Free Republic

The second-term curse goes like this: A president (e.g., Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and so on) wins reelection, but then his presidency implodes over the next four years — mired in scandals or disasters such as Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky, the Iraqi insurgency, and Hurricane Katrina. Apparently, like tragic Greek heroes, administrations grow arrogant after their reelection wins. They believe that they are invincible and that their public approval is permanent rather than fickle. The result is that Nemesis zeroes in on their fatal conceit and with a boom corrects their hubris. Or is the...

President Obama’s campaign organization is the greatest political machine in modern history. How it was possible to take a moribund economy, high unemployment, and no detectable foreign policy and turn it into a sweeping electoral victory over a credible opponent is one of the great political stories of our time. Plouffe, Messina, Axelrod. Political geniuses who wiped away forever the Clinton campaign axiom, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and replaced it with, “It’s the Community Organizing, Stupid.” A few years ago, I was talking to a Democratic member of Congress who is close to Obama. She who told me of seeing...