"You Can't Change Washington from the Inside"

Official White House photo (hence public domain): Obama interviews Captain Kidd.

“You can't change Washington from the inside.”

This was Obama's comment in his recent interview with Univision—and isn't it a remarkable thing for him to say? After all, he was elected four years ago on the promise of “Change.”

It sounds a bit like sour grapes. As if he expects to lose this election, and is telling himself and his followers that he can do more good outside Washington.

Indeed, here is a recent story claiming that Obama's internal polls show him losing, and that his backers have already picked out a nice retirement home in Hawaii for him, Michelle, and the kids, ready for occupancy in January, 2013.

Can it be true? It sounds improbable on the face of it. The polls generally show Obama slightly ahead, and doing better than Romney in the electoral college vote.

Right-wing partisans point to an apparent over-sampling of Democrats, and claim the polls are rigged in Obama's favour. As here.

But aren't pollsters who do public political polls largely advertising their wares for corporate clients? If their polls turn out tobe wrong, isn't that lousy advertising? Don't they have a vested interest in getting it right? Sure—but what they could do is skew the numbers now, and correct them for the last few pollings just before the election, so that they look okay when the reality check comes due.

But this still assumes the existence of something like a left-wing conspiracy among pollsters.

If you check the betting market, the odds there still favour Obama; and these futures markets tend to be pretty accurate. Why? Because if anyone has any inside information, there is a huge incentive to put a lot of money against the spread. And so the spread will close.

The spread in favour of Obama is growing.

In any case, it seems senseless for either Obama or Romney to toss in the towel with six weeks to go. As someone once rightly said, a week is a long time in politics. Nobody can possibly have it won or lost at this point.

I think the explanation for Obama's unscripted comment and new home in Hawaii lie elsewhere. I think they are further evidence of something I have suspected for some time, and noted here. Obama may not really want to be president any longer.

People who are not president apparently find this so improbable that they never consider it. But it seems to me the most healthy reaction to the job. Calvin Coolidge, for one, was sensible enough to walk away from the job.

Don't you, too, just feel this to be true of Obama? Isn't this why Eastwood's empty chair image strikes home? Isn't this why Obama is avoiding the tough interviews and the tough meetings in favour of posing with someone in a pirate suit to mark “Talk Like a Pirate Day”? Sure, it might be good strategy—making Obama look folksy to contrast with Romney's stiffness. Or it may be that Obama is sick of the stress and strain of being president, and his handlers feel he needs to relax.

This, in turn, could indeed mean that he loses. His backers may fear that he won't put in the necessary effort to win the crucial upcoming debates. They may fear that, in a serious interview or unscripted speech, he may say something revealing, because he consciously or semi-consciously wants to lose. Something, indeed, like “You can't change Washington from inside.”

But, win or lose, they may have had to do something for the presidential morale to keep him focused on the race. Something like promising him, at the end of the tunnel, a nice, quiet retirement in Hawaii. And even buying him the mansion now, so he knows it's real. A retirement in Hawaii, note, not in Chicago. This suggests a retirement of playing golf and walking the beach, not one of corporate lawyering or sitting on boards in Chicago. His fantasy, if all this is true, looks more like perfect rest.

It's the fantasy of an exhausted man.