Iron Laws of Politics, Updated (With Palin!)

My favorite Iron Law of Politics is that New York City Mayor is a dead-end job, no matter how much hype any particular mayor may received about his or her gubernatorial, or, yeah, presidential prospects.  So while there was, I think, a bit of actual news in this highlighted NYT article, I'd certainly recommend ignoring all speculation that Michael Bloomberg is thinking about the White House again.

But, following Mickey Kaus's advice (well, I guess it wasn't really advice, but still...glad to have him back blogging, anyway), I realized I need a new Iron Law of Politics that's a little more Palincentric, or even Palinriffic.  So here goes: No former Veep nominee who spent half the campaign publicly feuding with the presidential nominee's staff, and then wrote a book trashing that staff, will ever be seriously considered for the #2 spot again.  No matter how much her fans may think it's a good idea.  Indeed, I strongly suspect that no future president would ever appoint such a person to a position from which she could potentially betray him or her, so probably no cabinet posts either.  Thus while I thought that David Sessions sounded otherwise sensible about Mike Pence and Values Voters, I'm afraid I can't take anyone seriously who believes an Iron Law of Politics might be violated (if that's what he's saying...if he's just saying her fans would support such a thing, then he's off the hook). 

I really wish that it was an Iron Law of Politics that under the modern process only first time candidates could capture the Democratic nomination for president and only repeat candidates could be the GOP nominee (current presidents excepted in both cases), but alas Al Gore and George W. Bush are exceptions, and Iron Laws really should have some stronger implied causal mechanism (yeah, I know...Walter Mondale sort of ran in 1976, and George McGovern definitely ran, albeit at the last minute, in 1968, but you can define both of them away if you really want to).  One might say, I suppose, that violation of it is an Iron Law and talk about the sorts of cataclysms that result from breaking Iron Laws of Politics, but

Iron Laws of Politics

I'd toot my own horn on this one, but it was so obvious I don't think I deserve much credit: Rudy Giuliani isn't running for Governor, after all.

Repeat after me: Mayor of New York City is a dead-end job. The two things that can be counted on are the NYC Mayors will not go on to higher office, and that the press (where are many of them located?) will spend way too much time speculating on the future plans of NYC Mayors. Lindsay, Koch, Giuliani...the ones who are foolish enough to believe the hype just wind up making fools of themselves. Having already achieved that distinction in the 2008 Republican primary in Florida, it didn't seem in the cards for Giuliani to try again. Especially since, as the Times says, he'd be losing money on the deal -- and since it's obvious that his national megaphone on terrorism is undamaged by his years out of office or the presidential campaign debacle.

Granted, I should be careful here -- he apparently hasn't ruled out a Senate bid -- but I'll be surprised if he does that, either.

I don't know that the New York Mayor iron law is as firm as the one that Larry Sabato touts about VA Governor elections (the party of the White House gets punished; credit to Sabato for a good call this time around), or the impossibility of winning a presidential nomination from a House seat, but I'm willing to trust in it until proven wrong. And, alas, I'm equally willing to trust that reporters will continue to ignore that law and spend way too much time on implausible stories such as the Bloomberg-for-President boomlet from the last cycle.

UPDATE: Not so fast! Apparently he's in...at least for now, at least according to one story...for the Senate race. Can't win 'em all; of course, the Iron Law is intact until and unless he actually wins something. We'll see, including whether he actually makes the Senate contest.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: I should have known better; first update above only shows that the last sentence of the original post was correct. My fault for paying any attention to it.