Bill Clinton

President Clinton during a visit to Japan, July 2000

Bill Clinton (William Jefferson Clinton, born William Jefferson Blythe III, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States of America, a Democrat elected in 1992 and reelected in 1996. His administration was characterized by sustained prosperity and a budget surplus as a result of Clinton's reduction of government agency sizes. It also featured international free trade, military interventions in southeastern Europe, and a reform of the New Deal welfare system. He is married to Hillary Clinton.

Clinton's second term was marred by an impeachment by the House of Representatives over an alleged affair with a White House intern. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate and remained in office, but his past filled with sexual pecadillos had taken over the public imagination. The result was that Clinton has been largely overlooked for his one great non-partisan accomplishment, which was creating the only budget surplus in modern times.

Although a mediocre speaker, he became known as "the Great Campaigner." His discursive style is personal and intimate and on television, that style was vicariously enjoyed by large audiences. Like Ronald Reagan, Clinton used his rhetorical skills to achieve political success; he survived despite legislative defeats, repeated scandals (being a notorious womanizer), and the impeachment. He was also recognized and admired for being a "policy wonk".

Prior to being President, Clinton had served as governor of Arkansas (U.S. state). After leaving the White House, he became a very well-paid speaker. His wife, Hillary Clinton, was elected to the Senate in 2000 from New York, reelected in 2006, and in 2007 was the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Bill Clinton became a major fundraiser and campaigner for his wife, with his special appeal to the African American vote to neutralize her main opponent, Barack Obama. Despite his historic ties with the African American community, Obama managed to secure over 90% of the African American vote throughout the primaries.

Early career

Clinton was born August 19, 1946 in Hope, Arkansas, a month after his father William Jefferson Blythe II, a salesman, was killed in an auto accident. He was raised by his maternal grandparents until age 4, when his mother Virginia Kelly, a nurse, married Roger Clinton, a car dealer. Roger was an alcoholic and violent; the marriage was tempestuous, including a divorce and a remarriage in 1962.

A life-long Southern Baptist, Clinton graduated from the Hot Springs public high school in 1964. He attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., where he became active in Democratic politics and won prestigious Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University in England. He was a bit player in the anti-Vietnam war movement, and managed to stall the draft until he received a high lottery number, an evasion that became controversial in his first presidential campaign. He attended Yale Law School (JD 1973). A hail fellow well met, Clinton developed a vast network of friends. He met Hillary Clinton at Yale; they married in 1975 and had one daughter, Chelsea in 1980.

Election of 1992

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) formed in early 1985 to formulate a moderate Democratic agenda. With Al From as executive director and Georgia Senator Sam Nunn as chairman, DLC comprised mostly Southern Democratic congressmen. They sought to rebuild the party's image after a series of defeats by Reagan and Bush. They wanted to assure voters that the moderate-conservative wing of the party was alive and well, and that its policy initiatives fit with mainstream American values. After the 1988 defeat, From asked Clinton in March 1990 to become the first DLC Chair from outside Washington. He and Clinton recruited state and local officials from around the country for the DLC, trying out some of the policy initiatives developed by the affiliated think tank the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). Proposals that found their way into Clinton's 1992 platform included:

• Apprenticeship programs for non-college-bound skilled workers
• A program of national service for college students (with student loan forgiveness)
• A ROTC-style program to train new police officers in colleges
• An enhanced Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor
• Government-subsidized individual savings accounts for Social Security.

The two DLC manifestos and Clinton's 1991 "New Covenant" speech accounted for more than 60% of the promises in the 1992 Democratic platform. Clinton campaigned as a "New Democrat," with an appeal to southerners and moderates that included demands for welfare reform and support for the death penalty.

After the surge of support for the war policy of President George H.W. Bush pushed his popularity to the 90% level, most prominent Democrats decided to wait out the 1992 election. Clinton, though little known outside Arkansas, proved the best campaigner in a weak field and won he Democratic nomination. Unexpectedly, billionaire Ross Perot entered the race (and briefly led the polls). Both Bush and Perot proved poor campaigners, as Clinton and his running mate Al Gore promised a more responsive government. Clinton won easily, and entered Washington with a Democratic Congress and a vague agenda.

