America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents (34 page)

Clinton was down once again, but he was far from out. That same year, Hillary gave birth to daughter Chelsea, whose name was inspired by Joni Mitchell’s song “Chelsea Morning” about the Chelsea section of London. The beaming ex-governor “bonded” with his new baby by walking her around the hospital and singing to her. Naturally, with two parents as busy as Bill and Hillary, young Chelsea spent a lot of her early years being baby sat by her grandparents, Bill’s mother and the Rodhams.

Biding his time at the law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings in Little Rock, Clinton ran again for the governorship in 1982, campaigning with an assist from both Hillary and Chelsea, who was included on car trips throughout the state. Clinton was elected governor once again in 1982, and this time he would remain in the state house for the next ten years. During this tenure Clinton was instrumental in helping to transform the state’s economy, while raising the quality of public education in Arkansas.

As he had previously, Clinton enlisted the help of Hillary. In addition to maintaining her positions as a lawyer and First Lady of Arkansas, Hillary also chaired the Arkansas Education Standards Committee, which successfully made a number of changes that completely reformed the state’s education system, which rose from worst in the nation to one of the best. The Clintons accomplished this feat through several initiatives, including additional spending for schools, scholarship opportunities for gifted children (like Clinton himself once was), an increase in vocational education and teachers’ salaries, and more stringent test requirements for those who would be teachers.

Clinton also maintained a national profile as a prominent voice and leader among the Third Way New Democrats, which maintained a tricky balance with the Democratic National Committee and the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which included liberal stalwart and “Lion of the Senate”, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Kennedy scion. The New Democrats, officially organized as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), were kind of a renegade or rogue branch of the Democratic Party that called for welfare reform and smaller government, which was popular among much of the political spectrum save for those on the far left.

Despite the political differences within the Democratic Party, politicians like Clinton realized they would always have the support and votes of the far left simply because the Republicans would always be anathema. Moreover, as the New Democrats seemed to represent more mainstream positions, other members of the liberal establishment had to acknowledge, even if grudgingly, that Clinton and politicians of that ilk may be viewed in a better light. To that end, Clinton was asked to deliver the Democratic Party response to the immensely popular President Ronald Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address and served as Chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987.

All of this gave Clinton, who was still only in his late 30's, enormous exposure. Clinton positioned himself astutely by avoiding ideological battles of prior liberal eras and instead making his priorities economic expansion, job creation and educational reforms. To help senior citizens and thus invoke the Great Society as well as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, Clinton got rid of the sales tax attending medications and expanded the home property-tax exemption.

Chapter 5: The Path to the White House

Given the strides Clinton had made on the national scene in the mid-1980’s, many believed he might run for President in 1988, an opportune election that would not have an incumbent president. It seems Clinton himself considered it, and it was widely speculated that he considered a presidential run as a way to set up Hillary to succeed him as Governor of Arkansas. Ultimately, Clinton demurred, possibly at the behest of Hillary herself, and instead he stayed on as Governor, as well as heading the moderate Democratic Leadership Council from 1990-1991.

Clinton decided to run for the office of the President of the United States in 1992, but his campaign was nearly over before it began. After finishing a distant third in the Iowa caucus behind Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and presumptive favorite Paul Tsongas, Clinton’s campaign was nearly derailed before the New Hampshire primary by Gennifer Flowers. Flowers came out with the explosive allegation that she and Clinton had been lovers for a 12 year period, forcing Bill and Hillary into damage control on the nationally televised 60 Minutes. Clinton did not exactly deny knowing her asserted that he had only had one sexual encounter with Flowers in 1977 and no more. Regardless, it seemed to push Clinton further behind Tsongas, a former Massachusetts Senator, in New Hampshire, where a bad loss may have ended Clinton’s quest for the nomination.

Instead, much like Hillary would revive her own presidential campaign 16 years later, Clinton made a surprisingly strong showing in New Hampshire, only losing to Tsongas in single digits. But in the arcane world of politics, this was widely viewed as a victory for Clinton, who dubbed himself “The Comeback Kid” in his post-election speech.
Newsweek
magazine demonstrated how the media treated New Hampshire by running a cartoon with the Democratic and Republican runner-ups, Clinton and Pat Buchanan, wearing second place medals and standing on top of a victory stand while Bush and Tsongas wore gold medals off on the side.

