President Obama is one of the youngest presidents in American history, and will be just a sprightly 51 years old on Election Day. But if he loses to Mitt Romney, he’s not going to go all Grover Cleveland on us and come back for a rematch in another four years. At least that’s what he claimed today. “This will be my last political campaign, no matter what,” he said at a rally in Iowa. (This, incidentally, also rules out runs for the Senate, House, governor, mayor, and school board, even though that race would be hilarious.)
Obviously, the pledge is next to meaningless. It’s not like Obama is going to acknowledge that he might lose in November. And besides, he can always change his mind, as he’s done before. But the possibility of him running again in 2016 does seem far-fetched. Maybe if there weren’t any compelling Democrats waiting in the wings, but that’s obviously not the case. Obama would just be bogarting the Democratic nomination at that point.
