WASHINGTON — I see that President Barack Obama has filed as a
candidate for reelection in 2012. I had suggested that he get to
work early on his presidential library and forgo the race, but he
is insistent. Well, I tried.
Though some in the media are covering for him, his
announcement is the earliest of any modern president. It continues
a trend that began in 1972. That was when Senator George McGovern
captured the Democratic presidential nomination, though he lost in
the autumn of that year in a squeaker. Richard Nixon stole the
election, 47,167,319 to 29,168,509. Tricky Dick got 60.7 percent of
the vote, the largest in history except for Lyndon Johnson’s 61.1
percent. Watergate changed history.
Using what came to be called the McGovern reforms in the
1972 Democratic Convention, the very same McGovern captured the
nomination. Thus began the trend, the era of the chronic
campaigner. Since 1972 the Democratic Party has nominated a chronic
campaigner every time.
McGovern had been running since 1968 when he declared his
candidacy three weeks before the convention and ran as a stand-in
for the assassinated Robert Kennedy. No one from the Democratic
Establishment noticed anything afoot. They granted the New
Politics, whose members had created such a mad pothering at the
1968 convention, something called the Commission on Party Structure
and Delegate Selection for the 1972 Convention. When McGovern was
made chairman of the Reform Commission, as it came to be called,
the Establishment still did not take heed. McGovern had obviously
been running since 1968, but as Teddy White noted in 1973, “no one
considered McGovern a serious Presidential contender, but he was
everyone’s personal favorite.… Robert Kennedy had called him ‘the
most decent man in the Senate.’”
Well, the Democratic Party has been stuck
with the chronic campaigner since 1972. The McGovern reforms remain
for the most part in place. So if you have the time, you too can
become a chronic campaigner. Jimmy Carter ran the theretofore most
grueling campaign in history and was lucky to have Gerald Ford as
an opponent and Watergate. There was not a village too small for
him to visit. If two people gathered on a street corner, the
chances are Jimmy was there with his hand out and his idiot smile.
The next chronic campaigner to win the presidency was
Bill Clinton, and he is still campaigning for something. Most
recently MSNBC named him “President of the World: The Clinton
Phenomenon.”
Obama has been running for president since his first day
in the Senate. All through his presidency he has been running for
reelection. His filing the other day was a mere formality. The
problem with the chronic campaigner is that, though he is a swell
candidate, he is a lousy chief executive. He cannot sit still, as
in an office. My guess is that Obama has spent less
time in the White House than his predecessor. Now he will be on the
campaign trail full time.
So maybe Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) will run the
country. In unveiling his budget for 2012 he has shown that he is
serious about facing the tremendous budget crunch ahead. Some
conservatives are dismayed that his budget still adds $8 trillion
in debt. It does not balance the budget for 20 years. That just
emphasizes how deep a hole we are in! Ryan’s plan is the most
serious effort to reform government since…well, since
the chronic campaigner came along.
Spending is now, under Obama, at 24 percent of GDP and
will go higher. Ryan wants to bring it down to 20 percent, about
where it has traditionally been in modern times. If we stick with
Obama’s spending we shall be at one with Greece. But cuts are not
enough. Ryan knows that to balance the budget the economy must
grow. He will lower the burden on personal and corporate taxes to
25 percent and he uses dynamic scoring rather than static scoring
to show growth from his tax cut rather than loss of revenue.
Revenue under Ryan’s budget will be at 17.9 percent, about where it
has been in modern times, and during our periods of economic
expansion.
So our chronic campaigner filed for reelection and left
town for the campaign trail. Ryan offered a budget for 2012 and a
vision. The race is on.
