FDR, Trump, and the 22nd Amendment

Last week the Central Committee of the Communist Party began the process of amending the Chinese Constitution to enable President Xi Jinping to stay in office after his second term ends in 2023.  The change reflects international trends. In 2017 Turkish voters amended Turkey's constitution, enabling President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to serve until 2029. Russia has adopted similar legislation, extending presidential terms to 6 years each. Consequently, if Vladimir Putin wins a fourth term this month as is widely expected, he will become Russia’s longest serving leader since Joseph Stalin.  

The trend toward long tenures in executive office has received the admiring approval of President Donald Trump. During a speech in Florida today, Trump told Republican campaign donors that he welcomed President Xi Jinping's new powers. "He's now president for life," Trump exclaimed. "I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot some day."

Notwithstanding President Trump's enthusiasm for lifetime tenure, the United States has gone in the opposite direction. Although the U.S. Constitution originally placed no term limits on the presidency, the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951 established a two-term limit that remains in force today.

Constitutionally-imposed term limits have shaped the American presidency much more profoundly than is commonly understood. Indeed, it is quite possible that Donald Trump owes his presidency to the 22nd Amendment.

Washington’s Real Motive

The two-term tradition dates to President George Washington, who famously declined to run for a third term in 1796. Washington's decision to retire is still the world’s foremost example of political self-restraint. It even impressed King George III of England, who cited the president’s retirement as evidence that Washington was “the greatest character of the age.”

In fact, however, Washington stepped down because of physical and emotional exhaustion, and not from any special desire on his part to create a two-term precedent. As he explained in his farewell address, “every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.” 

Washington’s decision to retire can only be fully understood in the broader context of his public service. He first emerged as a national leader in June 1775, when he took command of the Continental Army. The War of Independence lasted for 8 years, an extremely long time for anyone to bear the grim burdens and enormous risks associated with leading a revolutionary army in battle. Public demands on Washington's time and energy did not end when peace came. Political and economic upheaval across the new country in the 1780s prompted Washington to come out of retirement and preside over the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The Constitution’s ratification in 1788 led directly to Washington’s first term as president in 1789. Thus, with the exception of his brief retirement in the mid-1780s, Washington spent two decades in highly demanding positions of national leadership between 1775 and 1797.

The endless treadmill of heavy responsibility and relentless stress took a toll on Washington. Sixty-four years old in 1796, and longing for his old life at Mount Vernon, he could not bear the idea of enduring the grueling pressures of the presidency any longer.

Physical and emotional burnout, therefore, not a desire to create an informal limitation on future presidents, caused Washington to establish the two-term tradition. 

The First President Roosevelt

Nor did Washington’s self-imposed 8-year limit prevent other presidents from attempting to serve more than two terms. Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously won election four times from 1932 to 1944.

But FDR was not the first president to seek a third term. In 1880 former two-term President Ulysses S. Grant came very close to returning to the White House for a third term. After embarking on a world tour following the end of his second term in 1877, Grant made a bid for the Republican presidential nomination at the 1880 GOP convention. He almost succeeded, until a last-second surge of support on the convention floor swung the nomination to Ohio Congressman James Garfield, one of the most surprising “dark horse” candidates in history. Garfield went on to win the presidential election in November, a sign of how close Grant came to a third term.

Woodrow Wilson’s case was more complicated. In November 1918, Germany surrendered to the Allies, thus ending World War I and propelling Wilson to the high point of his presidency. In early 1919 a third Wilson term looked like a distinct possibility. But events soon turned against him. Growing public disenchantment with Wilson’s increasingly repressive and obnoxiously self-righteous administration eroded his public standing, as did his failure to persuade the Senate to ratify the Treaty of Paris, which created the League of Nations. The strains of office also took a severe personal toll, culminating in the president’s devastating stroke in October 1919. By the time the 1920 Democratic convention arrived, Wilson’s political and physical collapse rendered his bid for a third-term pathetically hopeless. He failed to win the nomination and spent most of his last year in office confined to his bed.

But one candidate came even closer than Grant and Wilson to securing a third term: Theodore Roosevelt, FDR’s cousin and political role model.

