I asked Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization devoted to responsible fiscal policy, if he agreed that voters would be best served by electing a president who is unconcerned about being thrown out of office.

"I don't know that voters would actually have that in their minds when they go to the polls, but I think a lot of political scientists might," Bixby said. "There certainly is a political rationale for a term-limited president to make very hard choices."