42. BILL CLINTON (Stand by your man)
Born: August 19, 1946, Hope, Arkansas
Died: Still out there trying to promote himself
Term: January 20, 1993- January 20, 2001
Political Party: Democrat
Vice President: Al Gore
First Lady: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Before the Presidency: William Jefferson Blythe was born without a father, who had been killed in an auto accident just months before he was born. He and his mother lived with his stern Grandmother. When Bill was still young, his mother married Roger Clinton, an abusive alcoholic, and they all moved to Hot Springs. Bill was then adopted by Clinton. It was a volatile marriage and Bill often had to play the mediator in their battles.
Clinton excelled in high school and had an interest in politics early on. He also mixed church with sowing some wild oats so to speak and he was an excellent saxophone player as well.
Clinton attended Hot Springs High School where he got the attention of Principal Johnnie Mae Mackey. She saw his passion for politics, and he was one of two students chosen as an Arkansas delegate to Boys’ Nation. He got to go to Washington where he shook hands with President Kennedy. Clinton was a convert and politics would be his calling from then on.
Clinton entered Georgetown University in 1964 as an International Affairs major. Coming from modest means, he took advantage of scholarships and took part time jobs to support his way through college. Not being a Catholic in a Catholic school, he drew the ire of the elite part of the student body, but he had such personal charm that he would be a major player in Student Government, being elected as President of his Freshman and Sophomore classes. His college political career ended when he was crushed in a race for Student Body President. One of Clinton’s flaws, trying to please everybody and thus pleasing no one, was the major factor.
Since Georgetown was in Washington, Clinton found work as a clerk for the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It was there where he formed his opposition to the Vietnam War. Later, he won a Rhodes Scholarship and would attend Oxford University in England for two years. Clinton, of course, was eligible for the draft after he lost his college deferment, but the Arkansas Draft Board allowed him to go anyway.
While at Oxford, Clinton was, in fact, drafted, but he managed to get out of it with the help of Senator Fulbright (a very vocal dove) and Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. Clinton returned to Oxford but made himself available for the draft when he returned in 1969. Clinton would ultimately be saved when his birthday came up late in the Draft Lottery. Clinton then proceeded to become something of an anti-war activist though hardly in the sense of a radical like Abbie Hoffman for example.
In 1970, Clinton entered Yale Law School. It was there that he met Hillary Rodham, an ambitious young woman with a bright political future ahead of her. In fact, she would find herself working on the Nixon impeachment committee as a clerk just a few years later. Meanwhile, Clinton worked on a pair of political campaigns including the ill-fated George McGovern campaign as Texas Campaign Manager.
After graduation from law school, Clinton returned to Arkansas and entered his first political race in 1974. He ran for the House against a Republican incumbent. He lost, but he did well enough to be considered a rising political star and, two years later, Clinton would be elected as State Attorney General.
In 1978, thirty-two year old Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas, but he would be way in over his head. He was inexperienced at this point, and it showed as he mishandled a riot by Cuban Refugees at Fort Chaffee and drew the ire of the timber industry while also raising auto license fees to pay for road construction. As a result, it cost him as he lost re-election.
But, if nothing else, Clinton was a savvy politician. He admitted his mistakes in his 1982 run for Governor and the voters gave him another chance. This time, he didn’t fail them, and he would be elected again in 1984, 1986, and 1990.
Governor Clinton ran Arkansas as a Centrist, appointing his wife, Hillary, to an education committee. Education reform was a hot button issue for Clinton, and he even advocated the reforms on National TV (On a personal note, this is how I was introduced to him). Clinton called for teacher competency tests (yes it was controversial to the unions) as well as other reforms. As a result, dropout rates declined, and college entrance exam scores increased dramatically.
Clinton also was an advocate of the death penalty, another divisive issue among Democrats. He was an early advocate to what would later be labelled as Workfare. On the liberal side, he also supported Affirmative Action and he appointed more African Americans to state boards than all the previous Governors combined. Indeed, he would prove to be especially popular among African Americans as both Governor and President.
