Mayor Mike's third go

Looks like Mayor Mike Bloomberg is semi-officially coming out in favor of a 3rd term. I'm not sure if this is going to be terribly popular with voters, even if we could use his steady hand and financial knowledge during the economic downturn.

Frankly, I'm all for it, although I'll wait to see who the other candidates are before making up my mind on who to support. With the exception of the presidency, I don't really see the need for term limits. When living in California I saw the damage they did to the state's ability to govern itself. Within a legislature, term limits destroy institutional knowledge, and they prevent the kind of long-term relationships that allow people from different parties or regions to work together to accomplish anything. Also, the lack of long-serving figures denies legislatures the kind of gravitas they need to compete with elected officials- think of how helpful it's been for Dems in Congress to have guys like Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden, who have been around forever, and have national reputations, to go on TV and speak out against the Bush administration. It would be a lot less helpful if we were sending in Ben Cardin and Mike Arcuri.

At least in the gerrymandered legislature I can see some kind of positive for term-limits. For the executive branch, I don't see why voters need to be protected from ourselves. For these positions, there will always be candidates desiring the job, and the prestige and influence of the positions mean that the media will cover the races (proportionate to the level of the race- the hometown paper will always cover the mayoral race, no matter how small the town) and thus allow a decent challenger to be a viable candidate. And if your mayor or governor is doing a good job, why not keep them?

I think two terms is enough for the President, not just because of Washington's example, but because there are so few checks on the modern presidency that a two term limitation is worth the downside in order to deter even the slightest possibility of anti-democratic overreaching. The only other offices that could maybe use term limits would be those like insurance commissioner or comptroller- offices that are powerful enough to invite abuse, but so obscure that it's hard for a non self-funded challenger to make a case to voters.