“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.” — William Shakespeare
Being on time is one of those things you can’t fake. You either walk through the door when you say you will, or you don’t. Pretty simple stuff. In politics and government, that small detail takes on an outsized weight. It isn’t about the clock—it’s about the covenant. Every meeting, every hearing, every handshake is a promise. If you can’t keep the simplest promise of showing up when you said you would, why should anyone trust you to keep the bigger ones?
The public doesn’t usually see the calendars that run a governor’s life or the endless schedules that box in a senator’s day. But they notice when the train is late. They notice when a mayor drifts into a community meeting minutes after it has started. They notice when a committee hearing is delayed because a lawmaker couldn’t bother to leave the fundraiser on time or overslept or didn’t care enough to be on time. In politics, you are always teaching by example, whether you mean to or not. Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.” A leader who shows up on time teaches discipline – a leader who doesn’t teaches contempt.
Tom Kean was one of the best Republican governors of my lifetime, and he had a gift for never being tone deaf, except in one instance. On-time arrivals were a rarity. He was always late. He knew it too. Time was just something he struggled with. His staff came to factor it in. His voters forgave him because they trusted his sincerity and admired his touch. But even with Kean, the lateness became part of the story. For all his gifts, punctuality wasn’t one of them.
A different kind of moment occurred in 2004. Democrats in New Jersey got antsy after a Quinnipiac poll showed the Bush vs. Kerry race tightening. (Spoiler: the poll was wrong.) They scrambled to bring in vice-presidential candidate John Edwards for a quick drop-by at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark. The ballroom was sweltering, packed with 1,200 people, all waiting in anticipation. Edwards kept them waiting, not for half an hour, but for ninety minutes. Why? Because he decided he wanted to go for a run and then shower before his next event. By the time he finally appeared, the crowd was drained, the impact was blunted, and he left the state with Sharpe James furious at him. Net-negative use of his time. A rally that could have given Democrats momentum ultimately left a sour taste. The story wasn’t the speech; it was the wait.
And then there’s Trenton. I spent almost twenty-two years as a state senator and assemblyman, and I’ve never been anywhere else on the planet that has less of a regard for keeping on schedule than the New Jersey Legislature. Trenton is the hurry-up-and-wait capital of America. Nothing ever starts on time. People are infrequently ready to go. The tone at the top sets the tempo, and the tempo was perpetually delayed. Whether you are a committee chair or a legislative leader, you need to respect the time of others and be punctual. When I was Mayor, and now as Port Authority Chairman, meetings start on time. Because if you’re the one in the chair, you set the example, and the example matters.
One of my mentors was Steve Adubato, Sr., the political boss of the North Ward of Newark. With Big Steve, if you weren’t an hour early, then you were late. That was his law, and he enforced it with the kind of intensity only a ward leader can. I know it is now politically untenable, but in Big Steve’s land, people lose their jobs for being just minutes late. As I mentioned earlier, I firmly believe that it is crucial to let your colleagues and the public know that you value their time as much as your own and that you respect them. If people know you’re the one who expects punctuality, then they also know you’re the one who values their time, who takes the work seriously, and who treats the office with respect.
There is a cost of lateness in politics. It drains energy. It signals disrespect. It hands your opponents an opening. The paradox of public life is that time is in shortest supply precisely for those who must respect it most. A governor’s schedule may be packed to the minute. Yet that is why punctuality matters all the more. To keep one’s commitments, despite the temptations to stretch and stall, shows mastery rather than chaos. It shows that the official respects both the institution and the people who keep it running.
Late arrivals have consequences that extend beyond mere inconvenience. They chip away at trust. They suggest that the person in power is playing by different rules. They whisper arrogance. And the public, already skeptical, doesn’t need another reason to believe their leaders hold them in disregard. Arrive on time, and you build credibility, minute by minute and brick by brick. Show up late, and you chip away at your own foundation.
Politics is made up of gestures: some grand, some microscopic. Showing up on time may never make a headline, but it sends a current through the system. Staffers notice. Colleagues notice. Reporters notice. And over time, voters notice too. A reputation for punctuality becomes a reputation for reliability. In government, reliability is gold.
Being on time is not about the tyranny of the clock. It is about the discipline of honor. It is the willingness to say: my word means something, even in the most minor things. The people who sent me here deserve that. The colleagues who sit with me deserve that. The office itself deserves that. In a line of work where credibility is fragile, keeping time may be the surest way to keep faith.
So yes, punctuality is mundane. But it is also moral. It is a measure of respect. It is a declaration of seriousness. In the world of politics and government, it is the quietest way to say: I mean it.
