I'd like to pose two questions:

First, do you agree that the 22nd Amendment should be modified to read - two consecutive terms?

And

From the article:



Who do you think would win? (Notice I didn't say, who would you vote for.)

Bill Clinton. He is a much stronger candidate than George W. Bush. Clinton is more charismatic, smart and likeable than Dubya. Clinton may have problems due to his moral record but against a light-weight candidate like Dubya he would win.

I don't know if Bill could stay away from scandal for the next 14 years, saw a tabloid as I was at the grocery headlining a Clinton sex romp video. 14 years is too long away.

It should not be modified. The point is to prevent a President from amassing too much power. The potential to return would give a lame-duck President a lot more power than he has now....

As for who would win in 2016, based on a continuation of the current trends, Bush, by a landslide. The country is moving right.

Of course, predicting the American political landscape 13 years out is like shooting ducks with a sniper rifle while blindfolded in a moving sandrail out in the desert. You could get lucky, really, really lucky, and score a hit, but mostly you're just shooting of rounds cause you like the way they sound!

Well, I read a recent (British) analysis that posited that, after a second Bush term, Hillary Clinton might stand in 2008 (?) and win one or even two terms, to be followed by Jeb Bush.

Resulting in around 30 years being governed by two families using (more or less) two administrations (how many of Dubya's team also served with Dad? If Dick Cheny surives to his 80s, he'd still be around for Jeb's team, would he?)

So, in the light of this, maybe you should adjust the 22 amendment to allow only two or three terms, consecutive or not, from a single family.

Of course, this is pretty rich coming from a subject (I hate that!) of a monarchy...

Wasn't the 22nd Amendment retaliation against FDR? Or am I having another senior moment.

The idea is to keep charismatic leaders out of the White House. So I speculate, what if Ronald Reagan had been granted a third term? With the recession of 1990 at his door, might he have gotten the slamming he deserved on the economic side? GHWB seemed to me to be the fall guy on that one.

I'm of the opinion that the 22nd Amendment reflects a political power play that was a great mistake, both for the time and for the future. We already have a process of removing ineffective leadership, and that is the vote. If the people want to keep a leadership team in office for 2, 3, 4 or 10 terms, so be it.

Oh, I know the argument against this. Hey, a sitting President has the advantage!

Yeah? So? But what if the President is sitting on a failed administration? Seems to me that the contendah has the advantage then. It's still a lot easier to attack than to defend. Always has been.

Or maybe it's just another senior moment for me 'Scuse me while I take my medicines.

Firstly, I don't think it really matters if it says consecutive or not. I'd prefer it to stay the way it is now. Secondly, 2016 is so far away that making predictions about the Presidential election is silly. However, since you asked, I'll say that Clinton would win that fight. By the time 2016 rolls around, the political pendalum will have started swinging back to the left.

It should NOT be modified. An incumbent has a tremendous advantage over a challenger.

The logic behind term limits

The founding fathers never intended for politics to be a career. It has. Lawmakers aren't really subject to the laws they make, insulating them from the effects of their laws.

Retaliation is the wrong term, given that FDR was dead....

- No, since it doesn't bar charismatic leaders from the White House. It simply bars anybody, charismatic or not, from more than two terms as President. One doesn't have to be charismatic to retain power, duplicity and dirty tricks can do that...

Political power play? By who? The Republicans? The Amendment was proposed, passed and ratified while a Democrat held the White House. It required 3/4 of the states ... The Amendment reflects the sad practice of being forced to put into writing an "unwritten" rule because somebody violated it.

Yer 'scused, just don't mix your meds up.

Seeing as we're coming up near the top when you search for "22nd Amendment" in Google, I figure we should at least list the stinkin' thing:



"...do you agree that the 22nd Amendment should be modified to read - two consecutive terms?"

This is a tough question, and it's impossible to prove that any one person has the definitive answer.

I'd have to say we should keep the amendment the way it is, if not make it more strict. I'd be fine if we limited presidents to one term.

For any incumbent president seeking reelection, the last quarter of their term seems to be nothing more than a campaign. Not only does this feed the disinterest of the general public, but it is also one big gyp (yes, that is the correct spelling of 'gyp'). Whoever the president, your only priority while in office should be to execute the office of the presidency as set forth in the constitution. Why should we only get three years of presidenting when we should get four?

Section 1 Clause 1 of the Constitution consists of two sentences: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

For me, this is an all-or-nothing kind of clause. It either says that being elected president is a one time deal-- four years and you're gone-- or it says that you can be president as often as you'd like. Nowhere in that do I read anything about "two terms", consecutive or otherwise. Actually, I read "during the Term of four Years," not "during a Term of four Years." So why did they pick two as the limit?

While I think that having a two term limit amendment is technically unjustified (constitutionally), I do tend to think that the fewer times any one individual is president, the better. So, keep it as it is. No "consecutive term" changes are necessary.

Mike

I'd prefer to keep it as it is now. I don't think it's necessary to limit it to one term...some of our best years have been realized under the second term of one President or another. The first term is spent changing everything to the way you want it and if you don't get a second term it all get's changed again before it has a chance to make any difference. At least that's how it seems.

But a really bad president can cause substantial damage to the country in as little as four years as it is. If one is truly bad he wouldn't get re-elected. If a really bad president did get re-elected our country would be getting the leadership it desires and deserves in the end anyway; so long as the election was fair.

