Way back in 2009, I wrote a piece about something called "the permanent campaign." I can't find it. Honestly, I don't even remember who I wrote it for. To sum it up, Howard Dean was running around telling everyone who'd listen that President Obama had a bold plan to never stop campaigning. Rather than shutting down his winning electoral machine, he was going to fold its workers into a new endeavor called "organizing for action." They'd keep campaigning for him throughout his presidency and, in theory anyway, be ready to support whoever the next Democrat nominee was.
I thought it sounded like a completely horrible future where we'd all end up in an infinite political Mobius strip.
You can see Dean talking about it here:
