Campaign Eternal

THE Book of Ecclesiastes tells us that to everything there is a season. In the world of Barack Obama, the season to govern is fleeting, while the season to campaign stretches on longer than a Russian winter.

By Election Day, Obama will have spent 59 of the preceding 112 months campaigning for higher office. That total excludes any perfunctory campaigning to retain his seat in the Illinois legislature, but includes seven months of a failed bid for Bobby Rush’s House seat, an astounding 29 months running for the U.S. Senate, and his current marathon for the presidency. Put another way, Obama spent more of the past decade asking voters to promote him than did any other American-even more than John Edwards, who has invested 48 months in a Senate race and two presidential bids since 1997.

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Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent of National Review.

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THE Book of Ecclesiastes tells us that to everything there is a season. In the world of Barack Obama, the season to govern is fleeting, while the season to campaign stretches on longer than a Russian winter.

By Election Day, Obama will have spent 59 of the preceding 112 months campaigning for higher office. That total excludes any perfunctory campaigning to retain his seat in the Illinois legislature, but includes seven months of a failed bid for Bobby Rush’s House seat, an astounding 29 months running for the U.S. Senate, and his current marathon for the presidency. Put another way, Obama spent more of the past decade asking voters to promote him than did any other American-even more than John Edwards, who has invested 48 months in a Senate race and two presidential bids since 1997.