Christine M. Flowers: Snooki a star???

I'M IN LOVE with Chris Christie.

It's platonic, especially since he's married with kids. But every time I see his chubby face, I realize how disappointed I am in the choices we on the other side of Camden face in the fall: Tom Corbett (BO-ring) or Dan Onorato (ANNOY-ing.)

Neither of our gubernatorial candidates can hold a candle to Christie in terms of charisma, attitude and who-gives-a-damn-what-the-media-thinks bravado.

Christie is the genuine article, and Jersey is lucky to have him. Which I suppose makes up for having to deal with Snooki.

Like Madonna and Cher before her, the roly-poly Italian midget with the patent-leather hair goes only by the bastardization of her first name. Her father said she got the monikette in grade school, where she was the first girl to kiss a boy (which leads me to wonder what other "firsts" she accomplished before making her "first" Holy Communion.)

The surprise star of the reality show "Jersey Shore" is so greasy and unpleasant, you'd think she was somehow connected to the BP spill had she not made her initial appearance a full year before the Gulf disaster. Not that she's any different from the rest of the cast. They all look like what you'd get if your in vitro was contaminated by mold.

But, for some reason, Snooki has become the breakout star, using her impressive cleavage and toe-curling accent to seduce a nation tired of pampered "Gossip Girl" blondes. By representing the exact antithesis of class, taste and threshold-level hygiene, Snooki has become the Slutty Sacajawea of Smut, guiding us over the cliff and into the Valley of Really Bad Taste.

To her credit, Snooki's needs are relatively few. On the final episode of the first season, she pranced down the boardwalk, flounced on the beach, and sashayed around her condo, looking for love. Or, as she called it, a "date." When no one was willing to give her a spin, not even an old boyfriend who wanted neither the milk nor the cow, she whimpered. Shortly thereafter, she ended up in a hot tub with a guy she considered to be just like her brother.

Faced with this fine example of young Jersey womanhood, it's no wonder that Christie dissed the show and, by (hair) extension, its star. When asked his opinion of the reality program, Christie bravely tried to let his state off the hook by suggesting that the cast were all New Yorkers "parachuted in" to the Jersey Shore for the summer.

The governor had a point.