Governor Clinton also had a penchant for looking at the polls to see which issues were most popular, thus, his penchant for always going with the political wind, sometimes as if he had no political convictions of his own. It was a play his political consultant, Dick Morris, was good at, and it worked.
After five terms as Arkansas Governor, Clinton was able to boost his national Profile. Indeed, he was a rising star on the National Stage, and he was chosen as the Keynote Speaker at the 1988 Democratic Convention. He fumbled with his overlong speech, however. Still, it was just a misstep and Dukakis was doomed anyway.
Meanwhile, Clinton finished out his Gubernatorial era by leading the National Governors Association for a time. He also led the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of moderate Democrats basically that called for Government help when needed but it was ultimately up to the individual to take care of himself. In other words, the government would boost you and help you, but it wouldn’t support you necessarily. Clinton would call this and other Centrist ideas a New Covenant.
So, 1992 was just around the corner, and with a reputation as a “New Democrat”, less New Deal, tough on crime, but very pro-civil rights, Clinton would be a formidable candidate in 1992.
Summary of offices held:
1977-1979: Arkansas Attorney General
1979-1981: Governor of Arkansas
1983-1992: Governor of Arkansas
What was going on: Contract with America, War in Kosovo, Somalia war, war on terrorism
Scandals within his administration: Whitewater, Paula Jones, the Monica Lewinsky affair
Why he was a good President: Like Reagan before him and Obama after, he had a way of communicating with the American public. He was a policy wonk and he managed to accomplish things like the Family Leave Act and the Assault Weapons Ban (though it would only be good for ten years). He also helped negotiate peace between the Irish factions as well as with Israel and Palestine (though he couldn’t do anything about Hamas). And whatever his flaws and his penchant for feeling the political wind, he basically meant well.
Why he was a bad President: Because he did have a penchant for feeling the political wind. He all but betrayed the gay community with his Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, because the military wasn’t ready to accept gays as of yet. In a way, he betrayed women too, not with his legislation, but with his own actions. The guy really couldn’t keep it in his pants. And, while it would be a mistake to blame him entirely, he did promote and sign the 1994 crime bill which would have a very negative effect on relations between police and the minority communities (To be fair, a lot of heads rolled on that one including one Joseph Biden)
What could have saved his Presidency: All he really needed to do was to keep it in his pants, but he also could have shown more political bravery and stuck with his convictions more instead of worrying about his political career.
What could have destroyed his Presidency: Well, the Monica Lewinsky affair nearly did. Otherwise, maybe staying more on the sidelines. To his credit, Clinton was a very involved President.
Election of 1992: Clinton came in as the front runner as the primaries got underway but his penchant for having affairs proved to be a hinderance in his campaign. First, there was the Gennifer Flowers affair where she insisted she had an affair with Governor Clinton. This is where many Americans got to meet Hillary when she announced on TV that she was no Tammy Wynette by Standing By her Man, this in defense of her husband, mind you, but also a poor choice of words as she probably lost the Tammy Wynette fan club vote.
Clinton also had to deal with rumors that he had smoked marijuana (of course, by 1992, who hadn’t?). Clinton responded that he did try it but didn’t inhale. So much for feeling the political wind.
In the end, people didn’t really care if Clinton was even a serial killer. They wanted someone who could emphasize with them, and Clinton pressed all the right buttons when it came to that. So, despite a worthy challenge by the other major candidate, Paul Tsongas, Clinton won the nomination easily and the Democrats would be stuck with the Clintons for a long time.
The general election, by comparison, looked like a cakewalk. By now, President Bush was about as popular as herpes and people were ready for a change after twelve years of the Reagan Revolution. In fact, Bush was so unpopular, he had to deal with a third party challenge by the eccentric billionaire, Ross Perot, who even looked like he had a shot at making history as the first third party Candidate to win the Presidency.
Clinton had little to worry about, however. Every time Perot withdrew or re-entered the race, it always seemed to hurt Bush more than Clinton in the polls. Besides, he had such a crack team behind him like campaign manager James Carville, whose mantra was, “It’s the economy, stupid!” Clinton never wavered from that assessment, and he pounded hard on the economy throughout the campaign.
