Ok, I did a quick search and didn't see this anywhere so here goes..

I was watching Meet the Press the other night and they were showing/discussing a conference that Bill Clinton held recently.

The one thing that most caught my interest was that he said (I'm paraphraseing here) The Amendment limiting presidents to two terms should be changed and that he believes it will be within the next 10 or 15 years.
Not completely - presidents would still be limited to two terms consecutive, but that after being out of office a two term president could run again at a later date.

His example was, (prefixed by 'we are all living longer') imagine a president who is elected young, between say 45 and 50, who serves his two terms. Then imagine the country running into similar problems 20 years down the line that this president had successfully tackled while in office. Wouldn't it be good for the American people to be able to put that president back in office those 20 years down the line??

Note: Clinton was 46 (i think) when he was elected...


What does everyone think of this??

Will it happen (changing the term limit in some way) and how do you feel about it?

eh, not really for it. The founding fathers wanted folks to put in some public service then go back to private life.

It's just me, but, I'd like to get Slick Willy and the Clintonites out of politics, for good. It's obvious what he's up.



[Edited on 5-6-2003 by Bob88]

Once the scurge of secret societies has been abolished, and strict guidlines for who can hold public office are adopted, sure, why not.

Uh what scourge, all the things beautiful and glorious about America are attributable to Freemasonry.

Some scourge huh?

Clinton was blackballed by Freemasons, in case you didn't know.

Because we know crap when we see it. lol

As for the two term thing, George Washington set the example, it is a shame we need a law for all others to follow it, however we do so shall it be. And there shall never be a "welcome back..." term.

Then you'll just have a leap frog effect, because people are hard to change, and what's more changing than the presidency?

People naturally want a King, because then they never have to change.

The idea of having no one in office for more than two consecutive terms always struck me as a particulary good idea and it always seems a shame that a talented individual could not go back into office.

Mind you if it ain`t broke why fix it...

Originally posted by All Seeing Eye
and strict guidlines for who can hold public office are adopted, sure, why not.

what type of guidelines would you like to see?

I'm more for limiting the playing field (eliminating party system, or atleast making money a non-issue) than saying so and so can't hold public office.

also, allowing all candidates to debate would be a good start in the right direction. equal exposure guaranteed. that sort of thing.

[Edited on 5-6-2003 by quango]

Look, guys, do you want to know what would REALLY fix our political system up in a jiffy?

Do you REALLY want to know?

It's something very very VERY simple and I bet you'll never guess it, but when I tell you you'll go...HOLY CRAP HE'S RIGHT!!!

Here it is...

NO PICTURES AT ALL!

Get rid of the "I'm mister sexy" and you get rid of the crap that has eaten away our political system.

Why is it the most decent politicians seem to come from the representatives? Or state governments?

Because who cares what they look like? You almost never know what they look like, but you see in the papers what they want to try and do!

That's all you should do.

You have public speeches that's ok, because the people who go won't go, wow he looks sharp!

They'll go, "Your ideas bite my butt!" or "Yeah man that's exactly what I say."

Same with news papers, no photos.

Haven't you always seen the photos, the candidate that usually wins is the one who has the photo taken from a lower angle so he looks mighty and holy!

Bush was photoed this way often, while Gore mostly got the "I'm a butthead" shot.

Get rid of the photos and all that's left is all that matters.

What they have to say.

While this won't solve EVERYTHING it will solve most of the problem of who gets elected. After that you still have problems of broken promisses and corruption.

Actually, while I don't totally agree with Wanderer, he makes a good point about most leaders coming from state governments (which includes Clinton) instead of being lifetime Wahsington politicians. ]

As for the term limits, I think we should look at it from a very different point of view. 2 terms are enough for president and I think 2 terms are enough for senators and congressmen too. Why? Easy, corruption. I think we tried to deal with this issue with campaign finance reform but we tried taking the corruption out of the politicians when we should just take out the corrupt politicians. 2 terms for them would limit their long range influence and the influence on them by corperations and special interest groups. We have guys that are owned by either or both of these that continue to influence the direction the country takes. No one needs to ever be a lifelong politician. Its shameful. The Constitution set the bar for our leaders as being upstanding members of the public, elected to office to serve the country for a term and then return to be productive members of society not leach off the system of government for a lifetime.

Term limits don't mean a thing, we just keep getting the same corrupt, selfish, ignorant leaders year after friggin' year...

it would not surprise me to see more violent attacks on our nation by 'terrorists' resulting in the enactment of 'special war powers' effectively freezeing our political system leaving us with the powers that be

The founding fathers wanted folks to put in some public service then go back to private life.

The Founding Fathers wanted a lot of things. A lot of things that are being overlooked by today's government.

One thing I would like to see is that all congress and the senate, are payed by a fund from there respective states! And the people of that state would decide how much they earn. Im tired of them giving themselves payraises, WHEN THEY DONT DESERVE IT. That might aliviate some of the coruption!

Nothing is holding Clinton back from running in 2004. The constitution states that a president can only have two consecutive years in office nothing about only having two years in office. But I wouldnt want to see clinton in office again. Better than bush but I would prefer someone more liberal.

XAOS

Originally posted by Illmatic67

The founding fathers wanted folks to put in some public service then go back to private life.

The Founding Fathers wanted a lot of things. A lot of things that are being overlooked by today's government.

If the Founding Fathers were to come back today, they wouldn't know whether to shhot at the ones running the show or the ones that allowed the show to be hijacked. I imagine they'd just find another place with people that aren't lazy, ignorant and content and start again. Highly doubtful that they'd be successful, though, those in international control would have them offed.

Taking the money out of politics would be the best thing to do.

Campaigns should be run on equal footing and candidates given an equal chance to represent their parties. Newspapers should not be allowed to report on elections. All of the information should come from the parties themselves or independant bodies set up for that purpose.

Newspaper owners sway public opinion just to line their own pockets. The man in the street gets caught in the crossfire.

If it were only that simple. There is virtually no way to make it in politics in this society without the money to get you there. You need to pay for advertisement, mailings, the fliers volunteers hand out etc.
I really wish there were an easier way but money talks and ideals usually walk when the money comes .

I know that. You know that.

But in the ideal world, that would be the way to do it.
Of course, in the ideal world, the media would tell the truth.

Yeah. It's a long way off. But one day, maybe, who knows.....

The republicans didn't want FDR winning a 4th term so the law of no more than 2 consecutive terms was written but it does not say only 2 terms allowed overall, it only states no more than 2 consecutive terms.

Bill's coming back to fix shrubs mess!!!

Yeah, baby!!!!

Well, we're only really talking about Roosevelt (who made it to a fourth term) here - in terms of legislation (it was of course an "unwritten rule" since Washington's two terms.
It's only been 55 years or thereabouts since the Reps pushed through Amendment XXII but it's hard to see politicians doing much to change the current arrangement.
Incidentally this has been an issue in the House of Reps for almost a decade -the Republicans promised to introduce some sort of limit there but never did.
It's largely the same old crooks, anyway -or the same old crooks in the background, at least

Clinton

8 years of clinton was worse than a spin through a turkish dungeon. Thank the gods, we have term limits.