Red Barry Puts His deity Up For Grabs Already

WASHINGTON -- I see that President Barack Obama has filed as a candidate for reelection in 2012. I had suggested that he get to work early on his presidential library and forgo the race, but he is insistent. Well, I tried.

Though some in the media are covering for him, his announcement is the earliest of any modern president. It continues a trend that began in 1972. That was when Senator George McGovern captured the Democratic presidential nomination, though he lost in the autumn of that year in a squeaker. Richard Nixon stole the election, 47,167,319 to 29,168,509. Tricky Dick got 60.7 percent of the vote, the largest in history except for Lyndon Johnson's 61.1 percent. Watergate changed history.

Using what came to be called the McGovern reforms in the 1972 Democratic Convention, the very same McGovern captured the nomination. Thus began the trend, the era of the chronic campaigner. Since 1972 the Democratic Party has nominated a chronic campaigner every time.