[vidarh]

Some do. But consider some simple mechanics of it:

It you care about your legacy, and your opponent only cares about getting (re-)elected to benefit from the position, your opponent is at an advantage: Your opponent does not need to "waste" time, money and effort on things that does not improve their chances at (re-)election.

[EGreg]

If doing the job IS wasting time, that means the incentives are all wrong. But still, who says that re-election is the goal? What about the places where they are limited to only 2 terms? How could re election explain ther second term actions? Or are people going to claim that at that point they're all captured by te industry using the revolving door?