NJ Gov. Christie: I'm not too fat to be president

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he is "more than a little" overweight — but fit enough to be in the White House.

http://todaynews.today.com/_news/2012/12/12/15870198-nj-gov-christie-im-not-too-fat-to-be-president?lite



• Steve Smith on MSNBC more or less replied that he was deluding himself and he needs to start working on his 'issues'.

• He's too fat to be Jabba the Hutt.

  Princess%20Leia

• It's his fat head that's the problem.

• Christie is too fat to even consider running for president.

• Christie was walking all over the landscape great distances in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy on the Jersey shore, and for many hours at a time. And standing on his feet all the time for hours inbetween the walking. He seemed surprisingly able to walk around adroitly even carrying all the extra weight. It was surprising.

• Hurricane Sandy, no matter how devastating, is still only a snapshot in time for a governor for a few weeks or a couple of months. Christie may still be involved with the hurricane aftermath, but it does not compare to the sustained pressude of four to eight years of the presidency. A hurricane and the presidency is a false equivalency.

• I agree, R6, good point. I was still surprised he was able to walk so much in surveying the destruction of the hurricane and when meeting with hurricane victims.

• He has time to get the band and do a centerfold before running for the White House.

• He'll be dead before the next primaries start.

• R4 is correct, Christie's too fat to even consider running. Huckabee lost weight before he gave it a shot, maybe Christie's planning something similar. Still, the rigors of two solid years on the campaign trail while also being the Governor of New Jersey - that's a lot for a fat man, or even a recently fat man.

• Only East coasters care about his Sandy hype. Sure, he did a good job, but in six months, let alone four years, no one will care nor remember except those that actually were hit by the storm.

• in the water....I'm a very skinny lady.

• I wonder if the famously huge bathtub that had to be installed in the White House for William Howard Taft is still in storage somewhere.

• The fat fuck should hire some rabid Repug's wife for cheap as his personal chef.

• Maybe he thinks he's not too fat, but he has too many questionable business dealings and an organize crime connection. There is a lot in this man's background that once it became known to the nations voters would doom him.

• If he vetoes gay marriage in NJ for the second time when it come up again in 2013, he won't look so cute anymore regardless of his weight.

• He looked even bigger at last night's Sandy relief concert. There is no way he can run. When he publicly went on a diet a few years ago, my first thought was "that fat fuck is going to run for president." Then he went off the diet and didn't get picked as Romney's running mate. He should get the surgery if he has any intention of running. I don't think he'd win but it would be an interesting race.

• I think his biggest problem is the old "wont play in Peoria" situation. Voters from NY and NJ are used to people like him; brash, loud, in-your-face types are a dime a dozen here. But travel an hour past Philly and that really turns people off.

• Makes me long for Jeff Garlin, the *real* Fat Fuck. He could play Christie in the biopic.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D5t8TbNsdGwM

• [quote]There is no way he can run Pun intended?

• In his Barbara Walters' interview last night, he actually came across as rather fun and charming, with a good sense of humor about himself. More a mensch than a fat fuck. They also showed a snapshot of him as a high school (or maybe it was college) football player and he was surprisingly hot! Has that photo been shown much? Made me think he would be rather handsome if lost 150 lbs.

• If you feel it necessary to state that you're not too fat to run for president, then you're probably too fat to be president.

• R18, I would have agreed with you before Sandy. He was really obnoxious to voters in the past, very nasty and argumentative. But lately, he has been very moderated in his speech. I don't know if it was hanging around President Obama or something else, but he has become funny, self-deprecating, and pleasant. He's been on shows where he's been made fun of and he takes it with good humor. He praised the president, worked out a deal with the teachers union in Newark schools rather than shoving something down their throats and seems to be handling everything quite well these days. He's made major points with me because of his attitude improvement. Last night talking with Barbara Walters, he admitted he'd been on multiple diets and had lost and gained back his weight and more. She showed photos of him as a teen and he was normal-sized and athletic. Much of his weight problem may be mental. It would also be worth his while to hire and keep a personal trainer, who made sure he exercised regularly. I understand that, despite displays of being able to work with the other side and accomplish things, people may feel that, if he can't manage his weight, maybe there are Presidential situations that he can't manage either. Huckabee has gained weight and under those baggy suits, who knows how much he weighs now.

• Too fat to be president?

  the%20ghost%20of%20President%20Taft

• No, of course he's not.

  William Howard Taft

• Being overweight will probably prevent him from being President the same way that heart disease or some other medical issue would hamper another candidate.

• The other thing that I didn't mention is that he's probably the only serious contender in the republican party, who would stand up to the tea party. That might be worth more than his weight issue, especially depending on who the VP was.

• He certainly has a lot of energy- he is still a relatively young man. But he is mobidly obese, not merely overweight. He is going to have a lot of chronic health problems as he moves through middle age, if he does not already. It's kind of sad really- I always think it is sad when self destruction is obvious. I consider obesity at his level akin to substance abuse or anorexia nervosa on the other end of disordered eating.

  charlie

• He can take the car elevator.

