From Mike Allen yesterday (hat tip: John Aravosis):
ARTICLE OF THE DAY -- JON WARD in Huffington magazine (available today on iPad; article posts Monday), "The One-Termer? Thinking Bold Thoughts With Team Romney": "Matt Rhoades is guarded and intense ... [W]hen I met him in mid-July, in a bohemian coffee shop in Boston's North End, the 37-year-old manager of Mitt Romney's campaign was hesitant to speculate about what the Republican candidate would do as president, and how. ... But when I asked Rhoades ... what Romney might do with the budget and entitlement reform plans Ryan had already outlined, Rhoades' eyes lit up. He gave me a name: James Polk. ... Rhoades and the rest of the members of Romney's inner circle think a Romney presidency could look much like the White House tenure of the 11th U.S. president.Oh, please, Mitt -- get some original material, won't you?
"Polk, who served from 1845 to 1849, presided over the expansion of the U.S. into a coast-to-coast nation, annexing Texas and winning the Mexican-American war for territories that also included New Mexico and California. He reduced trade barriers and strengthened the Treasury system. And he was a one-term president. Polk is an allegory for Rhoades: He did great things, and then exited the scene, and few remember him. That, Rhoades suggested, could be Romney's legacy as well. ... Multiple senior Romney advisers assured me that they had had conversations with the candidate in which he conveyed a depth of conviction about the need to try to enact something like Ryan's controversial budget and entitlement reforms. Romney, they said, was willing to count the cost politically in order to achieve it."
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, syndicated column, August 2, 1978:
Romald Reagan has toyed with a dramatic response to the political hazard of his age: a pledge to serve only one term if elected president....Houston Chronicle, February 3, 1995:
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole says that in formally declaring his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, he may announce he will seek only one term.John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Game Change:
"I haven't ruled that out," Dole told interviewer David Frost in a report to be broadcast on public television Friday night.The move would give the 1996 race an unconventional and possibly controversial twist. Not since the 19th century has a candidate forsworn interest in a second term before being elected to his first, a presidential scholar said. James K. Polk (1845-49) and Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-81) promised to serve only one term and did....
The idea was as simple as it was radical: a one-term pledge. McCain would promise that if he won the White House, he would spend four years in residence and then step down. The pledge would embody the theme that Reagan cared only about solving the country's problems and not about indulging his ambition. It would say that he was going to tackle the hardest issues -- Iraq, immigration, ethics, entitlements, runaway spending -- with no regard for reelection.Mitt? We've been there. We've done that. Try again.
...The announcement speech wasd written. The press release was drafted. All systems were go....
(And yes, Barack Obama has said on a couple of occasions that one term could have been enough for him. Nobody believed he wouldn't run again. Nobody should believe it about Mitt, either.)
Polk, huh?
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean that while we're waging the neocon's war in Iran, Mitt will have us busy with trying to annex Canada and Mexico?
And if Mitt wins, he'll be lucky to finish a 1st term, let alone even think of running for a 2nd one.
There's a lot of people who hate Mitt and don't trust him.
And, Paul Ryan's a very, very amibitious young man.
If Mitt dies in office, Ryan will not only be able to finish that term, but have two of his own.
Or more, if the Republican Congress decides to rescind the 2-term limit rule for 'Young Blue Eyes.'
Over-under date on Mitt having a fatal "accident" if he wins?
My guess is, February of 2013.
Let the man enjoy a few weeks in office - just not enough time for him to feck-up their plans.
Then, kick the widow, the 5 neer-do-well sons, and the prancing horsie OUT!
And move the Ryan clan in!
Lincoln and many others loathed Polk, in his day, for cooking up his war with Mexico to grab territory and get Texas into the Union.
ReplyDeleteTexas, you recall, broke with Mexico to get out of the reach of Mexican abolition of slavery.
Texas wanted to join the Union as a slave state, seeking safety and stability against the risks of renewed war with Mexico or even internal abolitionism.
Fans of Howard Zinn have this part of the American story right, for sure.
On the other hand, patriotic historians admire Polk enormously, as do conservatives.
"My country right or wrong," you know.
He liked war, he sought to strengthen America by making it bigger and richer thru war, and he sought to strengthen the hand of slavery.
Their kind of guy.
Pataki -- said he'd only serve two terms in the spirit of term-limits. And he served three terms.
ReplyDeleteNo, Victor, assuming your conspiracy goes ahead, they'd give the Mittster slightly more than two years, as long as he went with the program and signed every law they put in front of him. THEN the bump-off, so Ryan could be eligible for two full terms plus the second half of Romney's -- a good (for them) ten years.
ReplyDeleteAt least, that's my understanding of how it would work.
Ah, checked, and the Twenty-second Amendment, per Wikipedia, "bars anyone from being elected president more than twice, or once if that person served more than half of another president's term."
NBB,
ReplyDeleteThanks.
I'd forgotten that part about 'more than half the term.'
And I'm sure Mitt, Ann, and the 5 Stooges thank you.
Hopefully, we'll never have a Mitt Presidence to worry about.
Or a Ryan on, either!