I’m not saying [tag]Barack Obama[/tag] is going to run for [tag]president[/tag] in [tag]2008[/tag] — he says he’s not interested, and I take him at his word — but I am saying that the past few days produced several reports that could spark a bit of a [tag]boomlet[/tag].
For example, the WaPo’s Chris Cillizza reported this week that Obama has “brought on two nationally known Democratic consultants as advisers in recent weeks, prompting renewed speculation that the freshman senator may be considering a 2008 [tag]White House[/tag] run.”
Anita Dunn, a partner with Squier Knapp Dunn, a media consulting company, and Minyon Moore, who is with the Dewey Square Group, are now serving as advisers to Obama.
Dunn is working with Obama’s leadership political action committee — Hopefund — through the end of the year. Hopefund’s political director recently left and Dunn, who is a close personal friend of top Obama aide Pete Rouse, was called in to oversee the committee until a full-time head can be chosen. Moore is serving as an unpaid adviser to Obama, working to build an African American outreach program.
Obama’s office argues that Dunn and Moore, both of whom have experience in presidential campaigns, are simply helping the senator manage his political responsibilities.
Example #2 comes by way of TNR’s Jason Zengerle who reported that [tag]Hillary Clinton[/tag]’s office believes Obama has the capacity “to toss the [2008] chessboard in the air,” which prompted Zengerle to suggest that [tag]Obama[/tag] may be “laying the groundwork” for a national campaign. Indeed, Zengerle pointed Obama’s traveling, his leadership PAC, his campaign donations to Dems nationwide, and an excerpt from Obama’s forthcoming book, The Audacity of Hope, which suggests Obama is disappointed with how the [tag]Senate[/tag] functions, or in most instances, doesn’t.
Except for the few minutes that it takes to vote, my colleagues and I don’t spend much time on the Senate floor. Most of the decisions–about what bills to call and when to call them, about how amendments will be handled and how uncooperative senators will be made to cooperate–have been worked out in advance, by the Majority Leader, the relevant committee chairman, their staffs, and (depending on the degree of controversy involved and the magnanimity of the Republican handling the bill), their Democratic counterparts. By the time we reach the floor and the clerk starts calling the roll, each of the senators will have determined–in consultation with his or her staff, caucus leader, preferred lobbyists, interest groups, and ideological leanings–just how to positions themselves on the issue. . . .
In the world’s greatest deliberative body, no one listening.
As Zengerle put it, “Spreading money around to Democrats all over the country, making noises about how the Senate maybe isn’t the best place for him to affect political change — sounds like a guy thinking about running for president to me!”
For that matter, Paul Waldman laid out some of the reasons Obama should consider jumping into the race.
1. It’s hard to run for president from the Senate – and the longer you’ve been there, the harder it gets.
2. If you’re a Democrat who’s considering when to run for president, there may never be a better time than 2008.
3. The press has half of their 2008 Democratic primary story written, and they’re waiting for the other half.
4. There is, shall we say, some unease about Hillary Clinton’s electability.
5. He opposed the Iraq war from the beginning.
My hunch is none of this is going to matter. Obama may run someday, but he won’t be at the top of the ticket in two years. But I nevertheless agree with Waldman who described Obama as a rare politician who “gets it,” and who understands “what progressivism should be about and how to communicate it.”
Will Obama run in ‘[tag]08[/tag] probably not. If he did run, would he go far? I think he would. At a minimum, that chessboard would hardly be recognizable.