C.L (Butch) Otter first asked Idaho voters to elect him governor in 1978.
After losing that campaign, he settled for second banana - winning the lieutenant governor's office four times between 1986 and 1998.
Then he ran for the U.S House three times between 2000 and 2004.
But always, his eye was on the prize and when the governor's office opened up in 2006, he jumped - winning three times including last November.
In other words, for half of his 72 years, Otter has been positioning himself to run for governor, campaigning for the job or being governor. If he serves out his third term, he will have spent four decades on this quest.
By comparison, Democrat Cecil D. Andrus made his first attempt for the chief executive's office in 1966 and then won the first of four terms in 1970. By the time he retired in 1995, Andrus had been at it for 28 years.
Republican Phil Batt lost his first bid for governor in 1982, won his second in 1994 and retired after one term. So Batt pursued the post for 16 years.
Yet in each of those cases, their motivations were transparent. Andrus got into politics to do something about public education and the environment. Batt, a self-described fiscal tightwad, wanted to slow down state spending.
Otter, on the other hand, has been something of an enigma.
What makes Butch run?
It's not because he likes pulling the levers of government. Ever since the 2009 drubbing state lawmakers handed his transportation package, the governor has been a passive partner to the Legislature.
Like him or not, the most provocative figure in the state government these last eight years has been former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna - not the governor.
Otter's disengagement has coincided with a string of lingering mishaps - whether it was Corrections Corporation of America's ill-fated management of the Idaho Correctional Center, the fouled-up Idaho Education Network contract, the messy firing of former Transportation Director Pam Lowe or Otter's tax commission chairman Royce Chigbrow resigning under a cloud.
For a politician famous for possessing a hard libertarian edge, Otter has not necessarily hued toward a philosophy or an agenda. He railed against Obamacare - and then became the one Republican governor in the country to get a GOP Legislature to enact one of its key features, a state-based health insurance exchange.
One year he's cutting taxes. The next he's campaigning as an advocate of school reform and expanded funding.
Which leads you toward some kind of psycho-babble: Is Otter preoccupied with the trappings of the office? Does he simply like being governor?
As Otter formally launches his third term, he has no reason to remain on the defensive.
Everything seems to be going his way. In the Idaho GOP Civil War of '14. Otter prevailed. He beat back right-wing challenger Russ Fulcher. Many of the GOP lawmakers who supported his state-based health insurance exchange - notably House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley - have returned.
Gone is GOP Chairman Barry Peterson, replaced by a more compliant Chairman Steve Yates.
Otter personally has nothing to fear. He's just waged his last re-election campaign.
And finally after six years, the economy is on the mend, providing an opening for the expanded school support he says he wants.
Even falling gas prices are providing a real opportunity to pay for pent-up transportation needs.
Monday, Otter will deliver his ninth State of the State address.
A bold agenda tells you he became governor to accomplish something. It's all about you.
Another round of platitudes tells you just the reverse.
It's all about him.