In light of all the opportunities he had, it's remarkable that Theodore Roosevelt only served 7 and one-half years in the White House. Elected Vice President in 1900, Roosevelt became president in September 1901 when an anarchist assassinated President William McKinley during a reception in Buffalo. Skillfully stepping into his predecessor's shoes, Roosevelt soon became wildly popular and in 1904 easily won election in his own right.

TR undoubtedly would have won reelection in 1908 if not for an ill-advised pledge he made on election night 1904, when he declared: “Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination.” As the historian William Harbaugh explained in his landmark biography, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt, the unexpected announcement was “the worst political blunder of Theodore Roosevelt’s career.” The pledge made Roosevelt a lame duck before his second term even began, emboldening conservatives in the Republican congressional caucus to water down much of Roosevelt’s legislative agenda. Nevertheless, Roosevelt remained so popular with the country that even his deeply uncharismatic protégé, William Howard Taft, prevailed by a comfortable margin over William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee, in 1908. If Taft could win in 1908, then certainly Roosevelt would have prevailed as well.

From the moment he walked out the White House door in March 1909, Roosevelt regretted his decision to retire and began plotting his political comeback. He ran for president in 1912, but Taft refused to step aside, thus splitting the Republican vote with Roosevelt. Most important of all, the Democrats in 1912 nominated Wilson, who proved to be their strongest candidate in decades. An outstanding campaigner, Wilson won a huge Electoral College victory, which relegated Roosevelt to the political wilderness for the rest of his life. 

Interestingly, if Theodore Roosevelt had lived into the 1920s, he would have had yet another chance at a third term. In 1920 the country turned sharply to the right and Republicans held the presidency throughout the ensuing decade. The timing would have been perfect for TR. By 1918 he had mended fences with the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and it was clear that the Republican presidential field would be very weak in 1920 (indeed, Warren G. Harding of all people would end up winning both the nomination and the presidency that year). Circumstances thus seemed poised for a Roosevelt presidency in 1920, until a pulmonary embolism took TR’s life in early 1919.  He was only 60 years old. 

FDR’s Political Dominance

Although Theodore Roosevelt never made it back to the White House, his cousin Franklin Roosevelt would achieve all of TR’s ambitions and more.

It is hard for modern Americans to fully grasp the extent of Franklin Roosevelt’s political success in the 1930s and 1940s. We live in an age of political trench warfare, with neither party achieving a sustained national majority beyond an election cycle or two. Since the early 1990s, no party has held the White House for more than two consecutive terms, and most presidential margins of victory have been modest. In fact, four of the last 7 presidential elections have been won by a candidate with less than 50% of the vote (Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Bush in 2000, and Trump in 2016).

That was not the case in the 1930s and 1940s. Franklin Roosevelt won 4 consecutive presidential elections—1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944—and each time garnered a decisive majority of the popular vote (including winning almost 61% of the vote in 1936). FDR also had long coattails, as the Democrats maintained large majorities in both the House and Senate throughout Roosevelt’s presidency. In 1936, for example, the year FDR won 61% of the popular vote, the Republicans suffered catastrophic defeats in the Congressional elections, finding themselves reduced to only 88 seats in the House of Representatives and 17 seats in the U.S. Senate.  

Following the 1944 election, Republicans in Congress and around the country mounted a campaign to amend the Constitution to ensure there would never be another Franklin Roosevelt. In 1951 they got posthumous revenge on FDR by securing ratification of the 22nd Amendment. 

The XXII Amendment’s Terms

One common misconception about the 22nd Amendment is that it only prevents presidents from serving two consecutive terms. But that is not the case. The amendment expressly prohibits anyone from serving for more than 10 years as president.

Here is the pertinent text of the 22nd Amendment (with my emphasis added):

“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

Thus, the amendment expressly prohibits anyone from serving for three terms, even non-consecutively. The 10-year cap also limits a vice president who becomes president during the first two years of the previous president’s term (such as TR in 1901, Truman in 1945, and Ford in 1974) to only one full term in office.

