New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is repeatedly telling anyone and everyone that he is not running for President in 2012.
“But I’ve got to believe I’m ready to be president, and I don’t,” he told the NY Post and others.
Amazing how convenient the timing of that statement is!
I’m fully convinced that Christie’s comments have less to do with his readiness and more to do with history and likelihoods.
The simple fact of the matter is most Presidents who run for re-election win.
There are aberrations, of course. Carter in 1980. Bush in 1992. But since 1933, those are it. Every other President since then has won re-election when he ran for it.
2 out of 12 Presidents in the past 78 years were defeated in a re-election bid. Not great odds for challengers, eh?
And the two that lost had a giant recession during their campaign.
Do you not think that Christie has figured this out? If the economy turns around in time, Obama is going to be nearly impossible to beat.
That says nothing about Obama and says everything about historical trends and Presidential political probability. Heck, Obama’s first election was a near certainty, and that had little to do with Obama as well.
Two-term Presidents are almost always followed by President of the opposite Political Party (In the same 78 years, only FDR and Reagan managed to buck that trend.)
With the statistical likelihood that the current President wins a second term, and the same likelihood that the opposing party follows a two-term President, if you were Chris Christie, when would you be “ready” to run for President?
Do you like running with the wind in your face or at your back?
I think Christie will run in 2016 and not in 2012. But it has nothing to do with readiness.
It has everything to do with history.
