When former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro ran in the first Lower House election held under the postwar
Constitution in 1947, he drove around his Gunma district on a bicycle with a flag stuck up from his back just like a samurai going into battle. The slogan on the flag called for jishu kempo, or rejection of the constitution that had been handed down by the U.S. Occupation a few months earlier. But during a political career that spanned more than five decades, his idea – the reason he sought office – never came up in the Diet for discussion, much less for a vote. For half a century, it was an outlandish dream, tucked deep inside the heads of conservative politicians who remembered the days when Japan was a power with which to be reckoned.