Dead Presidents

No, the Constitution prohibits a person from being elected President more than twice, so after Nixon won the 1972 election he was already ineligible for another term.  Even though he only served about 20 months of his second term, the mere fact that he had won two Presidential elections automatically disqualified him from running again.

By the way, one thing that many people don’t realize is that Gerald Ford actually wouldn’t have been able to run for another term in 1980 if he had been victorious in 1976.  If a Vice President succeeds to the Presidency and serves more than two years of the unfinished term, he is limited to just one more term.  So if Ford had won the 1976 election, he would have been prohibited from running in 1980 even though he had only won one election.

On the flip side, LBJ succeeded to the Presidency upon JFK’s assassination, but there were less than two years remaining in JFK’s term.  Because of that, LBJ would have been able to seek a second term in 1968 even though he won a term of his own in 1964.

FDR’s record 12-year-long Presidency will never be surpassed unless the the XXII Amendment to the Constitution is abrogated.  Under the present Constitution, it is mathematically impossible for a President to serve more than 10 years in office.