Can the 44th President be re-elected in 2012?

[Person Man]

I doubt it if it is a Republican. No party has ever held the White House for four consecutive terms outside of FDR. The public just gets tired of the same party each year. If a Democrat wins then they can be reelected. Unless McCain does really, really well in his first term, I just dont see the GOP winning ANOTHER election in 2012. It just wouldn't seem possible, or the Democrats will be in real trouble.

That's what I am thinking. Actually, it wasn't since 1828, anyways and even then there wern't two clear-cut parties yet (1828 was a brokered election)....after the fourth loss, the Federalists ceased to exist.

What kind of trouble could you see the democratic party? My visions of doom and gloom? Perhaps Sanders, Kerry, Webb, Schumer and other liberal democrats will form the Progressive Party and those like Nelson, Lieberman and Casey will form the Labor Party....and they will battle out for one or two cycles until we have a 2-party system again. 

[Person Man]

I doubt it if it is a Republican. No party has ever held the White House for four consecutive terms outside of FDR. The public just gets tired of the same party each year. If a Democrat wins then they can be reelected. Unless McCain does really, really well in his first term, I just dont see the GOP winning ANOTHER election in 2012. It just wouldn't seem possible, or the Democrats will be in real trouble.

That's what I am thinking. Actually, it wasn't since 1828, anyways and even then there wern't two clear-cut parties yet (1828 was a brokered election)....after the fourth loss, the Federalists ceased to exist.

What?  Aside from FDR/Truman and the Democratic-Republicans of the early 19th century, we've also had the post-Civil War GOP and the turn of the century GOP (McKinley-TR-Taft).  So that's four times when we've had more than 3 consecutive terms of the same party.  So of the 7 times that a party has successfully won 3 consecutive terms, they've successfully extended that to 4 or more consecutive terms 4 times.

What about 4 terms with 2 presidents WHERE each president came from different tickets.

[Person Man]

What do you mean by "4 terms with 2 presidents WHERE each president came from different tickets"?  You mean where the two presidents were never on the same ticket together?  What difference would that make?

The ability to hold on to the presidency without incumbency should be a significant factor in determining the other party's electability.

[Person Man]

Of the 7 times that a party had held the presidency for three terms and was going for a fourth term, the guy running for the 4th term was the incumbent president in 6 of those cases.  The only exception was Taft running in 1908, and he (obviously) won.

Actually, was it true that McKinnley did not serve out his term? I am talking about two terms that were won, served in full and two terms won and served in full by an incumbent.

[Person Man]

OK, if you mean this situation: A president serves two full terms, then has a successor from the same party win the party a third term, and that same guy runs for a second terms (which would be a 4th term for that political party), the only cases are:

James Madison in 1812, successfully reelected
Martin Van Buren in 1840, defeated
George H. W. Bush in 1992, defeated

But that's so few cases in which it could have happened, that I don't think it really tells you anything about whether, hypothetically, McCain could win reelection in 2012 if he were elected in 2008.  That's what this conversation was originally about.  AHDuke said "No party has ever held the White House for four consecutive terms outside of FDR." (which is obviously untrue).  You added the Democratic-Republicans of the early 19th century, and I was saying no, there are other examples as well.  Of the times that a party has won three consecutive terms, they've gone on to win a fourth term about half the time.

Now yes, you can slice the historical examples even thinner by adding in different conditions about who was an incumbent in which elections and so forth, but then you only get three examples of this even being possible, which is not enough to draw any conclusions from.

This is EXACTLY what I am talking about because incumbency and partisan electability are big deals. It really does cast doubt on a part's electability if it CANNOT win after 2 terms and can't even win against a non-incumbent. This would be the 1st time in 200 years where there are two consecutive reelected presidents from the same party that were on totally different tickets....and the Federalists did not survive... I therefore see that the democrats WILL NOT survive.

[Person Man]

OK, now I understand what you were talking about.  I misunderstood.  You weren't saying that if McCain wins in '08, he'd be doomed in '12.  You were saying that if he does manage to pull out victories in both years, the Dems would look like perpetual losers.  Gotcha.

Thanks. ...and then I wonder if they could survive as a party afterwards.. History shows that they might not be able to. I think if I don't move, I will switch to Indy (If HillDawg loses the GE) and wait for a new party to form. I am thinking there will be a Union Party (DLC), a Labor Party(Yellow Dogs) and a Progressive Party(hard-core left) that will fight amongst themselves and eventually unite into a new party around 2020 or 2024 and be the next "permanent" majority. Whichever party wins will determine the course of our country. So, I believe that however things go down, the left will decide the future of the country whether the reunite around a center-right base and basically fold or push the country in the other direction.