaling his incompetence to the public in many ways, until people get the bigger picture. But incompetence and poor judgment are the real issues the public needs to be concerned about.
Joan's considerations here all hinge on the question essentially of the perceptions of others. Would Christie be electable? But obesity, in my view, raises another important question--how well and how accurately does a person perceive himself and his own needs? How adequately self-aware is that person?
It's one thing to act in response to one's needs, as in acting out. We all do that. But how much self-awareness and self-control does he exhibit in how he regulates his own needs, in relation to the rest of what we know about reality? Being obese certainly suggests a person being confused and kind of out of controll when it comes to recognizing their own true needs. One eats more than one needs, and puts one's own health at risk, thus putting also at risk the welfare of any others who depend on that person?
One always wants, ideally, to accurately assess one's own real needs, put them into the larger context of reality-in-general, and then act in a wise and healthy way. To me, his excessive weight suggests Christie is a person who is personally confused about his own needs, the requirements of reality, and not manifesting a truly rational degree of self-control. This suggests to me he's an impulsive decision-maker, not a truly rational and reflective decision-maker. And this seems to fit with how I see him comport himself when relating to his public. Does he not seem at times impulsive and overbearing there also?
So I think the question his obesity poses to voters is not just his appearance--how attractive or unattractive he might look, or how trendy or untrendy--but whether we can see him to be objective and in rational control in his own life, or does he show a chronic picture of being impulsive and out-of-control in his personal life? And what kind of person do we want to have for our governor or president?
One other critically important factor is in play also--accurate and perceptive self-awareness is a pre-requirement for being able to understand others accurately, perceptively, and objectively also. Which suggests to me that Christie can be expected to not only chronically not understand himself clearly, but to not understand others clearly either, in an objective way.
We do not know why Mr. Chrisite is overweight. We don't know if it is a matter of self-image. Perhaps medical? As the Pat's coach says "he is what he is". In the end it will be policy and if the Republican Party can regain its senses.
Your comment is pure supposition and speculation. It amounts to pseudo-intellectual verbosity, to put it mildly.
He's a bully.
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Gov. Christie will never lose a significant amount of weight, in my opinion. It is apparently extremely difficult for long-term obese people to lose weight and even more difficult for them to keep it off. He has more serious problems, though.
Christ's sometimes brutal comments might seem refreshing at times, but they offend people without gaining anything. Every offended person is a vote lost.
The proposed railroad tunnel to New York, mostly financed by the Federal government, would have employed thousands during construction in a state where joblessness is particularly high, and would have helped New Jersey's economy in the long term. Nevertheless, Christie rejected it (after accepting it), and he used highly inflated cost figures to justify what was a blatantly political drama.
The New York Times has been running a series on the apparent corruption involved in privatized New Jersey correction facilities, with politically connected companies being awarded no-bid contracts, and doing an incompetent job with very little state oversight.
Being overweight and incompatible with the Republican right wing are possibly the least of his problems.