The rule has been if you're a good president, you get a second term. If you're not, you don't. We simply don't do "really good" one-term presidencies. Look at history. Who have been our one-term presidents? Could any of them be considered ‘great?'Tea breezes over other one-term presidents from the past 100 years:
George H. W. Bush. Done in one. History is being a bit kinder, but I remember that election cycle. He was fired. And there was a certain justification. (I speak as someone who voted for him both times, and lent my underage support to him in 1980.) Jimmy Carter. 'Nuff said. Gerald Ford. See Bush, above. Herbert Hoover. Warren Harding. William Taft.Despite supposedly uttering his own presidential death knell on ABC, what if Obama is right? As Tea asks, is there such thing as a good one-term president? Or are his goals at odds?
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