The one-term meme returns

Ed Morrissey wonders why President Obama doesn't just announce he's not running for a second term.

Some will scoff at the notion that Obama and his large ego would walk away from the office, but LBJ was also rumored to think pretty highly of himself. It’s a low-probability outcome, but it isn’t a zero probability outcome. Obama’s ratings have tanked this year along with the economy, and he hasn’t come up with an original thought on economic policy since Porkulus. The leaks of his rumored plan sound a lot like Porkulus II, a sequel to a flop. This gives the impression that Obama has run out of ideas, and as Noonan argues in her piece, his attacks on Republicans for their supposed refusal to pass a plan he has yet to even submit to them sounds like a man who realizes that he’s out of ideas, too.

Then there is Michael S. Malone at Ricochet, says that Obama need not wait until January 2013 to walk away from the White House. Now will do:

Looking ahead, you must be dreading the next eighteen months of convention protests, daily attacks by the GOP nominee, and trying to defend a miserable economic record during the debates. It’s going to be awful, especially since the only arrow left in your quiver is to go on the attack in the dirtiest possible ways: race, class envy, and religion. You must know that even if you do manage to win, it will be a pyrrhic victory, with your image so damaged – and the economy still so crippled – that your second term will make the first look like a picnic. Even successful presidents have rotten second terms; just imagine what yours is going to be like.

So, Mr. President, I have a suggestion: resign.

I don’t mean that in a flippant, or even partisan, way. Rather, let me explain how a smart resignation, properly done, can be a ‘win’ for all parties involved – not least yourself.

Ah, but they only tread ground I already trod more than a year ago:

Remember, the real payoff of being president comes after the incumbent leaves office. Bill Clinton is pulling down a quarter-mil per speech. The cash salary of the president is $400,00 (plus perks out the wazoo, of course). That means that B. Clinton can earn more in a weekend, giving two speeches, than he made in a year as president I (actually, a lot more, since the Congress raised the president's pay after Clinton left office).

That Bill served two terms surely elevates his fee over what he would earn as a one-termer. But will this matter with Barack Obama, the first black president? The sky's the limit for him after he leaves office - and Michelle, too, since she will also be in high demand.

If After the Democrats get decimated at the polls in three months, President Obama will immediately become, functionally, a lame duck, a fate he only narrowly avoided already. I won't be surprised if he, like LBJ in 1968, simply announces he's not running for reelection.

I'm not predicting this, mind. I just foresee it as possible. What will be the major dertiminant is whether the Congressional Republicans will do enough between 2010 and 2012 to earn voters' trust enough to make Obama's reelection prospects dim enough to drive the decision. And since it's Republicans we're talking about, I'm not calling that.

However, I did not expect then that Obama's presidency would implode so thoroughly as it has.

Even so, Obama will seek renomination and he will get it. No one is going to primary him because every Democrat in the country would see it as racist. Even so, many Democrats are venting.

“We’re almost three years into this administration, and there’s never been a plan. And that’s what everybody feels. And the president didn’t lead. He waited. The quintessential image, sadly, of an administration that I supported and hoped for much better, is the president waiting by the phone to hear what Congress calls to tell him. It doesn’t work in this country that way. It’s not a matter that it’s August. It’s a matter that it’s August 2011. So we’ve been drifting for a very long time. And we’ve been drifting down. And we had a short-term plan that failed. A short-term stimulus that was supposed to get the economy back on track, but it failed. And now we have nothing behind it. And we have no agreements, and we have no leadership. And, frankly, I do think it’s pretty odd the president’s on vacation right now. Normally I wouldn’t care about such things, but the world markets are in deep crisis. It’s no joke. This isn’t just an up-and-down little blip. This is a very serious situation.”

And that's from an Obama supporter, "liberal economist Jeffrey Sachs"!

It's going to get worse for the president before it gets better - and it's not going to get better.

Update: The Hillary drum is being beaten again. And I did that 14 months ago.