A Low Profile for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey at Arsenal Game in London

LONDON — Presidential politics can be a humbling business. Local renown is revealed, uneasily, to be just that: It translates poorly onto a bigger stage, allowing a man accustomed to instant, cell-phone-picture-frenzied celebrity on the boardwalks of the New Jersey shore to stroll in awkward anonymity through a packed stadium in London.

So it went here on Sunday for Chris Christie, a big shot bereft of an audience, in a city he professes to adore and to visit frequently.

“Who?” asked Graham Upson, a 55-year old soccer fan inside the frigid Emirates Stadium on Sunday, who seemed blissfully unaware of Mr. Christie’s presence in the stands, not to mention his very existence.

It turned out he had already been queried by a different reporter, asking the same question.

“You want to know,” he interrupted, “if I know who Senator Christie is, right?”

The New York Times