Domestic policies

Clinton's honeymoon with Congress abruptly ended when the issue of gay rights in the military exploded in his first days in office. During the campaign Clinton had quietly promised gays and lesbians that he would end their exclusion from the military. The public debate forced Clinton to accept the military's compromise, called "Don't ask, don't tell," which remains in effect in 2007, and allows homosexuals to serve but penalizes them if they are openly gay. However, by raising the issue Clinton did shift public opinion, which previously had been more hostile toward homosexuals.

One of Clinton's favorite programs was AmeriCorps, modeled after the Peace Corps and the Civilian Conservation Corps. It sent 100,000 youth into paid public service jobs around the country. It was an expansion of a Bush program.

Health care policies

In 1993, Clinton called for a national medical care system that would incorporate the 15% of the population that was entitled to emergency care but lacked broader insurance. Clinton decided on a plan using regional insurance purchasing agencies along with modest tax subsidies to combine universal coverage with cost efficiency. He and his advisors believed the plan would be acceptable to big business and the larger insurance companies, but the plan was opposed by a well-financed campaign. Skocpol (1996) suggests the major mistake may have been in emphasizing the cost-reducing aspect of the plan, not realizing that Americans were willing to pay for a government program that would provide generous benefits to them. The fear that Clinton's proposals would lead to the sort of health care rationing prevalent in Canada and other countries further troubled the voters. Starr (1997) notes that Clinton sought to achieve liberal ends of universal coverage through the conservative means of managed competition among private health plans, with a backup cap on the rate of growth in average insurance premiums. This approach had a political as well as policy rationale. It was meant to be the basis of an alliance that could include conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans and thereby achieve the majorities necessary for congressional passage. But what we saw as compromise, they did not -- especially as the very locus of the political center shifted to the right during the debate. Health care reform that seemed "inevitable" to many serious observers at the start became unthinkable by the end. Polls showed strong initial support, but he never secured passage in either house of Congress and Republican victory in the 1994 elections doomed his plans.

Sustained economic prosperity

National Security Policy

Butfoy (2006) argues that in the 1990s the revolution in military affairs (RMA), which produced "smart" weapons like cruise missiles, came of age. This apparently transformed how America viewed the relationship between force and international relations. It looked as though technology was framing foreign policy. In particular, smart weapons enabled Clinton to combine risk minimization with an expanded security agenda. However, we should be wary of ascribing technological determinism to the conflicts of the 1990's dominated by Washington's flexing of its strategic superiority, such as its bombing of Belgrade. As shown by comparison with US strategy after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington's stance in the 1990's was shaped by linkages between technology and specific political circumstances. As these circumstances changed, so did the RMA's place in US efforts to shape world order.

1994 Elections

In the elections of 1994, the Democrats lost 54 seats in the House of Representatives, and 8 seats in the Senate (followed by two defections after the election), giving the Republicans a majority in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954. The Republicans also had a net gain of 12 governors' seats in that election.

Analysts have suggested many causes for the drastic change in political sentiment in the country between 1992 and 1994; among the causes suggested were voter disgust at Congressional scandals mainly implicating Democrats, voter distrust of Clinton after the presentation and defeat of the "Hillarycare" healthcare proposal, the nationalization of the election by Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America", and more skilled framing of issues by the Republicans in 1994.

1998 Elections

Scandals and impeachment

In the later part of Clinton's presidency, he was involved or accused for involvement in multiple scandals. The Republican Party launched many investigation on many of his illegal dealings. He was unsuccessfully impeaced.

Clinton voter Coalition

Public Opinion: Clinton's popularity

Needham (2005) argues the "permanent campaign" is said to have reached its apogee in the incumbent communications strategies of Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. However, their assiduous courting of public opinion while in office has been used to explain both the high approval ratings of these leaders and their unpopularity for long periods of their incumbency. This apparent paradox suggests that the permanent campaign model is too blunt an instrument to usefully describe or evaluate incumbent communications. Its assumption of continuity between election campaigning and office-holding fails to explain how the strategic terrain changes once a challenger takes office. The concepts of branding and relationship marketing can be used to highlight the difference between gaining support in the one-off transaction of an election and retaining voter loyalty in a post-"purchase" setting. The success of Blair and Clinton in establishing a relationship with voters from within office can be assessed using six attributes of successful brands: simplicity, uniqueness, reassurance, aspiration, values, and credibility. As incumbents, facing challenges in shifting strategic and institutional environments, Blair and Clinton developed messages that were simple and appealed to voter aspirations. Voters remained skeptical about the extent to which these leaders embodied values and delivered on their promises.

