President George Washington started the American tradition to limit the term for the executive office to two terms.  Every president followed this tradition until President Franklin D. Roosevelt was selfish enough to break the tradition and run for a third term in 1940.  In response, Congress and the states formalized the two-term tradition with the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in 1947 (ratified in 1951).

While it may be fun to speculate if past presidents would have been elected to another term, President Obama’s assertion he would have won a third term only serves to undermine the new president and must be regarded as self-serving at best.