Just had a thought -- do you think the Republicans might pit McCain against Inouye in 1996? Make it a "war hero vs war hero" thing to neutralise that.
Oh, come on, you can impose any damn "pattern" on presidential administrations so long as you pick the right starting point. For instance, beginning in 1933 there was 12 years of anomalous Democratic dominance (Roosevelt '33-'45), followed by over 30 years of an "each party gets two terms" pattern (Truman '45-'53, Eisenhower '53-'61, Kennedy/Johnson '61-'69, Nixon/Ford '69-'77, then finally broken by Carter '77-'81) followed by an anomalous 12 years of Republican dominance (Reagan/Bush '81-'93), and then back to an "each party gets two terms" pattern again (Clinton '93-'01, Bush jr '01-'09, Obama '09-'1?).
It's meaningless. People will vote for who they vote for based on the circumstances of the time, not because of the frickin' patterns of history.
I can go both ways on this topic. I do believe that there is a political cycle, but that the cycle can be disrupted given the reason you mentioned.