Hey Furry-faced Czar-dude*:

You’ve been around for every election in US history. Has there ever been a president who didn’t run for re-election? Would it be a huge scandal if BHO dropped out, or what?

As always, yours, etc. etc.
D.T.
*I have a bit of a buzz on – please forgive me.

All is forgiven. That is hardly the worst thing the Czar has been called. Possibly even by you.

The Czar also apologizes in return; somehow, his email notifier got turned off, and missed a whole bunch of missives in the electro-post for a few days.

Now, to answer your mighty question, of which there were really two.

First, yes: there are cases of this in American history. The first was James K. Polk, who announced when initially running that he intended to serve only one term. At the completion of his first term, he stated that he achieved his four goals as president (Obtain California, procure Oregon, reduce tariffs, and go back to an independent treasury), and despite intense popular pressure, refused to run for a second term.

Also, on the other extreme, was James Buchanan. Buchanan would very much liked to have run for re-election, but his presidency was so horrific and incompetent that the Democrats split into two parties partially as a means of getting rid of him (but mostly because the country itself was about to split along geographic lines). Instead of Buchanan running again, Democrats Stephen Douglas (N) and John Breckenridge (S) became the split-party candidates, and Buchanan retreated into the shadows of disgrace during the 1860 election.

Andrew Johnson’s unpopularity—and frankly his status of his political party—not only prevented him from contemplating re-election, but was replaced by U.S. Grant (R) and Horatio Seymour (D) in the 1868 elections.

Rutherford Hayes was also a one-term-by-desire president, as was Calvin Coolidge (one of the Czar’s favorites), who carefully explained his desire not to run with “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.” And that was that.

Trickier still (and American politics always has a way of complicating things), Grover Cleveland opted to retire rather than run for a third term. The Czar is not sure how DT views this one.

More recently, we tend to forget, Lyndon Johnson’s poll numbers were so bad in 1968 that he announced “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” This model is a very close one for Barack Obama, but the weird fact is that LBJ had a good upswing in popularity in the last few months of his presidency that could have potentially seen him defeat Richard Nixon. Of course, his decision to announce a little before election day basically blew apart any chance of any candidate defeating Nixon.

With the history lesson out of the way, what would be the big deal if Obama stepped down? We see that some presidents who do so wind up being viewed favorably, while others far less so. However we see these are presidents who intentionally stepped aside (Polk, Harrison, Coolidge); presidents who step aside because they are doing poorly (Johnson, Johnson, Buchanan) tend to be viewed in harsh terms.

Obama knows this. And the Democrats are in a bind: if they pull Obama out of the campaign, this is basically an admission that liberal progressive politics have failed for (we hope) the last time. If they let him run, he gets steamrolled like Carter or Mondale, which is an admission that liberal progressive politics have failed for (we hope) the last time.

Enter a third possibility: the Democrats run a primary candidate against him. And this is not only possible, but in some camps has begun: Ralph Nader is actively recruiting candidates to run. (Yesterday, some news stories erroneously reported he was, in fact, running himself against Obama, but this is not true.)

This third possibility offers a loophole:

1. If Obama loses the primary, it’s merely because the world was not meant for one as beautiful as he was.
2. If Obama wins the primary, it is because he is truly a great leader with backbone, pride, grit, and guts.
3. If Obama loses the primary and his challenger wins the general election, it is because Americans want someone less bipartisan and someone more willing to fight for Democratic ideals against the vile Republicans.
4. If Obama loses the primary and his challenger loses the general election, it is because Obama was the better candidate after all, and you will now see where you racist bastards have put this country.
5. If Obama wins the primary and wins the general election, it is all because he needs real challenges, not these weak, insipid, and petty issue-oriented candidates the GOP keeps producing.

So no matter what the outcome, the liberal progressives have a directions in which they can spin. And this gives them either a faint hope for 2016, or at worst they wait another fifty years and start it all up again.

The one thing they cannot risk is a humiliating loss without a challenger, for it will signify that the whole arc (Bohemians – Aristocrats – Wilsonians – Fascists – Communists – New Dealers – WPA – Socialists – Pinkos – Hippies – Radicals – Greenies – Keynesians) comes to a grinding halt. This isn’t to say this won’t happen on its own, but you can see that the best hope to keep Leftism alive in American politics is a primary.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.