The timing of a president’s removal from office is thus crucial. For example, if Donald Trump were to be impeached and removed from office in 2018--during the first two years of his term--Mike Pence would become president, but the Constitution would prohibit Pence from serving more than 6 years in office. In other words, if Pence became president in 2018 and then won the 2020 election, he would be constitutionally barred from running again in 2024. The reason is because a second full term would put him over the 10-year limit on presidential service. 

But if Trump were impeached and removed from office in 2019 or 2020--during the latter half of Trump's term--the 22nd Amendment would not prevent Pence from running in both 2020 and 2024. By serving for less than two years of Trump’s term, Pence would be eligible to serve for two full presidential terms of his own without exceeding the 22nd Amendment’s 10-year cap.

The Continuing Consequences of the XXII Amendment

The amendment has had other consequences that continue to shape American presidential politics. Indeed, in the absence of the 22nd Amendment, it is entirely possible that FDR would have ushered in a new era of long-serving presidents.

Since the 1950s, five presidents have served two full terms: Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. If the 22nd Amendment was never adopted, 4 of them would have had a good chance of winning a third term: Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton, and Obama.

The only one of the 5 who would have had no chance of winning a third term was George W. Bush. Beset by the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis, Bush left office with his public standing in tatters. In fact, in November 2008, Bush had an approval rating of only 28%, so low that it barred any aspirations he might have had for a third term even in the absence of the 22nd Amendment.

But the other two-term presidents had much higher approval ratings during their final months in office. For example, Ronald Reagan had an average approval rating of 53% in 1988,  and Barack Obama had an approval rating of 57% in November 2016.  Even Bill Clinton, who was impeached in December 1998, had an approval rating of 63% in November 2000.

Moreover, each of the four two-term presidents who remained popular had relatively weak successors. Eisenhower, Clinton, and Obama were followed by presidents who only barely won the office: John Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by a razor thin margin in 1960; George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore in 2000 and only secured an Electoral College majority because of Florida’s dysfunctional election system (plus a timely assist from the U.S. Supreme Court); and Donald Trump in 2016 lost the popular vote and only carried the Electoral College by the narrowest of margins in the key states. Although Ronald Reagan's successor, his vice president George H.W. Bush, won the 1988 election by a healthy margin over Michael Dukakis, Bush languished under Reagan's shadow and never really connected with the GOP base, as evidenced by his defeat in his 1992 reelection bid. 

It is certainly well within the realm of possibilities, therefore, that in the absence of the 22nd Amendment, Eisenhower in 1960 and Reagan in 1988 would have secured third terms, at least if they wanted to run again. Although Clinton versus Bush in 2000 would presumably have been a close race (not unlike Bush versus Gore), Clinton’s strong approval rating and his personal popularity in states Gore lost (especially Arkansas) would have made Clinton a very tough incumbent to beat in 2000.

What about Obama in 2016? He was only 55 years old and still in excellent health. He also despised Donald Trump and had a cold and distant relationship with Hillary Clinton. In light of the options facing the country in 2016, it’s entirely conceivable that Obama might have chosen to run for a third term if not for the 22nd Amendment.

There are several reasons to believe that Barack Obama would likely have beaten Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup. By historical standards, Trump’s performance in 2016 was remarkably weak for a successful candidate. He lost the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 3 million votes and his 46% share of the popular vote was the worst showing for a winning candidate in 24 years. Most important of all, Trump’s Electoral College victory was made possible by his victories in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, states which he carried by a combined total of only 77,000 votes, an exceedingly small margin when compared to the 14 million votes cast overall in those states and the 136 million votes cast nationwide.

In short, Trump barely defeated Hillary Clinton, a scandal-plagued candidate with enormous baggage and high unfavorable ratings. The Russian hacking of the DNC emails and James Comey's questionable, election-eve decision to briefly but quite publicly reopen the FBI investigation into Clinton's email server further undermined Clinton's campaign. Yet, despite those severe headwinds, she still came within 77,000 votes of beating Trump, a deeply polarizing and scandal-plagued candidate in his own right.