Voter demographics

The Presidential Vote in Social Groups (percentages)
% of 1996 total vote		% of 3-party vote
		1992			1996
	Social group	Clinton	Bush	Perot	Clinton	Dole	Perot
	Total vote	43	38	19	49	41	8
	Party and ideology
2	Liberal Republicans	17	54	30	44	48	9
13	Moderate Republicans	15	63	21	20	72	7
21	Conservative Republicans	5	82	13	6	88	5
4	Liberal Independents	54	17	30	58	15	18
15	Moderate Independents	43	28	30	50	30	17
7	Conservative Independents	17	53	30	19	60	19
13	Liberal Democrats	85	5	11	89	5	4
20	Moderate Democrats	76	9	15	84	10	5
6	Conservative Democrats	61	23	16	69	23	7
	Gender and marital status
33	Married men	38	42	21	40	48	10
33	Married women	41	40	19	48	43	7
15	Unmarried men	48	29	22	49	35	12
20	Unmarried women	53	31	15	62	28	7
	Race
83	White	39	40	20	43	46	9
10	Black	83	10	7	84	12	4
5	Hispanic	61	25	14	72	21	6
1	Asian	31	55	15	43	48	8
	Religion
46	White Protestant	33	47	21	36	53	10
29	Catholic	44	35	20	53	37	9
3	Jewish	80	11	9	78	16	3
17	Born Again, religious right	23	61	15	26	65	8
	Age
17	18–29 years old	43	34	22	53	34	10
33	30–44 years old	41	38	21	48	41	9
26	45–59 years old	41	40	19	48	41	9
24	60 and older	50	38	12	48	44	7
	Education
6	Not a high school graduate	54	28	18	59	28	11
24	High school graduate	43	36	21	51	35	13
27	Some college education	41	37	21	48	40	10
26	College graduate	39	41	20	44	46	8
17	Post graduate education	50	36	14	52	40	5
	Family income
11	Under $15,000	58	23	19	59	28	11
23	$15,000–$29,999	45	35	20	53	36	9
27	$30,000–$49,999	41	38	21	48	40	10
39	Over $50,000	39	44	17	44	48	7
18	Over $75,000	36	48	16	41	51	7
9	Over $100,000	—	—	—	38	54	6
	Region
23	East	47	35	18	55	34	9
26	Midwest	42	37	21	48	41	10
30	South	41	43	16	46	46	7
20	West	43	34	23	48	40	8
	Community size
10	Population over 500,000	58	28	13	68	25	6
21	Population 50,000 to 500,000	50	33	16	50	39	8
39	Suburbs	41	39	21	47	42	8
30	Rural areas, towns	39	40	20	45	44	10

Source: Voter News Service exit poll, reported in The New York Times, November 10, 1996, p. 28.

Further reading

See the long annotated Bibliography

• Berman, William C. From the Center to the Edge: The Politics and Policies of the Clinton Presidency (2001) 160pp, useful summary and interpretation
• Campbell, Colin, and Bert A. Rockman, eds. The Clinton Legacy 348 pp online edition
• Clinton, Bill. My Life. (2004). ISBN 0-375-41457-6. excerpt and text search
• Hamilton, Nigel. Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency (2007) covers 1993-96, 766pp
• Harris, John F. The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House (2005) ISBN 0-375-50847-3, the best coverage of the presidency excerpt and text search
• Hyland, William G. Clinton's World: Remaking American Foreign Policy (1999) ISBN 0-275-96396-9 online edition
• Klein, Joe. The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton (2003) by leading journalist online excerpt and search; excerpt and text search
• Levy, Peter. Encyclopedia of the Clinton Presidency (2002), 400pp; 230 articles
• Maraniss, David, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (1996) ISBN 0-684-81890-6. Biography to 1991. excerpt and text search
• Posner, Richard A. An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton (1999) ISBN 0-674-00080-3 online edition
• Schantz, Harvey L. Politics in an Era of Divided Government: Elections and Governance in the Second Clinton Administration (2001) online edition
• Schier, Steven E. The Postmodern Presidency: Bill Clinton's Legacy in U.S. Politics (2000) excerpt and text search