An accidental president?

Back in 2007, when the name "Barack Obama" first started to penetrate the public consciousness, people would sometimes say to me, "Who is this guy? Have you ever heard of him? How can he possibly think he can win? What a joke..."

Here was my response at the time: "He probably doesn't think he can win. I mean, let's be realistic. Three years ago, he was a state senator. Today, he's not even halfway through his first term in the U.S. Senate. He's never done anything. He's never run anything. He never accomplished much of anything as a legislator. The only logical explanation for his campaign, then, is that he's really running for vice president. In other words, he's just hoping to do well enough to get serious consideration as Hillary Clinton's running mate (or possibly as John Edwards' running mate, unless Edwards is cheating on his cancer-stricken wife with his campaign videographer and ends up fathering her child, lying about the whole thing, and then being confronted with incontrovertible evidence, forcing him to drop out of the race in disgrace...but how likely is that?). Then Obama would be able to run in his own right--and have a serious shot at it--in four years or eight years. In fact, that's the strategy John Edwards himself followed, when he ran for president during his first term in the U.S. Senate--which happened to be his first term in any office ever, which made his presidential candidacy pretty preposterous. It worked for Edwards, though--he was named John Kerry's running mate, and four years later he's a credible presidential candidate--so it could work for Obama."

Now, let's imagine that I was right. That would mean that what we're seeing now is a guy who never expected to be president so soon, who wasn't ready to be president so soon, but who, on January 20, 2009, found himself being sworn in anyway.

That would explain a lot.

Comments

[twitter.com/hardaway]

I am reading Suskind's book. I will let you know what I think when I finish:-)