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, cellphone-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 Sunday for Chris Christie, a big shot momentarily bereft of an audience, in a city he professes to adore and visit frequently.

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

New Jersey? Brash governor? Presidential hopeful? Upson, dressed in a blue down jacket with a red knit cap over his heard, stared back blankly.

"I’ve been to New York a few times," he offered.

Inside, where the lines for beer (and, consequently, bathrooms) snaked across the hallways, slight inebriation did little to focus the British mind on the governor of New Jersey.

"I’ve vaguely heard of him," said Michael Rabbett, 67, as he sipped red wine from a plastic cup ("wine beer," he noted). He paused to let the name roll around in his head.

"He’s in the background of my head. But not really," he concluded.

Alerted to Christie’s reputation for voluble candor as well as his party affiliation, Rabbett asked his own question: "Has he told that lady from Alaska to shut up?"

No, he was informed. Christie had not tried to silence the former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

"Well why not?" he inquired.

It was an unfamiliar sensation for Christie, a likely Republican presidential candidate in 2016, who has traveled to London on a three-day trade mission, the kind of jaunt intended to build his credibility as a potential commander in chief.

Back in the United States, he may be loved or loathed, but he is the object of firmly held views, shaped by years of YouTube clips, shouting matches and memorable zingers.

London, he said, was a beloved getaway for him and his wife, Mary Pat.

"It’s one of our more favorite places to come, so we are very familiar with this city as tourists," the governor said during an impromptu news conference on a street outside the stadium, where Arsenal handily defeated Aston Villa.

Christie said he was unbothered by his low profile in the financial capital of Europe.

"I don’t think I have to worry about that," he said. "I’m not running for anything in the United Kingdom anytime soon."

At long last, a man (and they were almost all men here) emerged from the throngs who registered faint recognition of Christie, sort of.

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 Sen. Christie is, right?"

Michael Barbaro, New York Times

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