Presidents of the United States should be allowed two terms, but the terms should not be consecutive

Low information voters tend to pick the same incumbent president so the incumbent Advantage is Bad: Is it really? Just because the people swayed to stay the course are not the upmost informed voters there is out there. If the better choice really hinges on there knowing better information then the problem is with getting the public informed, not how the choices they can vote on is arranged to manipulate there low information vote. Consider this about the ‘low information’ voter. They have been refered to in the past by President Nixon as ‘the Silent Majority’ who do not have time to get out and go to protest rallies, they work all day and are pretty tired when they Get home, maybe they have a little time to read the paper or watch the news but after a hard day they would rather relax with a sit-com instead of dreading over all the bad-news being reported about wars, moms that drowned there babies, and massive oil spills. All this Silent Majority wants to know when they get to the polls is are things going good for me, is my freedom to live my live relatively the same, can I make by on my paycheck, can I still take my child to soccer practice? Simple things about how comfortable they are with the way things are. If they are, then they will not want to risk change with another president, if they are not and things are pretty bad in this country, then get ready for some new leadership cause these people are going to kick that last guy out. And who’s to say this is not a fine way of balancing out the party biased of other voters? As a republican I generally believe its never good to have a democrat in office, and cannot see myself ever voting for one. So if it were up to me I suppose our last presidents would have ended up being Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney. But the low-information voter counters my vote and says at certain times in history hey things are not feeling all that bad right now lets keep Clinton, and Hey you lied my tax’s went up so out with Bush Sr. If I am going to sway the ‘Silent Majority’ to hear my arguments for a new party in power, then things will have to be genuinely bad enough that it affects there lives for them to hear me out. If its not that bad then my own party bias will hit deaf ears. And this street works both ways, even if the all the news media channels except for fox decide there going to spend every day trying to make the Americans think the worst of George W Bush, when it’s the truth is it’s actually not that bad for them, they feel safer than they did before thanks to him, they were willing to give Bush a second term. The incumbent advantage is thus good because it has proven the keep our democracy from turning into an oligarchy where the owners of MSNBC decide who the president will always be. They Just don’t have time man to campaign if they are doing there Job man……: I should probably rebut this before the debate is over since it seems to be the core reason behind your proposed change. If a president is not able to handle the multi-tasking of some campaigning along side of all the other task they have do, they are not really fit to be president at all are they? Campaigning is just a drop in the bucket for them as far as its demands on there time and it honestly makes them have to stay a little connected to the people instead of locked up in there office and private jet and in board meetings with other countries leaders. This straw does not break the camels back and should not be looked at as the one burden too much they have to bear especially considering its something they can delegate to other people like any of the other many things they have to manage, and hopefully do not choose to Micro Manage like lame-duck president Jimmy Carter. Plus even if things went by your proposed change, they still really would need to go out and campaign at least every 2 years to help there own party win more seats in the Senate. One of the Greatest changes in American politics Teddy Roosevelt made was he made a very pointed effort to speak out the his vision to the people first rather than to the Congress, knowing that its with the people change has to start for they hold the leverage over the Congress. After Roosevelt had made his public campaign for his progressive conservative ideals to the people the Congress that had previously been against him (both parties) suddenly started being more cooperative. He’d have to be a Good president to campaign on it in 4 years…: I meant something else by that when I brought it up and did not explain cause I previously thought that was the premise of what you meant by ‘the president has to worry about his next election now instead of just being a president’. It seems you just meant in terms of time demands, but I thought you meant in terms of decisions he will make that are not necessarily ones he would normally want to do but there crowd pleasers that could get him reelected. Think of our current president. He doesn’t believe in Gun Rights. And I don’t just say that cause I’m a Republican but just look up the history of his votes in the Senate, they are not pro-gun. But in his first term he signed every piece of pro-gun laws he could to not give the NRA any ‘ammo’ to shoot with his re-election. Now that he is elected again as soon as some gun-school shooting tragedy occurred he made it his platform for trying to get an assault-weapons ban through congress. He’d have to get back on top of his own Party: You’ll have to further explain you saying ‘to the victor goes the spoils’ and its context with this debate argument because I don’t understand what your trying to say. But you sound like your just brushing off the significance of my point as if ‘well he may have a primary to face in his future but so what? Just a little more work for him to get back to office’. But you see, he’s not going to actually have a chance, even if he was the best president ever he’s not going to be re-nominated. The people will see it as moving backwards regardless of the kind of president the man was in the past. Its been 4 years since he was president and times have changed and his own party will be ready and desiring a new Face for itself. Do you think if the democrats were allowed to would they make Bill Clinton there Candidate for president after Obama’s last term is over? No they want someone new, they want to move forward, it does not matter if they loved it while Clinton was in office. So I assert that in your proposed system, we will have no returning presidents ever come to office.