Wistful Obama contemplates 'last campaign'

US: A wistful Barack Obama has reached the moment common to all political careers -- when leaders realize the end is closer than the beginning.

For sure, the US president is banking on another four-and-a-half years before he steps off the global stage.

But as he cranks up his reelection campaign against Republican Mitt Romney, Obama is waxing nostalgic.

"One way or another, this will be my last campaign," he told a crowd gathered under floodlit trees on a sticky Ohio evening Thursday, before remembering the door-to-door politicking of his first campaign in Illinois.

For Obama, the prospect of bidding farewell to front line politics in six months, or four years later after a second term, may loom as more abrupt than for most politicians, given his swift rise to the pinnacle of power.

The president, then a newly minted Senator, with obvious designs on higher things, only came to Washington in early January 2005.

And the famously competitive Obama has made clear he intends to win a close race with Romney in November -- and must do so to cement his legacy or see it wiped out by a new Republican leader.

If reelected Obama will face a litany of what are sure to be draining crises, from a possible nuclear confrontation with Iran to completing the job of hauling the weary US middle classes out of their financial malaise. AFP