I’m not a supporter of term limits, but some paragraphs do make you pause:
Dwight Eisenhower was days away from becoming the first president to hold a televised news conference and the average price of a new house was $22,000 — about the price of a new pickup truck today — when Strom Thurmond first strode into the Senate 48 years ago.
The article describes the Senators leaving this term; Thurmond by no means the only long-timer, though certainly the longest.
On the other hand, as long as his constituents were willing to send him back for eight terms, why shouldn’t they be able to?
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I suppose the best argument for term limits despite the voters’ willingness to re-elect is that incumbency corrupts, and seniority corrupts absolutely.
That is, under the present system so many advantages of name recognition, fundraising, and party apparatus accrue to the incumbent that people get re-elected on a basis other than merit.
I’m not in favor of absolute term limits, but I think there are many compromises which would introduce more turnover while preserving democratic choice. For example (have I mentioned this here already?) there’s the idea that elected officials shouldn’t be able to succeed themselves more than 0 or 1 times (take your pick). That would mean pols would have to step down after one or two terms, while retaining the right to run again later. Such a system would free elected officials from having to fundraise so hard while in office, but the good ones would be looking ahead two or four or six years to their next run and so still be accountable to public opinion.
Of course, the pols who benefit from our present incumbent-favoring system would never vote for such a change.
There may be some merit to the idea, though it sounds like the sort of tweaking that would probably have unexpected consequences. It’s not clear, for example, it would “free” pols from fund-raising (if they have to run for another position or somewhere else, they would probably have to raise funds even more vigorously). Being beholden to parties, or having name recognition, play in one’s favor wouldn’t seem to be affected, either.
The best defense against the tyranny of incumbency is what makes an incumbent in the first place — the power of the voters. If they can’t be trusted to elect the right person most of the time, we have fundamental problems anyway.