Just adding a point to Shannen Coffin’s observation about the president saying he would prefer to “be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president” . . . how many “really good” one-term presidents has this country had? If you do a “really good” job, doesn’t the voting public often say, “more, please?”

I have a soft spot for George H. W. Bush, a thoroughly likeable and decent man, but his presidency had its flaws (Dick Darman and the broken “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge). Taft? John Adams?

A Campaign Spot reader put it:

Just to say there *are* no really good one-term Presidents in US history (I’m excepting James K. Polk here, because he specifically limited himself to one term – also all the Presidents whose length of time in office was affected by assassination or death, their own or their predecessors’). But the rest of the elected one-term Presidents have names like Carter, Hoover, Hayes, Buchanan, Pierce, van Buren, Adams, and B. Harrison (we could argue about Bush 41 and Taft, but in general I don’t think either can make a claim to being “really good”). The President’s goal is an improbability. Although I imagine his definition of “really good” is very different from yours, mine, and with any luck the American electorate in 2012.