With Harkin and Tsongas having won their native state and neighbor state respectively, the Democratic primaries were wide open, and Clinton seized control by sweeping nearly all of the Super Tuesday primaries, which included a host of Southern states. On March 17, 1992, as Clinton himself had predicted,
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Clinton won the Illinois primary, which left him the clear frontrunner and proved he wasn’t just a regional candidate. Tsongas dropped out, leaving only California’s Jerry Brown as a potential contender. But Brown took stances like advocating a flat tax that were conservative positions well outside of the Democratic Party’s platform, and with wins in New York and California, Clinton was on his way to securing the Democratic Party nomination.

As the Democratic nominee, it was time for Clinton’s world-beating, dynamic campaigning skills
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and sublime “inner confidence”
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to take charge of the national election. President George H.W. Bush had seemed unbeatable at the height of the Persian Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, with an approval rating near 90%, but a sluggish economy had pushed his approval ratings way down by 1992.

Throughout the summer, Clinton made serious inroads and took the lead over Bush for a variety of reasons. At the core, Clinton struck a stark contrast to Bush by appearing as a much fresher face and simply a smoother politician. While Clinton appeared on MTV and famously played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show, Bush shot himself in the foot by expressing amazement at the way a supermarket could scan codes at the checkout aisle.  The debates also put the contrast on display. Clinton connected with voters in town hall formats in a way few politicians ever could, while Bush was criticized for looking at his watch to check the time during a debate. And by putting the first President Bush on the spot by asking him the price of milk during a public debate (an answer that Bush did not at the time know), Clinton was able to make himself look like the “the People’s Candidate” as opposed to the more elite and out-of-touch Bush.

President Bush

Clinton polled at or above 50% for much of the summer until quirky billionaire independent Ross Perot entered the race and began polling around 20% himself, enough to give him a spot at the presidential debates. Perot and Bush took turns hammering Clinton on various character issues, including accusations of draft dodging, drug use, and womanizing. The Bush campaign also tried to present itself as stronger on foreign policy, with Bush famously telling a campaign audience, “My dog Millie knows more about foreign affairs than these two bozos.”

But as Perot himself made clear with his famous TV programs full of charts, the economy was the main issue in the election. Clinton chose Democratic Senator Albert (Al) Gore, Jr., of Tennessee as his running mate and the two toured the United States promising a Third Way kind of "new beginning." By choosing another Southerner, Clinton ensured the ticket could not be attacked as out-of-touch “Northern liberals” like Dukakis, giving Democrats a chance to break the Republicans’ grip on the South. Clinton never relinquished his lead in the polls throughout the Fall in the leadup to the general election.

Perot

Breaking a twelve-year long Republican stranglehold over the Oval Office, Clinton won the Presidency of the United States in November 1992 with 43.0% of the vote, as opposed to Bush's 37.4% of the vote and billionaire third-party candidate Ross Perot's 18.9%. The more significant number was 370 electoral votes, which was 100 more than what Clinton needed to win. Clinton’s election represented a shift in the electoral vote of 517, compared to Bush’s win in 1988, the second largest shift in history after Jimmy Carter’s 1976 victory followed Nixon’s landslide over McGovern in 1972. It was also the first time since Nixon’s win in 1968 that a candidate won the presidency with less than 50% of the popular vote. Only Washington, D.C. and Arkansas gave the majority of their votes to a candidate (Clinton), while the other 49 states were won by pluralities thanks to Perot’s candidacy. Bush’s 37.4% was the worst an incumbent president had done in 80 years, when President Taft lost to Woodrow Wilson.

Chapter 6: A Rough Beginning

Scandals

From Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Bill Clinton took the oath of office on January 20, 1993 and got started on the job. In his inaugural address, Clinton reached for the inspiration brought on by boyhood hero John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can do for your country” ethos and came up with “Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

In the meantime, his still-young Administration was getting mauled by right-wing special interests as well as conservative members of Congress on scandal investigations. Much would be unearthed, but it would all be anti-climatic. Due to the Gennifer Flowers episode, Republicans smelled blood and wanted to see what else the searches and investigations might reveal about the Clintons. Whitewater was an easy target. Notably, in November 1993, a businessman named David Hale alleged that Clinton had behaved unlawfully years ago in the 1970's (while he was governor of Arkansas): Clinton supposedly had pressured Hale to give an unlawful $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, a financial partner of the Clinton family, in the Whitewater land deal. The allegation against a sitting President (even for pre-Presidential conduct) was serious enough for a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation to occur. As a result of said investigation, Susan McDougal was convicted even though the Clintons themselves were never criminally charged. Both Hillary and Bill have always claimed they were entirely innocent of any criminal wrongdoing. Nor has any evidence shown that they were lying about this. In fact, when Kenneth Starr was appointed independent counsel in 1994, it was to investigate Whitewater.