Memo To The President

Mr. President:

I do not want to rain on your parade but I think it is important to remind you what goes up comes back down. You are bound to receive a boost in the polls in the wake of the killing of Osama Bin Laden; however, remember 41 and 43.

George Herbert Walker Bush, aka 41, became the most popular president ever after the success of Desert Storm. His approval ratings topped 90 percent and his re election seemed assured. Then he made the mistake of going back on his promise, "No new taxes," and he found himself having to fend off both Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. Facing the choice of a mud slinging campaign or just going through the motions, Bush took the high ground and lost.

Not to be out done by his father, George W. Bush, aka 43, was also the recipient of a tremendous poll boost following the defeat of Iraq and the fall of Saadam Hussein. However, after the military stalled and questions were raised over the issue of weapons of mass destruction and 43's handling of the economy, it took all of Bush's political weaponry to win a close re election over John Kerry.

November 2012 is a long ways away for the attention deficit voting public. Bin Laden's demise will have been long replaced by months of coverage on the state of the economy, on-going wars abroad, and who knows what else. If you are counting on riding the current wave of success to re election next year, you could be making a huge mistake.

Republicans now have a year and a half to reshape the war issue to their favor. They can focus their argument on how you handle our military involvement and its cost after Bin Laden is long gone and blame our continuing involvement on you. You will be held accountable for the state of our economy and will not be able to blame it on the republicans while also being called into question on your stance on health care, gay marriage, and other wedge issues.

If you want to be assured of re election, you will need more political victories down the road, both at home and abroad, or an impatient and memory lacking voting public will choose to go in another direction.