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Random thought, I know.
And yes, I realize plenty of people will disagree with me.
But, in general, I don't support term limits. I believe them to be undemocratic -- people should be able to vote for the person they want and if that person has already served as president for more than 2 terms, why shouldn't they?
Do people think FDR should not have been allowed to run for a 3rd term? If you think FDR was the best person to be president for 3+ terms, then you're being inconsistent if you say you still support term limits. Who's to say there won't be a future situation in which the best person for the job really is a former president or someone who has already served two terms?
I don't buy the anti-democratic argument. The VAST majority of presidents would not run for more than 2 terms -- they didn't before FDR and they didn't afterwards. In fact, the only two who ran for a third term before FDR -- Ulysses S. Grant (in 1880) and Theodore Roosevelt (in 1912) LOST. FDR would likely have lost too had it not been for the war in Europe.
As for our post-FDR presidents, Eisenhower wouldn't have run -- he was not in great health and hadn't really even wanted to run for reelection in 1956. Reagan wouldn't have run -- he was far too old (77) and already suffering Alzheimers.
Only Bill Clinton would conceivably have run for a third term in 2000. And he would have beaten George W. Bush.
If Bush had won in 2000 anyway, I still doubt he'd be running for a third term today. His poll numbers are so bleak that he'd be (happily) crushed if he ran for reelection. Most likely, like most presidents, he'd declare "mission accomplished" and announce he wasn't running for a third term.
Frankly, I would get a lot of joy out of crushing Bush's bid for a third term.
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