Thanks for all of the responses so far … good stuff. When I reply to folks in this thread I’m going to argue for a 6-year term with no re-election, but I haven’t firmly made up my mind about it: I’m just trying to work through the pros and cons of such a proposition. If I’m going to have an opinion, I want to be able to “argue it out” (for lack of a better term).
As Marley23 said, don’t presidents have little motivation to “behave” as it is? That seems like a candidate problem, not a problem that can be corrected by the kind of presidential term. Maybe having a single 6-year term would encourage Americans to elect the candidate who we feel is the most honourable?
But Mexican presidents designate their own successors at the end of each term (cite) … that, and other significant differences between a Mexican presidency and an American presidency that have nothing to do with term length or limits, makes the two hardly comparable. Don’t you think?
Interesting … howcome? Do you think 6 years is just too long? To me, 5 years doesn’t seem much longer than 4 years, and I worry about a president’s ability to effect any kind of significant change in such a (relatively) short amount of time.
This is the first time in my life (I’m 34) that I’ve come up with an idea completely on my own, only to find out that I wasn’t the first one to have it – and not only that, but it’s been around for quite some time! I don’t mean that in an arrogant way – I don’t feel that I’m any kind of profound political thinker or anything (rather the opposite, actually), it’s just been kind of a weird feeling. I’m a sometime poet/songwriter, and an ongoing concern is that I’ll write something that turns out to be not original: as far as I know that’s never happened with my writing, but my first political idea winds up being centuries old. Go figure.
Your comment led me to do a search on the internet, and I found an old New York Times op-ed on the subject (I can’t provide a link because it’s only available if you buy it, which I did; it might only be available to people who have logins at that site, I’m not sure). It’s from June 1983 and mentions a then-new National Committee for a Single Six-Year Presidential Term: searching on that has provided another set of leads on the issue, which I haven’t yet followed up on.
True. I wonder, though, if it might somehow result in fewer objectively bad presidents? I mean, how many of those have we really had?
(Please note that I am not trying to open this thread up to Bush bashing, or anything of the sort.)
Interesting … I hadn’t considered the idea of absolutely no re-election. Do you think the odds are higher that a bad president would seek re-election (and be likely to win) than a good one? Would it be worth sacrificing a possible second good term to prevent a possible second bad one? I think I like “no possibility of re-election,” but I need to consider it a little more.
Again, I’m not pro- or anti- any particular president, but using your example: with the current situation, we wouldn’t be looking at two more years of Bush.