It seems reasonable to assume, therefore, that Barack Obama—a president vastly more popular than either Clinton or Trump—would have significantly outperformed Clinton's vote totals if he had been free to run for a third term in 2016. Indeed, as just one data point of many, the decline in African American turnout from the 2012 election (which Obama won) to the 2016 election (which Clinton lost) was nearly 5% nationwide, and was even higher in key swing states. Most critical of all, the decline in black turnout exceeded Trump’s margin of victory in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the 3 states that decided the election. The lack of enthusiasm for Clinton among black voters, combined with Obama's extremely strong showing among African Americans in 2008 and 2012, makes it likely that Obama would have attracted enough black voters to the polls to defeat Trump in 2016. The same reasoning applies to young and independent voters, who gave Obama high marks in 2016 polls. 

The 22nd Amendment has thus had a major and continuing impact on the course of American political history. Indeed, without it, Barack Obama would quite possibly be a third-term president right now. Consequently, notwithstanding his envy of Xi Jinping, Donald Trump has reason to be very grateful for the Constitution’s two-term limit.  

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Anthony, Thanks again for another marvelously informative and enjoyable post.

The conclusion is, I think, impeccable, but we can infer from Trump’s behavior (both prior to assuming the presidency and his term in office to date) that he could never come to feel gratitude, or even some sense of objective appreciation, for the 22nd Amendment (in this case, of course, retrospectively speaking, as I doubt Trump has ever seriously entertained, or could entertain, the belief that Obama would have defeated him had he been permitted to run for a third term) if only because it serves as a constitutional constraint, and constraints, let alone constitutional ones, are difficult for him to wrap his mind around, especially if they happen to apply—directly or indirectly—to him, owing to his pathological narcissism (we don’t in this instance require the intimate privacy and authoritative atmosphere of ‘the clinic’ to make a symptomatic diagnosis of narcissistic megalomania).* Indeed, insofar as they have any real or possible application to his own desires, plans, and actions, Trump habitually views constraints simpliciter with dislike or disdain. Furthermore, the idea of “self-binding” constraints that are in some sense beneficial to an agent are likely incomprehensible to or unimaginable for him. So, for example, the idea that one would intentionally create obstacles to one’s future choice of some specific option or options, in the form of pre-commitment (which, as Jon Elster explains, ‘embodies a certain form of rationality over time’) would also appear to him as incoherent, perhaps nonsensical. While some might cite Trump’s refusal to drink and smoke as evidence to the contrary, I suggest we can safely assume Trump’s motivations here did not fall within the class of reasons that are dispassionate or disinterested, nor was it likely motivated by rational self-interest. At best, given his narcissism personality disorder (NPD), it was an instance of a person in the grip of one or more passions (anger, fear, love, shame, and so forth) pre-committing himself against another “passion” (or desire or craving), hence its “one-off” character or quality, and thus not something one would associate with any possible cluster of dispositions, personality traits, or aspects of character, in other words, as indicative of someone who employs pre-commitment devices or rational self-binding with the requisite self-discipline and self-knowledge to understand their moral psychological value or worth.

* For the argument to this effect, please see Alex Morris’ Rolling Stone article, “Why Trump Is Not Mentally Fit to Be President” (25 April 2017), a discussion and summary of which is found in my short essay, “Donald Trump & Narcissist Personality Disorder (NPD),” available on my Academia page.

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

If somebody told him that jumping into Lake Michigan was a good idea, he would do it. Thank god for our judges, lawyers, local officials, administrators, the Press who all know how to be small "d" democrats. Thank god for Tocqueville's "fragmentation."

[anon]

"It seems reasonable to assume, therefore, that Barack Obama—a president vastly more popular than either Clinton or Trump."

This is a myth. Barack Obama's average job approval rating during his eight years in office ranked among the lowest in Gallup's history. Other polls, like Rasmussen's, had him even lower. I'd also like to see the actual data, picking a reliable poll, that shows that an incumbent president's job approval or "popularity" v. the challenger's is a decisive factor.

