Es lo que cree Walter Shapiro, uno que cuando algunos todavía no habíamos nacido ya estaba cubriendo campañas presidenciales:
This weekend in Little Rock, Bill Clinton and an all-star cast of political alumni will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his formal entry into the 1992 presidential race. But the candidate decision that did the most to bequeath Clinton the Democratic nomination did not occur until December 20, 1991. That was when New York Governor Mario Cuomo decided not to board the chartered plane waiting at the Albany airport to whisk him to New Hampshire to file his last-minute papers to enter the first primary.
That’s right—Cuomo got to wait until late in the Christmas shopping season to decide whether to run for president. Despite the frustration of the press corps at his Hamlet on the Hudson act, Cuomo’s prospects in the February 18 New Hampshire primary were bright. As Jack Germond and Jules Witcover wrote in their chronicle of the 1992 campaign, Mad as Hell, “Mario Cuomo was not Bruce Babbitt forced to ride a bicycle across Iowa in 1987 trying to win a little press attention … Cuomo was a national figure whose campaign from the start inevitably would draw heavy television network and newspaper coverage.”
What gives this Cuomo retrospective currency is the conventional wisdom that it is already too late for Chris Christie, Sarah Palin, or even the eternally dithering Rudy Giuliani to enter the GOP race. Somehow 60 days to the New Hampshire primary was long enough back in 1992, when social media referred to chatty local TV anchors. But in an age of Fox News (launched in 1996), Facebook, Internet fund-raising, and non-stop political coverage, the new political orthodoxy is that 100 days is insufficient for a candidate unless you are Napoleon mounting a comeback. Why is it that faster-than-ever political communication automatically dictates an elongated campaign season?
(...) There is certainly an opening for another top-tier GOP contender. The press is already showing signs of boredom with the Mitt Romney versus Rick Perry smack-downs—especially if they drag on until April or May. GOP voters give off a whiff of dissatisfaction with both Perry’s competence and Romney’s chameleon history. With the erratic Newt Gingrich again scoring in double-digits in national polls and pizza magnate Herman Cain suddenly getting a burst of attention, a none-of-the-above narrative is gaining traction in the Republican Party.
(...) There is an illusion that starting early prepares a candidate to craft deft responses to attacks on weak spots in his political record or his personal life. In truth, almost every campaign scrambles when it is on the firing line. Months of campaigning did not prevent Barack Obama from flailing in 2008 when Jeremiah Wright’s sermons suddenly dominated the headlines. Back in the fall of 2000, George W. Bush, the embodiment of a tightly scripted candidate, was blindsided when the press unearthed a drunk-driving arrest in Maine. If he enters the GOP race, Christie will undoubtedly have some rocky moments, but it is questionable whether starting early would have made that much difference in how the fledgling New Jersey governor responds.
Make no mistake, some deadlines matter in presidential politics like the precise dates for getting on primary ballots. Although the entire GOP primary calendar is in flux, the best guess is that the deadline for filing for the Florida primary will be Halloween, with other early states like New Hampshire following soon after. While Henry Cabot Lodge did win the 1964 New Hampshire GOP primary on a write-in vote, resorting to that pencil-based strategy would be a daunting price for, say, Christie to pay for his indecisiveness.
The enduring truth is that weird things can happen when voters are dissatisfied with the choices they are offered in the presidential primaries. Late in the 1976 primary season, Democrats yearning for an establishment nominee like Hubert Humphrey tried to organize an ABC (Anybody But Carter) movement. As a result of these machinations, Jimmy Carter lost 10 primaries in May and June to Frank Church and Jerry Brown, two candidates who only began actively campaigning with the first crocuses of spring. The stop-Carter effort ultimately foundered, but it is an enduring reminder of the power of buyer’s remorse in presidential politics.
Every signal suggests that politics this year is as unsettled as the overall national mood. Jump-starting a campaign was certainly not a panacea for Tim Pawlenty, who might actually be an intriguing figure in the GOP race if he had entered it about now. Some year some candidate is going to reinvent the rules about starting early, which really only date back to George McGovern in 1972 and Carter in 1976.
In a 21st century media age—when images can be forged in minutes—it may matter less when you get in the presidential race than what you do when you get there. Sometimes I think that the Republicans just might nominate the first conservative who rescues a kitten from a tree while the Fox News cameras are rolling.
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