Sizing up Gov. Christie’s chances

Most people, including a former U.S. ambassador to the world body, don’t know why that is. “It’s always been that way,” we were told. And, indeed it has.

The reason, says international relations expert Edward C. Luck, is older than the United Nations itself. Seems that, in meetings with Allied leaders during World War II to set up the U.N., FDR wanted Brazil to be a permanent member of the security council, Luck explained. Roosevelt wanted to reward Brazil for its help in the war, thought it would be good to have another Western Hemisphere country and a developing nation on the council.

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(Charles Dharapak/AP) - Chris Christie with the man some would like to see him challenge.

Apparently there were some objections and they eventually agreed to designate Brazil as leadoff speaker and the United States, as the host country, would be next. The remaining speakers are determined by the U.N. Secretariat using a complex set of factors and, of course, politicking.

Well, they’re both square

Colorado’s nine electoral votes could be key to the 2012 presidential race. So it might be a good idea if the Obama White House could locate the state on a map.

Questions arose when reporters traveling with President Obama on his Western swing this week were given their press badges. Obama was speaking in cities in Washington, California and Colorado, the badge noted, conveniently putting them in light colors.

But what’s wrong with this picture? Seems the place they think is Colorado is actually Wyoming. You’d think they’d know where Denver was. Didn’t Obama appear there about three years ago with all those goofy-looking Roman columns?

Moving on . . .

Seems it was only yesterday — actually it was a few months ago — that we wrote that longtime State Department employee Diane Zeleny was going to get a new job as director of communications and external relations at the Broadcast­ing Board of Gover­nors, which over­sees all govern­ment broadcast op­erations for Voice of America, Ra­dio Free Eu­rope, Ra­dio and TV Mar­ti.

“I just got here, that’s true,” she said in an e-mail this week announcing her departure Oct. 7 to be vice president for strategy and communications for the Legatum Institute, a London-based free-market-oriented think tank. She said she was staying in Washington “with frequent trips to London and Dubai where Legatum has offices.”

In other moves of note, Shimmy Stein, senior policy adviser to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) for the past decade, is leaving to join the lobbying group Blank Rome Governmental Relations as a principal. No replacement has been named, Cantor’s office said.

Twitter: @AlKamenWP