And as for a 2016 election I don't think this Bush could beat Clinton any more than the last one could. The first Bush lost even though his foreign and economic policy (bad as it was) were better than his son's.

Dubya wouldn't stand a chance unless Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush were single handedly counting all the votes in every state.

Sadly enough we already lived that nightmare in '96. The American electorate proved that year that they need to be saved from themselves at times.

Two terms, no more.

Because two was the limit that George Washington put on himself when they asked him to run for a third term. Given that nobody at the time seems to have objected to George running for a second term, we can see that the Founding Fathers did NOT have the same understanding of the clause that they wrote as you seem to have.

I agree with you about the campaigning, but aside from amending the Constitution to 1 term, there's not much we can do about it....

I think you mean to say '84, Passion.

I agree. Presidents should only serve once. The point of elections is to get someone new & who could do better than what the former president did and not let it happen again.

For example, we vote Bush II out in 2004 because he did nothing for the environment except make it worse, we get, say, Gephart, Gephart leaves in 2008 after making the environment healthy again, and Bush II comes back and ruins it again.

Also, we need more young & healthy presidents. If we elect Clinton back in 2016, he's gonna be full of health problems due to old age & won't be able to be a good president

No. Only once in U.S. History has a president been elected to two non-consecutive terms(Grover Cleveland). In the couple hundred years that this country has been in existence, once is not enough to warrent a new amendment or modification.



I don't know if it was "retaliation." But FDR was elected for four terms because our country was in a time of turmoil during his presidency, and people wanted to keep a familiar leader and administration in office.

First of all, I support repealing the amendment that limits President's to two terms for an entire lifetime, and I'm fairly confident that if it was, we would see alot of familiar faces in the White House again.

Secondly, I would most certainly elect Clinton. His policies lead the United States to the lowest unemployment rates ever, the most volopcious economic boost in over 20 years and some of the most peaceful times we've had. Bush has very little he can write home about during his stint so far as President, and considering myself a fairly bi-partisan democrat, I have been, at the least, unimpressed with his job as of now. If you look at the obvious, you will be able to see that Bush is the direct opposite of Clinton. We now have the highest unemployment rate ever, the economy is sluggish and showing little signs of substaintial and long-term recovery [and please, I don't want to hear about how this is all because of September 11, because our economy rebounded from the damage done on that day much faster than the media wants you to think, partially thanks to Bush's quick thinking but in the long run, there was no payoff to his ambitions], and now more than ever we have the world opinion against us.

I know that was the ordinary argument you would hear from an anti-Bush democrat, but sadly, it is all very true.

huh? Ever heard of the Great Depression? Unemployment is still relatively low (around 6.4% I believe). As recently as the 1980s, it was over 10% and it was consistently in the 8-10% range during the 1970s.

U.S. Department of Labor

Our unemployment rate is also quite low compared to most European countries.


The stock market is up 20% since the beginning of the year. I would tend to say that this is a positive sign of recovery.

The economy is VERY cyclical. Boom, bust, boom, bust. The President has very little control over these cycles. The 1990s were a boom, no doubt. But I challenge you to point to one Clinton policy that lead to said boom.

Clinton is no economic panacea and I don't think that he is electable right now, either.

I would hardly considered 20% a sign of long-term recovery. If you hadn't noticed, after September 11th, the economy mad a rebound of 57% but then as the shotty business ideals of Bush kicked in, the Dow Index dropped back into the middle 8000s. Albiet it has risen again, but most of that gain can be attributed to blue chips helping to boost industrial sectors, and renewed positive earning reports [mind you, alot of industrial companies have fluxuated earnings]. Which means, that this miniscule 20% gain you are bragging about may very well be smashed into nothingness come 4Q 2003. I, for one, look at the 57% decline as the bullet point of the Bush economy rather than the 20% 2Q gains.




Indeed, the economy is very cyclical. However, there are ways to maintain a boom for a long period of time. That is what Clinton was good at. The Internet boom was the attribute to the economic prosperity, HOWEVER, it was Clinton's economic advisors that proposed what they did to keep the internet boom...well... a boom for mouch longer than it could have.

Do you think it is just a coincedence that no Republican President has ended their term(s) having the Dow Index higher than what it was when they first took office since Coolidge?

Who was that Ronald Reagan character?

The Dow Jones was at 964 at the end of 1980, when he was elected.

At the end of Reagan's term, the Dow stood at 2168.

At the end of Bush's term, the Dow was at 3301.

Both these guys were Republicans, I believe.

Dow Jones Industrial Average - US

Please use some facts....

Ah, ok. I got some bad info from the Buerua of the Census. Damn Americans. Regardless of that paragraph, the rest of my statement stands firm. I re-affirmed the numbers by the NYSE history archives.

Amlord, I'm with you. If we are going to limit presidents to two terms, consecutive or not, then we need to do the same thing with every House and Senate member too.

The founding fathers envisioned each member of congress spending a few years helping to run the country for the betterment of the people in their home states, and the nation at large, and then going back home to their farms, stores, etc. It was felt that having to go back and actually live as normal citizens, that they would exercise care in their legislation.

Problem is, we don't have that anymore. Now they make a career out of it. They vote themselves pay raises, medical benefits far exceeding the average citizen, and we get the privilege of paying for it all, while they exempt themselves from the very laws they foist on us. I say, if it's good for the president, it's good for them too.