Obama's time is now or maybe never [George Will]

New Hampshire recently was brightened by the presence of Barack Obama, 45, who, calling the fuss about him "baffling," made his first trip in 45 years to that state, and not under duress. Because he is young, is just two years distant from a brief career as a state legislator and has negligible national security experience, an Obama presidential candidacy could have a porcelain brittleness. But if he wants to be president - it will not be a moral failing if he decides that he does not, at least not now - this is the time for him to reach for the brass ring. There are four reasons why.

First, one can only be an intriguing novelty once. If he waits to run, the last half-century suggests that the wait could be for eight years (see reason four, below). In 2016, he will be only 55, but there will be many fresher faces.

Second, if you get the girl up on her tiptoes, you should kiss her. The electorate is on its tiptoes because Obama has collaborated with the creation of a tsunami of excitement about him. He is nearing the point when a decision against running would brand him as a tease who ungallantly toyed with the electorate's affections.

Third, he has, in Hillary Clinton, the optimal opponent. The contrast is stark: He is soothing; she is not. Many Democrats who are desperate to win are queasy about depending on her. For a nation with jangled nerves and repelled by political snarling, he offers a tone of sweet reasonableness.

What people see in him reveals more about them than about him. Some of his public utterances have the spunginess of Polonius' bromides for Laertes ("neither a borrower nor a lender be .Ê.Ê. to thine own self be true"). In 2005, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action and the AFL-CIO rated his voting record a perfect 100. The nonpartisan National Journal gave him an 82.5 liberalism rating, making him more liberal than Clinton (79.8). He dutifully decries "ideological" politics, but just as dutifully he conforms to most of liberalism's catechism, from "universal" health care, whatever that might mean, to combating global warming, whatever that might involve, and including the sacred injunction Thou Shalt Execrate Wal-Mart - an obligatory genuflection to organized labor.

The nation, which so far is oblivious to his orthodoxy, might not mind if it is dispensed by someone with Obama's "Can't we all just get along?" manner. Ronald Reagan, after all, demonstrated the importance of congeniality to the selling of conservatism.

Fourth, the odds favor the Democratic nominee in 2008 because for 50 years it has been rare for a presidential nominee to extend his party's hold on the presidency beyond eight years. Nixon in 1960 came agonizingly close to doing so (he lost the popular vote by 118,574 - less than a vote per precinct - and a switch of 4,430 votes in Illinois and 24,129 in Texas would have elected him), but failed. As did Hubert Humphrey in 1968 (he lost by 510,314 out of 73,211,875 votes cast), Gerald Ford in 1976 (if 5,559 votes had switched in Ohio and 7,232 votes had switched in Mississippi, he would have won) and Al Gore in 2000 (537 Florida votes). Only the first President Bush, in 1988, succeeded, perhaps because the country desired a third term for the incumbent, which will not be the case in 2008. So the odds favor a Democrat winning in 2008 and, if he or she is re-elected, the Democrat nominated in 2016 losing.

Furthermore, remember the metrics of success that just two years ago caused conservatives to think the future was unfolding in their favor: Bush carried 97 of the 100 most rapidly growing counties; the center of the nation's population, now southwest of St. Louis, is moving south and west at a rate of 2 feet an hour; only two Democratic presidents have been elected in the last 38 years; in the 15 elections since World War II, only twice has a Democrat received 50 percent of the vote. Two years later, these facts do not seem so impressive.

In 2000 and 2004, Bush twice carried 29 states that now have 274 electoral votes; Gore and Kerry carried 18 that now have 248. Not much needs to change in politics in order for a lot to change in governance. And Obama, like the rest of us, has been warned, by William Butler Yeats: All life is a preparation for something that probably will never happen.

Facts we must all face. -g- Too many citizens are dependent on government. How can a conservative win if he speaks the truth and tells the folks, 'The calvary ain't comin'"?

"About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage "

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million;

Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000

States won by: Gore: 19; Bush: 29

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

Report: U.S. Continues to Grow More Dependent on Federal Government

WASHINGTON, JUNE 13, 2005— Americans depend on the federal government more than ever for funding for their education, health care and housing, yet more Americans than ever pay nothing in federal income tax, according to a new study from The Heritage Foundation.

Federal spending has climbed 150 percent on higher education, 48 percent on health care and 27 percent on housing since 2000, the report says.

The Index of Dependency, which measures the increased dependence on government, increased by 1 percent in 2004, the smallest increase in four years. The Index jumped at least 5 percent in each of the previous three years, 27 percent since 2000 and 112 percent since 1980.

Meanwhile, The Tax Foundation reports that a record 42.5 million Americans paid no federal taxes after deductions and credits.

The Index measures the extent to which the federal government has “crowded out” not just state and local governments but churches, communities and families in delivering human services, says William Beach, director of Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis. The project grew out of concerns by leaders such as Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and others that society could reach a “tipping point” at which a majority, dependent on government services yet not charged for them, could press for a vast expansion of government that could not be sustained.

“Civil society already has yielded substantial ground to the federal public sector,” says Beach. “When do we reach what George Will called the triumph of the entitlement state, where the special interests band together to form a majority that votes its short-term desires at the expense of the long-term public good?”

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