The Presidency

It is 2012 and once again we are in a Presidential year. So what that means is we will be seeing advertisements on TV and campaign placards sprouting like weeds from lawns. In the 2010 election only about 38% of the voting population actually voted. So a little more than a third of the people are electing the highest office in the land. You can not even get a law passed with this kind of percentage. I believe one thing we could do to increase voter turnout is to lengthen the term of the president to 6 years, but limit the presidency to the one term. In addition to increasing the voter turnout every 6 years we would see competition for the nomination in both parties instead of the incumbent not facing the same scrutiny that the opposition party goes through. Also this would stop the president from becoming the campaigner in chief, maybe we could even limit what the president could do as far as campaigning for his or her successor. Right now the president's first year is his honeymoon, the second and third year are working years and the fourth is a campaign year. If he wins the fifth through seventh year are working years and then the eighth he is a lame duck. In a six year term the first year is the honeymoon two through five are working years and the sixth he is a lame duck. So we get five years of work out of every six instead of six years out of eight.
So I believe we need to go to a six year single term presidency.