Much of what is written above about the recent election is wishful thinking, born of a political longing to be right (about the fact that the current president really didn't "win"), especially 1.) the bogus comparison of state vote totals (take out California, if you want to play that game), 2.) the reliance on the popular vote (not the way the game is played sir, else candidates would allocate resources differently, and you should know that) and 3.) the emphasis on close elections (can't wait for your analysis of the first Franken election).

THis is more of a MSNBC style analysis: leave out the facts that don't support your point and twist the ones that do.

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

anon^^^Where did you get your facts? From the same guy who told another dude that Trump told him that 10 Million people attended his inaugural?

A simple Bing/Google search reveals that Obama's approval ratings with Gallup remained in the 50-60s. While our current Man of Steel remains mired in the 30s.

[anon]

here's another whopper:

"Bush languished under Reagan's shadow and never really connected with the GOP base, as evidenced by his defeat in his 1992 reelection bid."

Oh, let's see, Barack Obama was "popular" because at the end of his term, WHEN HE WAS LEAVING OFFICE AND INITIATING NOTHING TO GENERATE CONTROVERSY, his "popularity hit unusual highs.

But, Bush "never connected" with his base because he lost his bid for reelection. Again, myth.

According to Gallup, Bush HW was at 56% when he left office, compared with Obama at 59%. Go to the Gallup website, and compare ratings, over their terms. HW's overall average was 61%, with a high of 89%. Obama's overall average was 48%.

The reasons HW lost his bid for reelection may have something to do with Ross Perot. As you may know, Clinton won with 43% of the vote. Clinton received 44M votes; together, HW and Perot received 58M. If you study Perot, you will know that arguments that he didn't take more from HW are weak and implausible. Perot was a Texas businessman who could not be considered, by any stretch, a "liberal."

I appreciate the superficial veneer of objectivity when you write about history, but, your politics are clouding your judgment when it comes to more recent events.

[anon]

I don't usually respond to the person above, but, as usual, he calls others "liars" and his posts are gross and sickening...

Go to Gallup and see for yourself. The statement above regarding Obama's average job approval rating can be found there, almost verbatim.

[Hugh Brady]

While I get the "hook" and this was interesting to read, the post rests on what I would call the "Barry Allen" fallacy (http://arrow.wikia.com/wiki/Time_travel) -- that all things in the past remain equal even if you change just one fact. There's simply no way to know if Trump would have been nominated if Obama sought a third term. The Gallup average for Obama's second term was 46.7; he was under 50 percent at the beginning of 2016 and was at 48-47 as late as July 2016 (although it rebounded thereafter). As you suggest, the high approval ratings at the end are perhaps a direct reflection of the public's view of him vs. Trump, but likely not a reflection of whether he could have won against another nominee. Fatigue among voters is another real factor, and one not completely accounted for here.

Moreover, if a president were eligible for a third term, that would also likely change the political calculus for second-term decision-making. That is, the decisions become less about burnishing the legacy that they become about seeking re-election. That might also have an effect on poll numbers -- which way, I'm not sure.

As an aside, Reagan was suffering some sort of cognitive degeneration by the time he left office and was so bad by the time he was deposed in 1990 about Iran-Contra, he could remember so little that he remarked that it was almost like he had never been president. It's unclear if Nancy Reagan fancied herself to be an Edith Wilson, but given her protectiveness, it's entirely possible she wouldn't have let him run again.

[anon]

The Gallup ranking of average job approval ratings below really does hit home the absurdity of the claim that HW "languished under Reagan's shadow and never really connected with the GOP base" and gives lie to the myth that Obama was a considered a highly competent president (George W. Bush was ranked higher folks!).

When you live in a bubble, and just assume that everything your side says is true and everything "they" say is false, you end up being risibly wrong about basic facts.

