"I Do Not Choose to Run" 
By Martin Harris

News that Vermont Governor James Douglas has just exercised his Calvin Coolidge "I do not choose to run" option brings to mind a gubernatorial option he’ll probably reject, and another quote, which I choose to paraphrase as "Nothing in his governorship could have become him so much as the leaving of it". Don’t test your recent high school grad on the source, but I’ll offer the hints that a.) it comes from an English Renaissance-era poet/playwright with a fondness for iambic pentameter and b.) specifically traces back to a story involving quasi-historical early-medieval Scottish nobility figures, specifically a politically ambitious and unpleasantly treasonous guy with a ‘thane’ title, meaning that he was successful in currying kingly favor and also owned a modest number of near-slaves who did the work he deemed himself too good for.

Never in his career is a politician so free to speak his mind as in the moment when he decides to quit and no longer has to attune his intellectual radar to whatever the majority of his constituency, reasonably or not, wants from him in exchange for their votes, and then to reflect those desires, frequently conflicting, faithfully. 

That’s as it should be, some political theorists say, arguing that the perfect politician is the one most exquisitely in synch with 51% of his voters, whether he believes they’re sensible or not. Other theorists (like economists, who similarly cover themselves with an on-the-other-hand alternative) prefer the so-called Goldwater approach: this is what I believe; vote for me or not as you wish. My opinion, as befits this opinion piece, is that the soon-to-be-ex Guv has been innately much more of the former camp than the latter.

A Rutland Herald LttE-writer put it well, recently: "…Douglas will have for the first time in his political life the opportunity to do what he thinks is right and not what will get him elected. It will be interesting to finally find out what he thinks is right". Split infinitive aside, the writer is right, even though he’s careful not to say what he himself thinks is right. I choose to be more specific, drawing on an Internet humor-piece which went the rounds a year ago: In it, President George Bush said to his tormentors something like "I’m done putting up with you guys, and I’m outta here. If you’re so smart, you run things". It was a 2008 riff on a 1976 theme at the heart of the film Network, in which news-anchor Howard Beale announces that "I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more". It led to a rash of copy-cat situations in which ordinary folks threw open their windows and announced similarly to a (mostly-uninterested) world.

I would have liked to see the departing (and therefore suddenly free) Guv declare similarly to his gentry-Left tormenters, from Golden Dome folk enthusing over a new state-run (of course) organic food distribution bureaucracy, to tie-dyed hippies civilly participating in rational discourse at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing by eloquently throwing compost at the other participants, from the noisy advocacy groups demanding ever more in wealth-transfers from the (shrinking) producing class, to the quietly self-serving edu-crat class, whom he has allowed without (noticeable) objection to grow their quantity and expense even while their classes shrink and their test score results stagnate.

That would have been an ave-atque-vale worth hearing. It would have been becoming to him. It might have gone something like this. I’ve added some slight localization-modifications to the "Bush-quits" piece posted on the website Dodgeblogium:

"I’m fed up with you people. I’m fed up because you have no understanding of what’s really going on in Vermont…and the majority of you Golden Dome folks are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out. I could say more about your insane belief that State government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from, but were I to do so, it would sail right over your head. So I quit. I’m going back to Middlebury. And by the way, Dubie’s quitting, too. That means Ms. Symington might be your new Governess. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are just enough of you traditional Vermonters remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2010".

As for the Thane of Cawdor, (his feudal rank and title subsequently given post-mortem to Macbeth by King Duncan) he expressed remorse just prior to his execution for treason, so he must have been a good guy after all. And as for the immortal three witches, they may still be in black-kettle intelligence, or perhaps in op-ed political commentary and forecasting. 

Martin Harris is a former Chairman of Citizens for Property Rights