Weighty Controversy

Fit for office? NJ election tiptoes around f-word
By Geoff Mulvihill, The Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — There are weighty issues in New Jersey’s tight race for governor — the highest property taxes in the nation, for one thing. And then there are issues of weight.

Republican challenger Chris Christie’s Henry VIII-like girth has become a front-and-center topic of discussion ever since Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine ran a commercial claiming that Christie “threw his weight around” to get out of traffic violations.

The ad, first aired last month, showed a clip of a rotund Christie, his extra pounds rolling beneath his shirt, lumbering out of the back seat of an SUV.



Corzine spokesman Sean Darcy insisted the governor “has no interest in Chris Christie’s appearance.”

But Corzine, a trim 62-year-old who has been running 5K races around the state to demonstrate his fitness, has not exactly tried to squelch use of the f-word. When asked by a newspaper whether he thought Christie was fat, Corzine touched his bare pate and responded, “Am I bald?”

There is little evidence the commercial is changing many voters’ minds, but it has been a sensation online, getting more than 100,000 hits on YouTube — way more than any other ad in the race. And it has clearly changed the conversation on the campaign trail.

Christie, a 47-year-old former federal prosecutor, won’t say what he weighs. But he acknowledged he has been struggling since college to lose weight. He said that he has dropped nearly 30 pounds since he started campaigning by working out with a trainer, and that he doesn’t have any related health problems.

The “threw-his-weight-around” ad attracted hardly any public criticism during its two-week run, perhaps because New Jersey voters themselves are saying far worse things about the candidates online, with Christie sometimes referred to as “Fatso,” and Corzine as “Corslime.”

Well, President Taft must be rolling over in his piano crate, I mean coffin. Corzine's ad is a mean spirited attack making Christie appear as a "fat cat." But I ask you this? Is it really hitting below the belt if the man's stomach overlaps his belt. It kind of gets confusing where to hit. As a fat man myself maybe I should be more offended but that's the price you pay as a public figure.

In all seriousness I love the fake outrage from the same network that has been insisiting that the President is a radical Muslim that was born in Kenya. They know nothing of unfair attacks.