Quote of the Day (Lewis Carroll, on the “Caucus-Race”)

“'What is a Caucus-race?' said Alice…

'Why,' said the Dodo, 'the best way to explain it is to do it.'…

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, ('the exact shape doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no 'One, two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.”—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Last weekend, I had the good fortune of attending an exceedingly amusing, well-acted, and well-directed theatrical adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, N.J. One scene in particular struck me with particular force: the caucus-race that Carroll described above.

The actors in the scene ran themselves silly. One minute one person was last, but because they were all running in a circle, that person was also, paradoxically, first. In fact, they all were first and last. There was no obvious person in the lead, and despite everyone’s exhaustion, no winners when the action ceased.

Why did all of this seem so familiar to me? I wondered. Where had I seen it all before?

And then it struck me. Carroll’s absurdist exercise could, in fact, describe the never-ending quest for the White House. This year, in fact, you can’t find closer real-life examples to his characters than the Oval Office aspirants now running in the GOP primaries. (I hasten to add that the play’s creators were more intent on offering an old-fashioned, family-friendly show than political satire, so my perception was purely my own.)

There’s a constant attempt in the press to identify which candidate is up and who’s down, but until the first vote is counted, it’s pointless. Just as someone emerges as an alternative to Robo-Candidate Mitt Romney, something happens: a minor gaffe, a freshly unearthed scandal or conflict of interest, or a “What-the-Hell?” moment captured and posted forever on YouTube.

But none of the foregoing is necessarily fatal. After all, one version or another of it is afflicting all the candidates. The voters are watching daily so many candidates sucking wind in the race to the White House that they’re making allowances. The most conservative elements of the GOP didn’t have much use for President George H.W. Bush, but many took to his late-campaign slogan in 1992: “Annoy the media—Vote for Bush.” A generation later, they’re applying the same principle, with most interesting results, to all the GOP candidates. In fact, if they have any guiding principle at all, it seems to be: If the media say it, it can’t be true.

Even on Election Day next year, it won’t come to an end. If the eventual GOP nominee wins, he’ll begin campaigning for reelection, even while he’s picking his Cabinet, because that’s how Presidential "permanent campaigns" are run these days.

The only person for whom it all ends on Election Day is President Obama. If he wins, he can’t run for a third term. If he loses, it’s extraordinarily unlikely he’ll ever run for the Presidency again, even if, like Grover Cleveland, he wanted to do so. He’ll still be young, but the Democratic Party has not been kind of late to losing candidates.

Maybe Obama won’t mind, anyway. After all, modern Presidential politics has taken on an increasingly Alice-in-Wonderland quality to it, and Obama has had an increasingly pinched look around the corners of his mouth, as if he’s tiring of the Carroll-type nonsense of it all.