"What if Obama simply decided not to run for a second term as President?"

Writes Ed Morrissey in a post that's getting a lot of attention.

But you read it first here on Althouse, on April 3, 2011: "The reason why Obama should not want to run for a second term in 2012." I wrote (based on a conversation I'd just had with Meade, who proposed the idea first):

If he is reelected, then that will be the end of running for President. He'll be 54 years old, and what will he do? Move to Hawaii and play golf? But he could move to Hawaii and play golf in January 2013, if that's an enticing prospect. And, if he does, he won't have maxed out his eligibility for being President. He can tantalize us, year after year, with the possibility that he would run for another term — a fascinatingly out-of-sequence term. The thing he's best at is running for President. Why let that game expire? He could toy with it in 2016, when he's 58, and in 2020, when he's a clear-visioned 62, and in 2024, when he's a well-seasoned 66, and in 2028, when he's a beneficent elder, offering his services once again, because his country longs for the golden days of 2011. It will never end, as long as the icon of hope and change... walks the face of the earth... unless he serves that second term.

Morrissey emphasizes Obama's low poll numbers, the difficulty of reelection, the problem of dragging down some key Senate races, and the possibly exciting prospect of a Hillary Clinton candidacy:

She can step into the void with promises to return America to the economic policies of her husband.  The Left may not have much love for Hillary any longer, but she was winning the very working-class Democrats in the 2008 primaries that Obama is losing to the Republicans now....

Democrats might be loathe to push the nation’s first African-American President into an early retirement, but they may eventually balk at committing political suicide if Obama’s numbers and the economy keep going south in the next few months.  Under those conditions, even Obama might be ready to walk away without much pushing.

Please refer to my analysis of Obama's psyche. I'm portraying it as an exciting positive for him. I don't see how the Democrats can sink into pushing their man out. There has to be positive energy pulsating through the entire maneuver or it's not worth doing. Hillary isn't going to look good stepping up over the prostrate body of the man she couldn't best in '08. That whole scenario is grim. Too desperate. But if Obama wants to act very grand about being above running for President, it could be handled well.