From Ronald Brownstein in the Los Angeles Times, Second-Term Reward May Be More Headache Than Triumph
Bill Clinton was impeached in his second term. Richard Nixon would have been if he hadn’t quit first. Ronald Reagan was crippled by the Iran-Contra scandal. Lyndon Johnson sank into the swamp of Vietnam.
Dwight Eisenhower had health problems and Sputnik. The high point of Harry Truman’s second term was the day he won it in a stunning upset; after that, it was war, scandal and legislative gridlock. Woodrow Wilson suffered through World War I, the rejection of the League of Nations and a stroke. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt reached his lowest point during his second term, when Congress blocked his plan to stack the Supreme Court.