NOW THAT THE "class warfare' rattle has paused for a good 15 minutes among the GOP presidential candidates, the media have turned to Chris Christie to reinvigorate the narrative. The story can now be told that the ample New Jersey governor is...um...obese. Not just obese, mind you. Morbidly obese! That, plus asthma attacks, and you have a non-presidential candidate no matter how much his Republican half-loonies want none of the above who are current.
If I may speak from experience, I'd say that Christie's resistance to a national candidacy is probably the wisest decision he will ever make. As one who has labored through several presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, I will trouble any disappointed Christie fans out there with my doubts that he could survive the merciless grind. As a much younger and able-bodied political reporter, I still ended up in traction and other therapy for months with painful back spasms that forced me to write my columns face-down on the living room floor with the typewriter inches from my chin.
For reporters, such stress, bad food and 20- hour days without week-end breaks still had a slight advantage over the candidates. No one cared whether our clothes were a disaster or whether we didn't trouble ourselves with a comb. Ill-tempered? So were our working colleagues. In other words, we didn't have to look pretty and sound presidential in front of an audience.
A politically incorrect way to describe Christie is that he is just plain perspiring fat. If a tough presidential campaign wouldn't imperil him, a lot of other health issues could send him to the emergency room at any moment on the trail. Let's leave it at that, since he seems to understand that more than everyone in his cheering section. Way to go, governor.
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