“Well then, if the president does it, it’s legal,” Richard Nixon once said. No one would accuse President Barack Obama of being Nixonian. Mr Obama tends to follow the law, would never approve of burgling the opposition and bears no vengeful traits. Yet he has done more than anyone to bury the campaign reforms that were brought in after Watergate. The latest step may be something Mr Obama will come to regret.
Last week he spoke at a fundraising dinner in Washington. The low-key event was the founders’ summit of Organizing for Action – the 2012 Obama election campaign that has been reborn as the de facto fund-raising arm of the White House. The dinner, which included Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, did not appear on most of the evening news shows.
Yet it marks the moment that America’s permanent campaign was institutionalised. Tickets went for $50,000 a head. Those giving $500,000 or more will get to attend a quarterly meeting with Mr Obama. Not even George W. Bush was this audacious. To govern is to choose, went the saying. Now to campaign is to govern.