What I Learned Today: Timing Is Everything

Many a time, when we hear cliches, we laugh or shrug or eye-roll them off because they're, well, cliche. They're unoriginal and overused; they bore us. As Freud points out, humans are pleasure-seeking creatures -- and there is nothing pleasurable about boredom.

Cliches, however, are often true. Perhaps that's another reason we don't allow them to resonate with us; all cliches aside, the truth (sometimes) hurts. We may seek the truth part of the time, but because we seek (what we perceive to be) pleasure all of the time, we often brainwash ourselves; in other words, we minimize our knowledge of the truth in order to maximize our feelings of pleasure. After all, ignorance is bliss, right?

This is what I learned today: We cannot simply ignore cliches, nor write them off. Instead, we must accept cliches as present-day criterion, like this one: Timing is everything.

Take New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for example. Here's a guy who has all the tricks to the presidential trade. He's intelligent, informed, courageous and passionate. He combines his upper class goals with a middle class work ethic. He is true to his personal morals and political beliefs (which, regardless of whether or not your agree with him, is admirable when you consider the ever-changing, hyper-flipflopping that occurs in today's political arena). He commands the fundamental respect from those on both sides of the partisan aisle because he respects his opponents, but he is not afraid to be (respectfully) forthright if he disagrees with them. He compromises without compromising his values.

Relative to the two GOP presidential frontrunners, Christie is (consistently) more conservative than Mitt Romney, but not as conservative as Rick Santorum, who is effectively alienating both the moderate and independent bases. In other words, a Christie presidential campaign could captivate the masses of his party AND the overwhelming majority of moderates and independents. If he would have answered the Republican curtain call to run for president last fall, all indications are Christie could not only trump his contemporaries for the GOP nomination, but he could also be a formidable, electable opponent in the upcoming national election against President Obama. Quite simply, Christie fits today's presidential mold like the glass slipper fit Cinderella.

So why isn't he running for the U.S. presidency?

As Christie contemplated a presidential campaign some six months ago, he and his family came to this conclusion: The timing just isn't right.

Thanks for reading - Josh