Chris Christie

There’s no getting around the roly-poly fact—Chris Christie is fat. Barack Obama may be only half-black, but Chris Christie is by no means half-fat. This cat’s totally whole milk. His jowls are the size of canned hams. He’s 5’10”, and estimates of his weight range from 320 to 350 pounds—in other words, he’s an unfit fatty. If we named people after their physical characteristics, his name would be Fatty Fatman. He talks straight, but he doesn’t walk straight. To be fair, he waddles.

Although New Jersey’s standing governor frequently needs to sit, Christie is generally good-natured—even jolly!—about his girth, but at times he’ll shrug his lard-packed shoulders and concede that maybe it wouldn’t kill him to lose a couple hundred pounds.

“I weigh too much because I eat too much,” he’s sheepishly admitted. “And I eat some bad things, too. I’m really struggling, been struggling for a long time with it, and I know that it would be better for my kids if I got it more under control. And so I do feel a sense of guilt at times about that.”

Governor Christie, we feel you’re approaching it ass-backwards. You’re not too fat at all. In fact, you’re just fat enough. So throw away the guilt, you fat, blubbering fool. You can’t run away from your fat, so rather than apologize for it, bask in it instead. You should not shirk from your bulk—rather, you should proudly flap yer flab in front of the flashbulbs. You should claim your fat in front of this very fat country and encourage fat voters to vote for you simply because you’re fat.

Political strategists are supposed to think in terms of raw numbers. Nearly two-thirds of adult Americans are either overweight or obese. That’s somewhere around 140-150 million voters. That’s almost the female, black, Jewish, and gay vote combined, once you account for overlappers such as black females and gay Jews. And that doesn’t even count the black lesbian Jews who are severely overweight. Depending on exactly who taunted them in high school, they might identify most strongly with their fat side.

If Christie plays it right, he could tap deep into the psyche of a largely silent and never directly pandered-to voting bloc—our plump, portly, corpulent masses who’ve silently endured teasing and bullying at beaches, swimming pools, and even bowling alleys since they first packed on the pounds during adolescence or before. It has long been our suspicion that fat people share an emotional kinship that transcends race, class, and gender, that Persons of Obesity worldwide share a bitter common understanding and a mutual sense of alienation from normal society.

Along comes Christie as the Great Fat Hope. He can channel the misguided rage of those who’ve burned with resentment their whole lives toward the fit and slim. He can even use playful campaign slogans such as “Let’s Tip the Scales in Our Favor!,” “There’s Worth in Our Girth!,” “Don’t Worry About Our Waist—Let’s Cut the Waste!,” and “It Takes a Fat Man to Trim a Bloated Budget!”

With the right marketing team, Chris Christie can make Fat the new Black.