Kennedy
Jan. 20, 1961-Nov. 22, 1963 70.1

Eisenhower
Jan. 20, 1953-Jan. 19, 1961 65.0

G.H.W. Bush
Jan. 20, 1989-Jan. 19, 1993 60.9

Clinton
Jan. 20, 1993-Jan. 19, 2001 55.1

Johnson
Nov. 22, 1963-Jan. 19, 1969 55.1

Reagan
Jan. 20, 1981-Jan. 19, 1989 52.8

G.W. Bush
Jan. 20, 2001-Jan. 19, 2009 49.4

Nixon
Jan. 20, 1969-Aug. 9, 1974 49.0

Obama
Jan. 20, 2009-Jan. 19, 2017 47.9

Ford
Aug. 9, 1974-Jan. 19, 1977 47.2

Carter
Jan. 20, 1977-Jan. 19, 1981 45.5

Truman
April 12, 1945-Jan 19, 1953 45.4

Gallup

BTW, if Obama had run for a third term, then Trump wouldn't have been nominated. My speculation is as good as yours, sir, and you can't prove me wrong any more than you can prove, by cherry picking isolated facts of particularly questionable relevance, your points.

[Anthony Gaughan]

Thank you for your comments, Patrick. I'll be sure to check out your article!

[Anthony Gaughan]

Thank you for your comments, anon.

Two quick points of clarification before I address your broader point.

First, when I watch television news, I watch CNN, not MSNBC. So instead of claiming that I get all of my information from Rachel Maddow, you should claim that I get all of my information from Anderson Cooper.

Second, I'm not sure why you interpreted my point about conservatives distrusting Bush Senior as some sort of indictment of his historical legacy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, I personally think that George H.W. Bush (i.e. Bush Senior) was quite a good president, certainly the best one-term president in modern history. He handled the 1991 Gulf War and the end of the Cold War exceptionally well, and he pursued fiscally responsible policies regarding the budget deficit. The economic boom in the mid to late 1990s was due in no small part to Bush Senior's fiscal restraint in the early 1990s. It's also all too often overlooked that he signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, legislation that continues to have many positive ramifications today.

Thus, in my view, George Bush Senior had a remarkable record of accomplishment during his four years in office (1989-93).

But that doesn't change the fact that conservatives never trusted him. In 1980 Bush ran in the GOP presidential primaries as a moderate Republican, which is precisely why Reagan took him on as a running mate. Adding Bush Senior as the vice presidential nominee brought ideological balance to Reagan's presidential ticket.

But conservatives continued to view Bush as a Rockefeller Republican throughout Reagan's presidency. Accordingly, to allay conservative distrust, Bush made his famous "No New Taxes" pledge at the 1988 GOP convention. Those words, of course, came back to haunt him when he turned around as president and raised taxes. Conservatives never forgave him for it.

Indeed, as you may recall, Pat Buchanan ran against Bush Senior in the 1992 GOP primaries. Although Buchanan failed to win any primaries, his ferocious attacks on Bush's tax hike and Buchanan's allegation that Bush was insufficiently conservative contributed to Bush's rapid slide in the polls in 1992. Indeed, Bush went from a high of 89% approval in March 1991 down to 51% in November 1991 to a low of 29% approval in August 1992.

Ross Perot added insult to injury, by relentlessly (and falsely) claiming that Bush Senior was fiscally irresponsible. Factor in the 1990-91 recession, and there is no mystery left as to why Bush Senior collapsed in the polls.

Indeed, in the final Gallup Poll before the November 1992 presidential election, Bush Senior's approval rating stood at only 37%. That Gallup Poll proved to be extremely accurate, because do you know what percentage of the vote Bush Senior won on election day 1992: 37%.

You are absolutely right, however, that voters almost immediately had buyer's remorse. After he lost, Bush Senior's approval rating rapidly rose, reaching 56% in January 1993. But of course, by then it was too late.

The key point is I don't think your use of the presidents' average rating during the entire course of their presidency sheds much light on the matter of which presidents were in a position to win a third term (in the absence of the 22nd Amendment).

For example, it's not "cherry picking" the evidence to say that in November 2008--when George W. Bush (i.e. Bush Junior) would have hypothetically been up for a third term (in the absence, of course, of the 22nd Amendment)--his approval rating was only 28%. The election day approval rating is what matters, not the approval rating months before or after the election (just ask Bush Senior!).

In contrast, Obama's approval rating was 57% the week of the November 2016 presidential election.

The bottom line is the approval rating in November of the president's 8th year in office is the number that matters for determining whether each of the two-term presidents would have been viable candidates for a third term in office.

