If there were no term limits, would Bill Clinton still be President?

[Ter]

He's certainly still young enough, and with his popularity, who could have beaten him? Certainly not Bush in 2000. Not sure who would have gotten the Republican nomination in 2004 had Bush officially lost. McCain maybe? Then who would have gotten it in 2008? Jeb? We'll never know.

[northoftheborder]

1. The Gore/Bush selection is one of the greatest American history tragedies

[ProSense]

2. Why on earth would anyone want Clinton to still be President?

"If there were no term limits, would Bill Clinton still be President?"

You wanted him to have a fifth term, like a dictator?

[Ter]

4. I neither endorsed nor rejected the idea

I simply asked if he would still be President. It's not a dictatorship if he gets the votes and an opposition is allowed to run against him.

[Rageneau]

8. Peace? Prosperity? Responsible government? Smart appointments? National image?

Low unemployment? Decreasing crime rates? Outmanuevering right wing nuts?

I can think of LOTS of reasons why someone would want Bill Clinton to still be president.

Yes, he compromised more than I wanted, but so far Obama has disappointed me MUCH more.

[ProSense]

12. DADT, DOMA, Telecomm Act, NAFTA, ending Glass Steagall, welfare reform, enron loophole

Oh, spare me.

On edit, I'd take Clinton over Bush or any Republican (and even some Democrats), but rewriting history to make claims like this:

"Yes, he compromised more than I wanted, but so far Obama has disappointed me MUCH more."

...is damn laughable.

[AlabamaLibrul]

21. LOL, no. n/t

[Avant Guardian]

32. Because the national debt would most likely be paid down by now

[Rambis]

3. Clenis landslide

but we moved too far center for me-

[Kennah]

5. If he were still President ...

... we might still be in Afghanistan, but certainly never woulda gone into Iraq.

There is that plus.

[Ter]

6. Depends on if 9/11 would have happened

Maybe, maybe not. I don't believe it's an inside job, but I do believe it could have been prevented with better intelligence, and certainly the threat should have been taken more seriously. Perhaps a Clinton Administration would have prevented it, resulting in no 9/11, which would in turn result in no war in Afghanistan.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. His administration thwarted a lot of REAL terrorist plots

a lot of which never got much publicity unlike all of the bogus ones we constantly heard about when Bush was (p)resident.

[Dawson Leery]

30. Correct!

[road2000]

14. Remember the Gore Commission?

"On July 25, 1996, shortly after the crash of TWA flight 800, President Clinton asked Vice President Gore to chair a commission on improving air transportation safety. As a result, the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, commonly known as the Gore Commission, conducted an in-depth analysis of the U.S. commercial airlines' safeguards against terrorist attacks. In its final report, the Gore Commission found that security measures used by U.S. airlines were extremely inadequate, and made over fifty recommendations to improve security."

From:
http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4532

[LiberalFighter]

7. He probably would had been elected to a third. Not sure about a 4th.

[SheilaT]

10. If there were no term limits

Reagan probably would have been elected to a third term, possibly even a fourth as he would have been a convenient front as he moved into senility for those like Cheney and Rumsfeld who were pretty much running things from behind. While I was appalled at the election of St. Ronnie in the first place, and NEVER believed any of the kind lies that were said about him, I was apparently in the minority.

It was in 1984 that it became very clear that a lot of working and middle class people were voting Republican against their own self interest -- Time Magazine actually did at least one article about that -- and such against-self-interest-voting has continued almost unabated since then. So, without term limits (and assuming the elections up through Reagan's second had gone exactly the way they did go), we'd have had 16 years of Ron Reagan. By that time he would have clearly been needing to retire, and by that time the Republican old would have been pretty amazing. However, and this is a huge point, there might also have been such a huge build-up of resentment, that perhaps whatever Democrat might have come along would have won. And if my hypothesis of four terms of Reagan is correct, there's no way of predicting what Dem out there might have actually come to the fore. Keep in mind that the only reason Clinton wound up as president is that in 1990 in the wake of the first Gulf War, the conventional wisdom was that Bush was going to be unbeatable in 1992, and every single other potential Democratic nominee stopped even considering the possibility of running. That left a huge vacuum that Clinton stepped into. Yes, he did have competition in the primaries, but he was the one who got in first and early and built the kind of campaign organization that brought him to the presidency.

Another thought: If my 4 terms of Reagan hypothesis is accurate, the extreme right might never have arisen the way it has. There would not have been all of what happened in Clinton's terms to bring them to such power and fury.

[Kennah]

11. Might have been a third term, but ...

... the economic downturn woulda been square in his lap, so I don't think a fourth term woulda been possible for Raygun.

[Ter]

16. Reagan certainly would have won if he ran in 1988

But by 1992, he was just too sick and old. Yeah, I know he didn't go public until 1994, but I'm sure the effects were too great in 1992 for him to want to run again.

[Skink]

19. If that was the case we would gotten GHW until 2000.

[Drunken Irishman]

26. FDR was very sick when he ran for a fourth term...

So much so that he actually ended up dying only a few months into his fourth term.

Americans had no problems re-electing him.

Reagan was still very charismatic and personable in 1992. His speech at the Republican Convention is evidence of this. Back then, prior to the internet, it could have been very easy to fool the American people into thinking he was a competent and healthy president.

Now it's possible the economy would have done him in - but even then, Clinton still struggled sealing the deal in that election. Reagan wouldn't have had a landslide and he very well might've lost, but I don't think it's a slam dunk. Not with how beloved he was.

[SheilaT]

31. My take is that by then he'd have been so well isolated

and contained that it might have been gotten away with. Certainly it could make an interesting alternate history novel.

added on edit:

Republicans do an amazing job of slipping away from responsibility for economic down turns, even though ever since Herbert Hoover, Republican presidents have seen almost now job growth during any of their administrations. I think Eisenhower was the last Republican to actually have net job gains during his time, and that just barely.

[JoePhilly]

13. Yes.

[bigwillq]

15. No one really knows.

Maybe. Maybe not. I am glad there are term limits.

[Ter]

17. It seems every political viewpoint supports presidential term limits

The neo-cons, the tea party, the liberals, the far left, and even the libertarians. It's almost as if those of us who oppose them have nowhere to go.

[bigwillq]

18. They're always free to move to North Korea (nt)

[treestar]

20. He could have won in 2000

And that alone would have been enough to alter the course of history. 911 might not have happened, or if it had, it would not have been used an an excuse for wars and dozens of other laws.

[Greybnk48]

22. Yes, definitely.

Although I was getting tired of repug-lite.

[Uzybone]

23. Would he have fired Greenspan by now?

[FrenchieCat]

24. Interesting.....

What about this one:
If the U.S. never had a revolution back in the seventeen hundreds,
would the king's family still rule the United States today? :shrug:

I mean....let's just discuss more made up speculation about things we can not know one way or the other. It is a splendid way to spend time, if one has that kind of time to spend.

[WolfoftheWild]

25. nope. he has had heart disease and surgery.

[JVS]

27. Only if he had prevented the economic collapse of 2008, which seems unlikely considering...

his record on deregulating the banking industry.

[underpants]

28. Yes

[craigmatic]

29. I think he might've lost in 2004 because of 9/11 or the dot com bust.

[Beacool]

33. I think that he would have won a third term handily.

And we would have been so much better as a nation for it. But, five terms would have been too much.

:-)