Obama hints he won't run a 2nd time
Barack Obama told Iowa voters Friday that if he doesn't get elected President this time, he might not try again.
Turning the "experience" argument with Hillary Clinton on its head, the 46-year-old first-term senator said eight more years in Washington could make him a less desirable candidate.
It's now or perhaps never, Obama and his wife, Michelle, concluded, because, "We still remember what it's like to be normal," he told a crowd here six days before Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses.
The notion that Obama would shoot his own rising star out of the political sky if he doesn't win the White House on his first attempt troubled one voter leaning toward him.
"I'm very disappointed because I think he's young and I think he has a future," said Lue Sykes, 64, a retired government worker, after Obama spoke in Coralville, Iowa. "He's a person that should continue to present to this country what he has to offer."
The Obamas don't seem to see it that way.
"My wife and I were talking the other day, and she said, 'We're not doing this again,' " Obama said. "Those of you who have met my wife or heard my wife, you know she doesn't mince words. I mean, she's a tough cookie."
Obama said their stance has less to do with the grueling campaign schedule that separates the family for large swaths of time, and more with the couple's belief that eight years from now, they wouldn't be the "same people."
Washington insiders, Obama said, lose touch with reality because "you think your worth is tied up with a title, or a chauffeur or people opening doors for you." Obama regularly portrays Clinton as a Washington insider.
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