In any case, thanks again for reading The Faculty Lounge, and please keep commenting!

[Anthony Gaughan]

Thank you for your comments, Hugh. I think all of your points are excellent.

You are absolutely right that there is nothing certain whatsoever about counterfactual speculation. It's of course 100% true to say that we really don't know what would have happened in the absence of the 22nd Amendment.

But nevertheless I still think that counterfactual analysis is helpful for gaining at least a little insight into the historical ramifications of major events and constitutional developments, such as the adoption of the 22nd Amendment. Indeed, if we don't think about what could have been, then we never really fully grasp what did happen.

I also agree completely with your point about Nancy Reagan. But it's interesting to note that in a November 1987 interview with David Frost, Ronald Reagan publicly lamented that the 22nd Amendment prevented a president from serving more than two terms. Reagan even said he wanted to start a campaign to repeal the 22nd Amendment. So the idea of running again in 1988 certainly seems to have appealed to him (if not to Nancy).

In any case, thanks again for your comments!

[anon]

"The bottom line is the approval rating in November of the president's 8th year in office is the number that matters for determining whether each of the two-term presidents would have been viable candidates for a third term in office."

This is the key unsupported thesis. What's your support, one president (Bush Sr.)? Your rebuttal is more or less unsupported speculation and scuttle butt, with some left wing tropes sprinkled in for seasoning.

For example, you state, as a fact: " conservatives never trusted him [BUsh]" What the h... are you talking about? That is just a Democrat talking point; it sounds right, but it is wrong.

Look at his standing, according to Gallup. The third highest in Gallup history. You think that was possible without the support of "conservatives"? What's your evidence for your statement that "conservatives" never trusted Bush? Pat Buchanan? How many votes did he get? One knows your stripes by the labels and examples you throw around, which are imprecise and anecdotal

Again, you just elide the facts you don't like, sort of like CNN does. You mention Perot, but not the fact that Clinton won with 43% of the vote, likely because of him. You don't refute that Perot and BUsh together swamped CLinton, and you don't refute the fact that Perot likely took more votes from Bush (though, left wing journalists, like those you applaud, have tried mightily but ineffectively for years to do so).

The plain truth is that your implication about Obama being such a "popular president" is wrong (his overall approval numbers were near the bottom), your claim that the only number that matters is November job approval ratings is completely unsupported, your thesis that, but for term limits, Obama would have beat Hillary (she wouldn't have run) and Trump (he wouldn't have been nominated) is really just a left-wing exercise in revisionist "history" that should be beneath you, if you really want to pitch yourself as objective.

Moreover, your version of the last election is so one-sided a and slanted that you did give yourself away. You cherry picked the results of some of the close states to prove a point that can't be proved, because campaigns would be different if only the popular vote counted, lots of elections are close, and without California, Hillary lost the popular vote (if one plays the "without those states" game you played above).

You haven't even the tiniest bit of support for the proposition that you want to prove: that Obama could have and would have won a third term. That notion may be comforting to those who get their "news" (i.e., opinion) from CNN and ANderson Cooper (how can you call that "news"?), but for all those persons counted by Gallup, your speculation about popular opinion seems sort of reckless and immature and the product of some serious time spent in a bubble.

And, by the way, that is the benefit of the Faculty Lounge.
So, thank you for posting!

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

Bush I was very successful looking 30 years out. He passed the ADA, the Native American Graves Preservation Act, strengthened the EPA, passed tough emission standards for diesel commercial vehicles, and created the national CDL (commercial driver's license. We are benefitting from all of these programs. His biggest mistake was nominating Clearance Thomas (I believe Anita Hill).

[anon]

And, breaking on CNN:

The Academy Awards last night were the MOST WATCHED IN HISTORY! HISTORIC! Political ranting by Hollywood liberals of impeccable education, reputation, training and experience, was on prominent display. THis ranting is even more popular now than ever. More evidence of the dominance of the moral in America over the deplorables, who seek to undermine our very democracy (by speaking to us in Russian).

Now, back to our panel for some opinion.