Conservative Boot Camp

This idea has been brewing inside my head for a while now. It has to do with whether or not the 22nd Amendment should be modified. As you know, the 22nd Amendment was crafted following the unprecedented Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected to four terms in office, although he died before completing his fourth term. The 22nd Amendment was designed to limit the time any one person could spend in the office of President to two four-year terms or one four-year term in the case of a person who had, as Vice President, succeeded a sitting President for more than two years of that sitting President’s term. Technically, a person who as Vice President succeeded a sitting President, but served less than two years of that term would still be eligible for two additional four-year terms in office.

OK, with the technical part out of the way, let’s look at what our history has been since the 22nd Amendment was ratified in February, 1951:

• Truman - served most of FDR’s fourth term and one of his own
• Eisenhower - served two full terms
• Kennedy - served a little more than half a term
• Johnson - served the balance of Kennedy’s term and one full term of his own
• Nixon - served one full term and resigned a little more than halfway through his second term
• Ford - served the balance of Nixon’s second term
• Carter - served one full term
• Reagan - served two full terms
• Bush 41 - served one full terms
• Clinton - served two full terms
• Bush 43 - presumably will serve two full terms

Now as survey that list, I see that five Presidents in the past 57 years have been elected for more than one term, whether they completed it or not. That’s out of 11 people who’ve held the office in that same span of time. Of the two-termers, Eisenhower is the only one who wasn’t under threat of investigation, impeached or resigned. I’m holding Bush 43 in abeyance for the moment because it’s too early to tell. Of the Presidents who could have served another term, Johnson did not seek another term in office, Ford lost, Carter lost and Bush 41 lost.

Focusing on the last three two-termers, Reagan, Clinton and Bush 43, all three have come into significantly difficult periods of scrutiny while in office with Clinton actually being impeached though not removed from office. Reagan had the Iran/Contra scandal to work through and spent a fair amount of his time and energy defending his actions in that. Clinton and/or his wife were almost continuously under the microscope for misdeeds of one sort or another. Bush 43 has faced constant assaults on his nominees and appointees since he rose to the office.

My central thesis for this post is that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to re-visit the two term idea and talk about a one term Presidency. The only way that a person could serve more than one term would be to succeed a sitting President but serve less than one year of that term. Why do I propose this? Well partly to stir thinking about the issue, but partly because it seems as though the full two term stretch of eight years is too much for the way our political system works in today’s environment.

It seems to me that the real legacy of two terms in office is that eight years is long enough for people to be really sick of you, especially in a world in which news overload is a problem. Given that the “loyal opposition” begin hammering at a President even before their inauguration, and given that there are now news sources with 168 hours of time to fill a week, and given that reporting has dropped any pretext of objectivity, it’s bound to happen that a two term President is likely to become a liability to the Nation long before their second term has expired. It happened with Reagan, it happened with Clinton, it’s happened with Bush 43. Is it really in our best interests to leave leaders in office long enough for a majority to strongly dislike them? Does that practice provide the most stability for us as a nation? Are we content to lurch from crisis to crisis rather than to plot a smoother, straighter course?