My point is this: sometimes the devil you know is better than the ones you don't.
That's a toss up. Know Ms. Sanchez well since she defeated B1 Bob a while back. The reason for term limits isn't so much that one would get someone 'better', but for the damage that 'entrenchment' can do - the bribe connections made where you end up with people making a under $200k end up multimillionaires and what is given away in the process.
Jefferson:
The government of the United States, then, is essentially a people's government. It was to be run by people who were from their number and closely associated with their interests.
"All [reforms] can be... [achieved] peaceably by the people confining their choice of Representatives and Senators to persons attached to republican government and the principles of 1776; not office-hunters, but farmers whose interests are entirely agricultural. Such men are the true representatives of the great American interest and are alone to be relied on for expressing the proper American sentiments." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Campbell, 1797.
Farming was, of course, the principle occupation of that day. Most of Jefferson's writings that concerned the term of office spoke of the need for having short terms so that the people's will may be exercised over their representatives more directly. In fact, he considered
very short terms to be the ideal:
"A government by representatives elected by the people at short periods was our object, and our maxim... was, 'where annual election ends, tyranny begins;' nor have our departures from it been sanctioned by the happiness of their effects." --Thomas Jefferson to S. Adams, 1800.
The idea was that the people would keep watch over their representatives and through their votes, make needed corrections.
"Should things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights." --Thomas Jefferson to W. Nicholas, 1806.
Public office was to be a public service, not a means for self-enrichment.
"Our public economy is such as to offer drudgery and subsistence only to those entrusted with its administration--a wise and necessary precaution against the degeneracy of the public servants." --Thomas Jefferson to M. de Meunier, 1795.
In contrast to some of our "public servants" of today who manage to become quite wealthy while in office, Jefferson himself deliberately avoided such use of the public trust.
"I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service and of retiring with hands as clean as they are empty." --Thomas Jefferson to Diodati, 1807.
That attitude contrasts greatly with today's representatives, who have voted themselves not only handsome salaries, but generous retirement benefits. But in Jefferson's view, whenever officers of government look upon their office for the benefits they can gain from it, this longing contributes to corruption in high office.
"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on [offices] a rottenness begins in his conduct." --Thomas Jefferson to T. Coxe, 1799.
When writing about a proposed Constitution for the State of Virginia, Jefferson suggested a single long term for Senators. This would have several salutary effects: it would prevent Senators from conducting their office so as to promote their own careers, and it would keep their perspective focused on the people whom they were to represent.
"I proposed the representatives (and not the people) should choose the [State] Senate... To make them independent I had proposed that they should hold their places for nine years and then go out (one third every three years) and be incapable forever of being re-elected to that house. My idea was that if they might be re-elected, they would be casting their eye forward to the period of election (however distant) and be currying favor with the electors and consequently dependent on them. My reason for fixing them in office for a term of years rather than for life was that they might have an idea that they were at a certain period to return into the mass of the people and become the governed instead of the governor, which might still keep alive that regard to the public good that otherwise they might perhaps be induced by their independence to forget." --Thomas Jefferson to E. Pendleton, 1776.