The final straw occurred at the debates between the three candidates where Bush seemed out of touch and Perot was acting a bit erratic. Clinton won the debate easily just by gently telling a questioner that, “I feel your pain.”
And, in the end, Clinton won by a two to one margin in the Electoral College.
And the Slick Willie era began.
First term: The first two years of the Clinton administration was a bit rocky to say the least and it didn’t help that the corruption of his own party, in power of the House for well over four decades, became too much for the public to bear. Minority Leader Newt Gingrich would pounce on the scandal and the ineffectiveness of the Clinton administration to build his Contract With America and the Republicans would take over the House in the 1994 elections.
Meanwhile, President Clinton managed to get the Medical Leave Act signed and Hillary started a task force in a drive for National Health Insurance, an initiative that the insurance industry would successfully shoot down by scaring the public with their Harry and Louise commercial spots.
Clinton also had inherited a few foreign policy issues that involved some military intervention. There were still the sanctions against Iraq, of course, but there was also a genocide going on in Kosovo that NATO was dealing with. On top of that, the US was in the middle of a civil war conflict in Somalia. The Somalian campaign, though well meaning, would not end well. The scourge that was Slobodan Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia would eventually have a happy ending, but it would take years.
But it would be two domestic tragedies that would dominate Clinton’s first year, first six months actually, in office. First, there was the World Trade Center bombing that killed six people.
Then there was the siege at WACO. A Branch Davidian sect led by someone who called himself David Koresh was surrounded by a Federal force known as the ATF. There was a standoff for about a month before Attorney General Janet Reno okayed a raid on the complex. The ATF probably got a little zealous and no one really knows what exactly happened, but in any event, the house was torched, possibly from the inside and maybe by Koresh himself, seventy-five people, including Koresh, were killed and Reno took the hit for the disaster.
Clinton, who had won the support of the gay community during the campaign, initially had allowed gays in the military, but there was such blowback by the military as well as America not being quite ready to accept gays as people (it takes time for the inhuman to allow people into the human race), Clinton took out his political barometer again and came up with his Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, a policy that the military would manipulate quite well until even they became enlightened and Obama would repeal the ridiculous edict.
Clinton also would have to deal with a major political scandal known as Whitewater that would hound him throughout his Presidency. It started with the suicide of his deputy counsel, Vince Foster, and Republicans, who had a personal hatred of both of the Clintons, would doggedly pursue the matter, uncovering a lot more (though not necessarily illegal) than they had bargained for.
During the first two years, Clinton also signed into law the controversial NAFTA trade agreement that was supported by Bush and Perot as well. And, while it did have its flaws, it did improve trade between Canada, the US, and Mexico, and especially was helpful to Mexico (though arguably at the expense of American jobs).
If Clinton’s numbers were abysmal in 1994, they took a turn for the better in 1995 as the Oklahoma City Bombing would be handled much better than the debacle in Waco. 168 people would be killed in this tragedy, but the culprits would be captured, and Clinton proved to be as adept at comforting the public and, more importantly, the surviving victims, just as well as Reagan had a decade before.
The Bosnian war ended under Clinton’s watch and a deal was brokered in Dayton, Ohio. Called the Dayton Peace Accords, this was a document signed by Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia in Paris and President Clinton would send 20,000 American troops (part of a larger NATO deployment) to enforce the cease fire followed by free elections.
The best news for Clinton, however, was domestic as the economy was again booming. Because he had a hostile House, and a particularly hostile Newt Gingrich, he was able to broker deals he couldn’t with his own party. It didn’t help Gingrich that a Government shutdown he engineered backfired on him, his party receiving the blame for that miscalculation.
So, though Clinton’s first term would be a mixed bag overall (He also pushed his workfare program through as well as a controversial crime bill though popular at the time), and despite his personal foibles (The Whitewater investigation was now gaining steam and he had former mistresses coming out of the woodwork), he would be a tough incumbent to defeat in 1996.