Filed by KOSU News in US News.
August 17, 2011

The common mayfly has a life expectancy of about a day. The common Gov. -Chris-Christie-is-considering-running-for-president rumor? Less than an hour.

Journalist Jonathan Alter got Twitter buzzing when he tweeted that sources told him the Republican New Jersey governor was running focus groups for a possible presidential run. That was at 12:29 pm.

This obviously was exciting news for political junkies.

But alas, Christe’s spokeswoman finally stomped out the rumor, saying the governor hadn’t changed his mind. The governor has said, oh, about one million times that he’s not running.

At about 1:23 pm, Alter tweeted again that another source “close to Christie and v-reliable, says there are no Christie focus groups and nothing has changed. I trust him.”

This was a good fire drill. Believe no rumor about Christie running for president this election cycle until you actually see and hear the words “I am running for president” come from his mouth. And even then, you might want to doublecheck.

That’s because Christie essentially painted himself in a corner by saying in no uncertain terms that he’s not running. He even said publicly that he didn’t have the all-consuming drive to be president and that he was “not ready” for the job.

His brand is that he’s a no-nonsense, plain-talking, decisive, no flip-flopping everyman. If he were to all of a sudden announce that he had changed his mind, that would cut against everything he so far has seemed to be.

This isn’t to say that Christie couldn’t change his mind about running, especially with all the pressure on him to do so.

But until we actually see him say the words that he’s running, it’s probably safe to bet that he isn’t. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]