The Telegraph
American Way: Chris Christie, the fat guy who won’t get the girl in 2012
By Toby Harnden
Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is not going to be elected president in 2012. It’s not because he’s too fat, though anyone who dismisses the physical demands of a White House race on a 20-stone man is deluding themselves.
It’s not even because his obesity would judged as a lack of self-discipline and an unfortunate metaphor for a United States government that has gorged itself on spending and shown an inability to control its runaway appetites.
He could perhaps overcome the fact that he is far from conservative on many key issues, a blank slate on foreign policy and currently runs a state that is hardly a poster child for good stewardship. His less than two years of government experience would be a handicap.
The idea that this character who looks and sounds like he has stepped off the set of The Sopranos could appeal to people in early-voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina is far-fetched but not impossible.
Christie’s real problem is that his tease about whether he will run for president is undermining the very political attributes that have suddenly made him flavour of the month among Republicans disillusioned with the choices of Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.
The straight talking, decisive Christie who seems entirely lacking in vanity has gone AWOL. Instead, we have a Christie who speaks in contrived riddles about his intentions, who cannot seem to make up his mind and whose reaction to the flattery being slathered on him is to become giddily eager for more.
Having long ruled out a presidential bid on the grounds that he was “not prepared”, his children were too young, his wife is against the idea and his heart would not be in it, Christie has suddenly abandoned his flat-out denials and allowed aides to issue coy statements that he is seriously reconsidering.
Team Christie has been putting it about that the likes of Nancy Reagan, George W. Bush and Henry Kissinger see the former federal prosecutor as the Superman who can save America, as unbecoming as he would look in a Spandex suit and tight red underpants.
One Republican consultant likened Christie’s recent shenanigans to a middle-aged man who was never paid much attention to when he was a kid suddenly going off on a bender.
“I can’t imagine he’ll run because he’s not crazy and therefore you have to bet on him not doing a crazy thing," he told me. "There’s temporary insanity and there’s long-term insanity. It’s one thing to hit age 45 and go out and buy a sports car, maybe go out with a stripper. But it’s another thing to get divorced.”
If Christie is acting like a middle-aged man taking up with a stripper then the Republican party’s behaviour could perhaps be compared to a woman flirting with a wide array of suitors.
In this respect, Romney is the clean-cut, handsome but rather dull boy that a mother might prefer for her daughter. Perry is the cocky high school jock who turned out to have little intelligent to say once out on a date. And Christie is the bad boy bit of rough whose gift of the gab overcame an unprepossessing physique.
Other figures have been given the once over too. Herman Cain, the black conservative and pizza entrepreneur who has surged in popularity after winning the Florida straw poll, has been an entertaining diversion. The nerdy swot Mitch Daniels had a certain attraction for a while. Old flames like Rudi Giuliani and Mike Huckabee were on the fringes but never looking like catching alight again.
To mix genders, Sarah Palin has always been the unattainable figure in the distance (her teasing has become tedious, however – she’s not running) while Michele Bachmann was a breath of fresh air before proving, well, perhaps a little crazy.
Right now, the smart money is on the Grand Old Party eventually putting all these exciting dalliances aside and settling down with the safe, sensible choice of Romney.
This is all the more plausible because 2008 now looks essentially like a national infatuation with Barack Obama, an untested unknown who America, tired of all the nights out with Hillary Clinton and John McCain, jumped into bed with and married.
For Republicans to consummate a fling with Chris Christie would be just as reckless. And when he sobers up, Christie surely knows that he cannot get the girl this time.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100108506/american-way-chris-christie-the-fat-guy-who-won%E2%80%99t-get-the-girl-in-2012/
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