• From OP's link: [quote]"That's ridiculous," Christie responded. "I don't know what the basis for that is." Walters said worries about his health were the reason for the concern. Bullshit. The main concern, quite simply, is that obese people simply don't "look" presidential, as defined by the following (and nearly ALL presidential candidates since WWII have fit EACH of these criteria): 1) Tall 2) Medium build 3) Full head of hair 4) Great teeth In other words: yes, looks matter. People, in general, view being fat as a sign of weakness, e.g. how can someone "stand firm" on an issue if he can't even resist stuffing his face with jelly donuts? Really, the closest we've ever come in recent times to electing a fat man as president was Gore in 2000 (and he was nowhere *near* Christie's current size), but in his case he had the advantage of having been thin when he first became a national figure as VP in '92. I also agree with R18: his brashness and attitude simply won't fly among moderates and in flyover states, and that's regardless of any short-term "humility" he's appeared to demonstrate in the aftermath of Sandy. During any presidential campaign candidates are repeatedly and routinely baited and interrogated about issues both substantive and thin (so to speak). Christie is way too much of a hot head to not blow his top in response to such lines of attack.

• I'm from New Jersey and I like the guy. I don't think he can win the nomination for much the same reason Giuliani couldn't: being from the NY area carries a lot of baggage in Iowa. I don't see Christie dodging his record to appeal to far right voters the way Romney was able to do so casually.

• I'm from pretty far west of Philadelphia and I agree with R18. The level of brashness we've seen from Christie and other NY/NJ politicians would not play well out here in the boonies. We're simply not used to people being that rude to each other and we consider it ghetto when we see it.

• Poppycock!

  http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FBiSCs9aYkc/TBFkNK55aRI/AAAAAAAACSg/zq0iR7TQkao/s1600/taft+2.jpg

  WHT

• R33, all those fat guys who were presidents in past centuries did not get constant media attention. Not only that, there was a time when fat was considered more normal and healthy than it is now.

• [quote] He looked even bigger at last night's Sandy relief concert Did Springsteen hug him?

• There have been a few bald or seriously balding Presidents since WWII: Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson and Ford. I realy don't think baldness in a candidate today would matter unless the man was homely. And I would imagine most Presidents before Kennedy had teeth that would not be considered so charming today in closeup and in color.

• Before Hurricane Sandy was on a diet and went to a gym. He should re-up for the New Year.

• Poor Mary Pat has to sleep in the same bed with him.

• If he were a really smart, exceptionally talented political leader, he might have a shot at overcoming people's qualms about electing a morbidly obese man, with all the health issues that necessarily entails. But he's an inept, mediocre hack and an obnoxious bully. He's the sort that's adored in neoconservative back rooms, and that's really where he belongs.

• [quote]He's the sort that's adored in neoconservative back rooms I don't think they adore governors who appoint Muslim judges or blow-off Republican presidential candidates right before election time.

• [quote]I'm not too fat to be president Yes you are.

• He's not too fat to be president. Fat has nothing to do with fitness for the job. We have a thin president now who has demonstrated a conspicuous lack of character on the job, albeit far superior to his opponents.

• Thin people have a lot of misconceptions about obesity because the current medical hysteria about it is...false. None of the claims of the thin industry have proved true. America's longevity has not fallen as its people have gotten fatter. It turns out that slightly overweight people live longer than people with the correct BMI. Meanwhile the indelible links between obesity and heat disease, diabetes, etc. are turning out to be not straightforward at all.

• In spite of his disgusting anti - LGBT and union attitudes, he's still far too liberal for today's insane GOP. And isn't that pathetic?

  Next%2C%20he%20loses%20NJ

• [quote]It turns out that slightly overweight people live longer than people with the correct BMI. Yes, and *morbid* obesity remains *directly* correlative to a shorter life expectancy as well as a whole host of health maladies ranging from heart conditions to liver problems to diabetes.

• Correlation is not causation and the correlation appears to be dropping as obesity becomes more widespread. Obesity was the effect of these conditions, not the cause, but now that obesity has other causes, the old "truths" no longer hold.

• R43 is correct.

• R46, please just stop with the semantics and attempts to rationalize/justify obesity. To put it short and sweet: fat people die sooner. Period.

• Jeez - I see us (R's) nominating somebody that cannot win .. AGAIN. If he really believes he is not too fat, and runs, he will be nominated because the majority of Republicans like him (from the neck up.) Even I do. But a grossly fat man can never get elected. (again)_

• He has an unusual shape. Kind of like a penquin.

• Who is he kidding? He won't have the energy to be POTUS. The every day schedule of POTUS is brutal and the stress level is through the roof...i seriously doubt his heart can handle it. If he can't even govern his own body, how can i trust him to govern the country? that's what i think when i look at him and also I wonder if he stinks...from not able to wipe his fat ass

• Christie is morbidly obese; he's not simply fat. And morbidly obese people are not healthy. I would hope that the American public would want a healthier person in The White House. In four years, Christie will be 54. He'll be entering an age bracket where he'll be even more susceptible to heart attack, diabetes, poor circulation, etc., etc.--not to mention--severely hidden penis.

• Not that it matters, but Huckabee has gained back a ton of weight. I cannot get the Christmas card of his family out of my mind. Strange looking family. The two grown sons are overweight and have a two-ton physique very similar to their father's, and they all wore very garish loud red and white wide striped shirts on the Xmas card. And his wife, well...... And I read one of the sons had been in trouble for harming a dog or cat.

• If Christie runs, I will personally send him a box of donuts every morning. If he wins, I up it two 2 dozen.

• The President's jet will be called Air Force Ton.

• He's too fat to walk.

• Governor Christie, I knew William Howard Taft and you, sir, are no William Howard Taft!

• R57=very eldergay.

• We've had some very fat presidents - although not recently - so I don't see why it should be a problem.