And so begins campaign 2016.
Those words are intended not as satire or as whimsy. The purported finish line represented by Tuesday’s re-election of Barack Obama is someone else’s starting line. The phrase “permanent campaign” has evolved from winking hyperbole to irrefutable reality. Presidents come and presidents go; the never-ending campaign endures.
The demise of the long 2012 presidential race is replaced by the instantaneous birth of new ambitions in each major party, even as the candidate who came up short (Mitt Romney, this year) is beginning to grieve for what might have been.
There are people and entities — partisan websites all along the ideological continuum, news-oriented television channels, radio talk shows, campaign strategists-for-hire, political consultants, pollsters — whose livelihoods depend on the presidential contest that never ceases. To them, Election Day itself is little more than a signpost along the road and certainly no reason to slow down.
The public may have grown weary of this year’s politics, but the professionals are already picking sides and players for the next one. Governing can be dreary; campaigning always promises exhilaration. Legislators doing their jobs seldom hear the cheers that are the soundtrack of the campaign trail. And there will forever be an audience; people, whatever their protestations, like to watch a fight.
So, even as the newspaper banner headlines declare that President Obama is heading back to the White House for the next four years, other men and women are hearing a proclamation that, although literally silent, is to their ears as distinct and loud as a blaring announcement over the public-address system in some vast sports stadium:
“Will the runners please report to the starting blocks … .”
CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a bestselling author whose 25 books include “Late Edition: A Love Story;” “Fraternity: A Journey in Search of Five Presidents;” and “Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen.”
