HE'S ALREADY NOT DONE EVERYTHING HE DIDN'T WANT TO DO IN OFFICE:

The ghost of LBJ hovers over the 2012 election: Barack Obama’s hopes of a second term are still bright. But twin policy crises and Republican stirrings are clouds on his re-election horizon. (Godfrey Hodgson, 22 June 2011, MercatorNet)

The campaign for the United States presidential election of November 2012 is gathering pace with a degree of emerging clarity in the contest for the Republican nomination. There is more certainty on the Democratic side, in that Barack Obama is sure to run for a second term without opposition from inside his party.

Yet an event during a previous contest that might give him a certain pause is an address by his predecessor Lyndon B Johnson on 31 March 1968. LBJ then shocked the United States and the world by concluding with the announcement that he “would not permit the presidency to be involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year”; and accordingly,” I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term.”

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