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Comment by eli_gottlieb | Hacker News Reader

>The most apt analysis I've read was that from a historical standpoint Clinton was trying to do something even very strong candidates have trouble doing - keeping a party three terms in a row for the White House. There's only one president that's done it to date and it was George Bush, Sr following Reagan.

The Democrats actually managed it back after the Great Depression. Three terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt followed by one of Harry Truman.

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Yep, and the Republicans did it 3 more times before that. And then there's Jackson/Van Buren three terms Dem which immediately follows the first big run of Thomas Jefferson and co running 7 terms as the Democratic-Republican party.

So really, it's just uncommon in the last sixty-odd years.

So when the 22nd amendment was passed to limit the president to two terms in 1951 that seems to have changed the dynamics considerably.

Maybe. Maybe not. We don't have a good control group to be able to know for certain. I think there is some psychological effect the term limit has on voters. For many the end of a second terms appeals to them as an opportunity of a fresh start (for better or worse), which may translate into electing a leader from a different party.

Technically FDR was elected to 4 terms (not 3), but died in the 4th.

Didn't he die in his 3rd term? Truman was re-elected on his own in 1948.

FDR in 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944 (death, succeeded by Truman); Truman in 1948.

Thanks. I should've looked that up before commenting!

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