There’s been a lot of debate today about whether Chris Christie’s obesity should be a factor in deciding whether he could be president, with liberals Michael Kinsley and Eugene Robinson criticizing the New Jersey governor for being too fat, and Ezra Klein coming to his defense, and arguing he isn’t too fat to be president.
I never though weight should, or really would be a factor, for most people choosing their next president. A better question would be whether he’s in good enough shape to make an energetic run for the presidency.
When you’re zig-zagging accross the country, going from campaign stop to campaign stop, running for president can be an incredibly grueling process. The question is whether, having to carry around so much extra weight all the time would inhibit Christie from running an energetic-enough campaign.
This is another way of saying, Christie’s weight won’t really matter unless it does. If he can run a strong campaign and show that weight wouldn’t affect his job performance, I don’t think it will matter much for him.
