Next President may be guarenteed a single term

The opening of this AP article on the 2008 Presidential election leads one naturally to an important question: Will the next President be guarenteed a single term because of this long race?

Two months before the 1992 presidential election, an NBC reporter cornered a man to ask whether he preferred Bill Clinton or President Bush.

The man said he didn't care. He just wanted them off his TV screen.

Imagine how he'd feel today?

The 2008 campaign is already playing out so intensely that it dominates airtime at a point where only political junkies usually pay attention. Remember: it's 20 months before voters will make the ultimate decision.

This is uncharted territory for people in both politics and television, who wonder when campaign fatigue will set in. Many Americans may be sick of seeing their next president before he or she even takes the oath of office.

"Many Americans may be sick of seeing their next preisdent before he or she even takes the oath of office." That is a very important consideration here. I'm pretty sure that if U.S. Presidential terms were five or six years long, almost no one would win re-election to the office. We tend to tire of any individual in that office shortly after they start their second term. A lot of people chalk that up to our short attention spans, but that isn't what does it. What does it is the fact that the President is in our living rooms nearly every single day, be it on the news, in a newspaper or magazine, or on the internet. We are flooded with coverage of the President to an extent that was unimagineable 50 years ago. Now, with a two year campaign for the Presidency under way, itis very possible that we will all be so tired of our next President by 2012 that he or she will not stand a chance of re-election.