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The Daily Telegraph has an interesting, if unlikely, story up today. It alleges that President Obama may intentionally wish to be a one-term president.
From the story:
When things got tough against Hillary Clinton, he all but conceded the final Democratic primaries and let the clock run out. Against John McCain, he developed a campaign plan and refused to deviate from it. McCain was level in the polls when the US economy imploded, handing Obama a relatively comfortable victory.
Obama is the first black American president, an established author, multi-millionaire and acclaimed figure beyond American shores.
It seems highly unlikely that Obama will decide not to run in 2012. But he might well be calculating that a embarking post-presidential role as the leading global thinker in the post-American world as a Republican successor enters office is more attractive than being sullied by the political compromises and manoeuvrings necessary to win.