I think I know why New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is so popular. Sure, he is benefiting from the tea party-driven, anti-government populist wave (and indeed, his election in November of 2009 represented the electoral vanguard of that movement), and many would argue that he has thus far proven an effective executive.
But setting aside his politics and his competence, there is another source for the deep affection he seems to engender in voters, and that is this: He’s a little tubby.
I say this not to denigrate the Governor, but merely to point to a fact upon which he himself has often commented. Let’s be honest, he has a weight problem. He’s not perfect. He comes across as an everyday, schlubby kind of guy. And I think that is enormously refreshing to people. Americans have sat for decades now and watched the bureaucratic and legislative classes, tanned and smooth and serenely put together, run the country into the economic toilette. People are sick of ‘put together.’ They see through it now. And I think Christie’s popularity represents a recoil from Harvard-machined, media-sculpted stylistic perfection.
My father recently told me he had the same impression regarding Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who appeared similarly schlubby in a post-election presser standing among some polished and poised politicos. Barbour looks like someone who could help you fix your car; Christie looks like someone who could help you put away that six pack.
Is it coincidence that both are openly talked about as possible presidential contenders?
Matt Patterson is senior editor at the Capital Research Center and a contributor to Proud To Be Right: Voices of the Next Conservative Generation (HarperCollins, 2010). His email is [email protected]
