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If it looks like a lame duck, walks like a lame duck and quacks like a lame duck, it’s probably a lame duck.

When Gov. Deval Patrick raised his hand last week to take the oath of office for his second term, he started the countdown on his final walk out the front doors of the State House. Patrick has stated emphatically that he won’t run for governor again, an unusual and, some would say, unnecessarily risky announcement.

Some analysts say making this term his last will be liberating, allowing him to push for policies without regard to his political future. But others are wondering if serving himself up as duck a lamé introduces a whole new level of political intrigue into the Beacon Hill equation. For someone with such a small stick, what will he be able to accomplish, particularly as the years tick by?

“In one way, the decision to do this frees him to make some very tough political decisions, particularly cuts that are going to have to come in personnel and programming,” says longtime Democratic consultant Michael Goldman. “On the other hand, anyone with aspirations to run in four years is going to be looking carefully to their left and right to measure themselves against their potential opponents.”

Patrick’s early announcement that this will be his last term, coming the day after his reelection, puts Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray in a tough position. Murray has made no secret of his wish to sit in the big chair. Now he will have to battle opponents who have three-plus years to get organized and funded knowing as much who they won’t face as who they will. And it will give donors more options than feeling forced to give to a sitting governor who holds their fate in his hands.

In addition to ruling out a third run for the corner office, Patrick has adamantly denied any aspirations for even higher office, including a possible run against Sen. Scott Brown next year. In a state as politically active as Massachusetts, those with no clout and nothing to offer are usually left in the dust by the perpetual political machines of career politicians.

“It’s all the things that you’d expect,” says one former GOP operative from the Weld-Cellucci administration who asked to remain anonymous. “Your status in the building changes and people see you with one foot out the door. People see you as someone they don’t have to deal with in the long term. . . I don’t think legislators think four years ahead. In two years, it will matter a lot more than it matters now. After the midterm elections, his power evaporates overnight.”

Eric Fehrnstrom, a top aide to former Gov. Mitt Romney and an advisor to Brown, says he thought Patrick’s decision to say upfront that this will be his last term was strange.

“Someone who was re-elected with only 49 percent of the vote should not be trading away whatever little influence he has left to get things done,” Fehrnstrom said in an email. “Normally, power concentrates in the hands of a chief executive and you have to guard against external factors that are constantly conspiring against it. Finishing with 49 percent of the vote weakened the governor. Announcing soon after that you are not running again weakens him further.”

Stephen Crosby, who worked for two lame duck governors in Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift, says the impact on a governor’s agenda as a short-timer is overrated and mostly a media creation.

But the more he talked about it, the more Crosby conceded there can be legislative pitfalls and political fallout connected to a premature decision not to run for reelection.

“It’s much harder to dominate the media attention,” says Crosby, Swift’s chief of staff in her final year in office. “If you’ve got a governor’s race going on, that’s where everybody’s focus is. You’re competing with the two heirs apparent. I suppose it probably has a little influence dealing with the Legislature. If they don’t like something you’re offering, they can put it off and start fresh with somebody else.”

Crosby points out that Patrick’s early decision, unlike then-Gov. Mitt Romney’s waffling even though his leaving was a foregone conclusion, will allow a strong field to form in both parties, making for a battle royale in 2014.

“It frees up people to start lobbying a little bit,” says Crosby. “It puts a little pressure on Tim Murray to think about his future. If it were unknown [what Patrick would do], you would freeze people a little bit, just like Romney froze Charlie (Baker) the last time. When he made the decision at the last minute, it could only be Kerry Healey. I do think it has political ramifications.”

Crosby says if he was in the room as an advisor to any elected executive contemplating what’s next, he would counsel silence on future plans.

“In the abstract, I think I would say keep it under your hat,” says Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “You keep your options open, you keep everybody off balance, you maximize whatever your political leverage is. In the abstract, I’d say keep your powder dry.”