I miss you already, Mr. President. It’s hard for me to admit it, but as we near the end of your second term, I acknowledge that you’ve avoided the destruction of the American political system with more success than I thought possible. There is much to celebrate as the clock approaches your eighth and final year as president, even though your fight for residency in the White House was unconvincing at first. Despite your ambiguous promise to deliver hope and transformation, you downplayed expectations as we watched you settle into ordinary, predictable politics. I found the lack of change refreshing. So many candidates run promising to upset the status quo, and you were no different. But seeing you work like a cart horse during your first year in office was stressful for Americans like me who believe our country is fine the way it is. I was excited to follow your subsequent failures: your botched attempts at inspiring a partisan Congress to pass meaningful legislation, missteps in communication with the American public over tough political issues like gun control, and the eventual deterioration of every policy your initial campaign stood for. I advocated for a do-nothing president, and I was delighted to receive one.

I miss you already, Mr. President, and I hope you get the chance to read this letter. If you craft a reply, I will be thrilled, especially since I consider myself a fan and firm supporter of your administration. Honestly, if you respond to this note, you might exchange more words with me about policy than you’ve ever discussed with Speaker John Boehner. The continual standoffs separating your views from Speaker Boehner’s views have allowed for little interaction between you and the House of Representatives, which has led to little action from the House since the Republicans took over in 2010, and a lack of respect for ideas from either side. Creating a continuous impasse between you and Congress might not have been a goal of your presidency going in, but you should be thankful for the resilient partisanship omnipresent in America today. Without the resistance of conservative idealists against your doctrine, demanding for change you were unable to support, more of your suggested bills could have made it through the legislative process. The acceptance of these proposals as law would have sent our country down a one-way street to hell.

I miss you already, Mr. President, but I won’t miss your tawdry attempts at reform that the American people don’t agree is relevant. Your vague calls for clean energy initiatives were probably appreciated by an increasingly run-down EPA, but the average voter wasn’t expecting you to place so much time and energy in lackluster measures that couldn’t even muster Congressional approval. You announce that it is time for the United States to lead on this issue, but we’re already the top producer of carbon emissions. This country needs more than electric cars and solar panels to do anything meaningful. Plus, in your time in office, the few laws that could be assessed as major have been deeply dividing for the people of this country, like Obamacare and the stimulus package. As well, the United States has been mourning with you the losses of innocent lives in places like Newtown, Charleston, and Roseburg, Oregon. However, you’ve used these guarded moments as soapboxes for your own ideas on gun control, though the constraints you insist should be considered are general and inexact. You propose enforcing background checks on all guns and limiting the sale of more powerful, comparing us to Australia and the UK, where their laws greatly reduced the amount of gun deaths. But Mr. President, you’re trying too hard in the only Western democracy that promises guns as a personal right. You ran on change, but you realized that getting people to agree with you is difficult.

I miss you already, Mr. President, because you don’t need to transform the policies of our country to be known as a distinguished leader. In fact, it is because of your ability to keep the United States from falling to pieces that I propose you buck the rules and run for a third term. President Obama, we’ve seen how hard it is to pass legislation and encourage people to commit with you on the issues. It’s time to really take a stand and go rogue as an attempt to inspire people again like you did in 2008. Except now, we know your record, and we understand that you won’t be able to do anything meaningful with another four years. But what could push you ahead of another candidate is your commitment to the office. Regardless of your personal accomplishments in the Oval Office, you’ve always been a different kind of president. You have a talent for delivering the bad news to America. With a weary look on your face, your delivery has never been less than impeccable. You should run for a third term because you understand us. Most people can’t actually comprehend how the government is supposed to work, so who knows if the American people realize that it’s illegal for a president to run for a third term. It wouldn’t hurt to try, President Obama.

I miss you already, Mr. President. I hope that you look into a third term. It’s not too late to jump in the race and take advantage of a couple loopholes. I’m sorry if you feel discouraged by the political process after seven years of impossible compromises and arguments on fundamental beliefs. It’s not fair to view your time in the White House as meaningless because you kept our systems intact. You ran on hope, but you delivered comfort. Now we must accept another naïve candidate for a job where carrying out meaningful tasks isn’t necessarily in the job description. So cheers to you, President Obama. You’ll make it through eight years without incident, which is more than our last president can say. In the end, it doesn’t matter if your legacy ends up being good or bad; you are the president the United States deserves.