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I'd like term and age limits, but neither is going to happen, so I don't pine for them, no matter how logical they could seem to be.

Term Limits are a pet peeve of mine.  

I'll state to start that I fully realize that I am in the minority and it is a very small minority here.  I know that, so no need to point it out.  

That said, they are a disaster.  We enacted them for State Legislators a few years ago and I'll tell you the end results:
 - Cross-aisle cooperation in the State House has almost completely disappeared.  Several reasons for this:

• With term limits the individual Legislators are not going to be around long enough to care about functional working relationships with Legislators on the other side of the aisle.  If you and I were opposite party but reasonably expected to be in the Legislature for 15-20 or more years, we could build a rapport that would be useful to both of us down the road.  Now that we KNOW we only have eight years, by the time we are in a position to actually do anything we only have MAYBE four years left, what good is a rapport with some other guy who is also going to be gone even sooner?  
• If I cooperate cross-aisle it irks my party and kills my post-Legislature job prospects.  
• Legislators from opposite parties simply aren't together long enough to learn who they can disagree with but still work with and who is just an enemy.  

 - The Governor has gotten a LOT more powerful.  Before term limits the Legislators had their own power bases.  They were WELL KNOWN names in their districts who were likely to hold on to their seats for many years regardless of what the Governor thought of them.  Now, the Legislators need a new job in a few years and haven't been around long so they are in no position to fight with a Governor from their own party.  
 - The Parties have become MUCH more powerful.  This is due to the Legislators' need to find a new job in a few years.  When Legislators could stay in the Legislature as long as they could get reelected they didn't need the party to find them a job in eight years but now they do.  Consequently, bucking the party has become MUCH more risky.  
 - The bureaucrats have become much more powerful.  Back before term limits, if I was a bad bureaucrat, and you were a Legislator, you *MIGHT* be able to get rid of me.  Now, I KNOW I'll be here longer than you so I could care less.  Also, since you are here for only a short time, by the time you know I'm a bad bureaucrat, you are already on your way out the door.  
 - The Lobbyists have become much more powerful.  Since the Legislators are all new and have no idea what is going on, the Lobbyists write all the legislation.  


Bottom line, if you say you are for term limits, understand that what you mean is that you want less bipartisanship, more powerful lobbyists, more powerful parties, and worse bureaucrats.  You can't have term limits without those things.  

That said, I don't know how I feel about age limits.  On the surface they seem like a really good idea but I see them as very similar to term limits.  They are an inherently anti-democratic "cure" to a symptom of a much larger problem.  

Why do people support them (both term limits and age limits):
We support them because we aren't happy with the officials that we elected.  Well . . . we SHOULD fix that by electing better officials.  We don't so we enact anti-democratic term limits and age limits and nothing changes because we haven't fixed the underlying problem.  We still elect officials that we are not happy with but now we turn them over more often and they are younger.  

Part of it is that we (as an electorate) simply are not "engaged".  Ohio enacted the age limit for Judges because there were some ridiculous situations with elderly judges unable to manage a courtroom because they had declined physically and mentally getting reelected.  We (the electorate) *SHOULD* have solved that by learning the situation and voting out the few elderly judges that were simply unable to do the job.  Instead we solved it by sweeping out all 70+ judges including a LOT of very good judges that could still do their jobs.  

Part of it is polarization.  In the 2022 Senate elections most Republican leaning voters in Georgia and most Democratic leaning voters in Pennsylvania voted for candidates that were mentally challenged (to put it VERY nicely).  Why?  Well, they did it because we are so polarized that most voters now believe that "My teams' moron is better than the other teams' genius."  Honestly, I don't even blame them.  As a Republican I'll admit that Chuck Schumer is absolutely a genius.  That said, if he was an Ohio Senator rather than a New York Senator and his Republican opponent was a moron, I can't say that I wouldn't vote for the Republican moron rather than the Democratic genius because I'd assume that the Republican would vote the way I wanted more often.  Pennsylvania Democrats made exactly that mental calculation when they voted for their moron Senator and Georgia Republicans made the same calculation when they voted for Herschel.  

I tend to agree with Medina about term limits. It’s unfortunate because you want to avoid the staleness and politics as usual, but it’s also a skill that takes a while to learn. 

You’d also then build a class of unelected experts (lobbyists or advisors) who were good at being legislators and then prop up the new confused folks. I assume you have that already, but now it’s on overdrive, 

If we're equating "normal" to "not rocking the boat" then I think it's a dangerous path to travel, looking for a candidate that exhibits and maintains "normalcy."

Trump was an asshole who made mean tweets, and Biden doesn't do that, indeed Biden doesn't seem to do much of anything.  This doesn't mean that Biden's policies are any better than Trump's.  In some cases, his inaction is much more dangerous IMO, than Trump's overbearing dick-headed bull-in-a-China-shop approach.

I think I’m equating normalcy with presenting like an adult and not talking like someone who spends a lot of time in the cable news/political online sphere trying to talk to folks from that sphere. I think that’s a hard base for a coalition.

And that’s not even really talking about what’s “better” for the country. I’m just talking electability and some general presentation. For the most part, I assume most recent presidents’ “policies” are more reflective of party behind them than anything else. I’m sure some are mor dominant in setting those policies, but I’m guessing those moments aren’t super, super common.

As noted, I have yet to hear a good argument from any quarter for term limits, other than "Throw the bums out!" Which you can do at the next election.

I meant to delve into this in my post and forgot to mention it.  This is a very important point. 

No candidate for State Legislature could admit this but realistically all but a VERY few will have no idea how things ACTUALLY work upon arrival as a new Legislator.  It takes time to figure this out.  I'd say probably 3-4 years.  In Ohio the Legislative Term Limits are eight years so you now have effectively two classes of Legislators:

• Those who are still figuring out what is going on, and
• Those who are looking for their next job. 

If Legislators served an average of 15 or 20 years then only a quarter to a third of them would be "figuring things out" at any give time.  With eight year term limits it is close to half in Ohio. 

There was a story from a town I used to live in where a local state rep proposed a silly, headline garnering law that touched in sports in his first couple months in office.

Years later he would always get asked about it and would explain that he didn’t really know how things worked and would’ve approached it much differently.

There has to be a compromise in between. 

So many of these people in office, stay there too long, and clearly are not focused on resolving issues and improving the world, but rather doing whatever it takes to get reelected and leveraging their position to make personal income by other means.

There is little Cross the aisle  compromise today. In fact, it has become damn near nonexistent.

Perhaps term limits that are moderately generous- like 8 years. 

What we have now clearly is not working.  Mostly bloviating idiots who say what they say to get votes. 

Yet, "we" keep electing them. Politicians can only stay there too long if we allow them to... Every 2 years in the House, and every 6 in the Senate, we have the opportunity to get rid of them. 

Congress has horrible approval ratings but averaging >90% reelection rates in the House and >80% in the Senate. https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/reelection-rates

If you're not happy with a candidate, vote for the other one. If you're unwilling to do that because they're in a "safe" district and you refuse to vote for the other party, work your butt off to elect a different candidate in the primary. 

Seems like term limits are applying a chainsaw to a problem that could be solved with a scalpel. 

I like the idea of mandatory retirement far more than term limits. Pilots are out at 65, air traffic controllers at 56, and federal law enforcement at 57.

If a candidate you don't like keeps getting re-elected in blowouts, perhaps it would behoove challengers to ask why no one is buying what they're selling, and attempt to make adjustments.