High Hopes

The Clinton Presidency and the Politics of Ambition

Stanley A. Renshon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138459359
• eBook ISBN: 9781135265632
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Politik

Now in paperback, this perceptive psychological portrait of Clinton and his presidency investigates whether Clinton has demonstrated the necessary qualities of judgment, vision, character and skill, as well as his ambition and extreme self-confidence. Renshon traces the development of Clinton's character from his early family experiences to his adolescence and long political career, including the controversy surrounding Clinton's draft-dodging and marriage.

I
Presidents, Psychology, and the Public

Chapter 1
Public Psychology: The Legacy of History

The analysis of every presidency is a story consisting of four overlapping parts. First, it is the story of a particular historical context and political time. Second, it is a story that unfolds within a particular institutional setting, a presidency which has either been strengthened or weakened by the actions of those who have occupied the office in the past. Third, it is a story of the public and its psychology—how people feel about their institutions, their lives, and their prospects. Finally, it is a story whose central character is the president himself—with his abilities and limitations.

Each of these four elements plays an important part in shaping the challenges and opportunities that face a president. It also affects the public and institutional resources he can draw upon to meet these challenges, and the extent to which his own psychology will either help or hinder him in accomplishing his and the public’s purposes. While I focus in this work on Clinton’s psychology as it affects his approach to exercising the powers of the office, his presidency itself cannot be well understood without a clearer grasp of the contexts, material and psychological, in which it is unfolding.

The International Context

Every presidency takes place in times of change, but some historical periods involve managing change within a more stable framework, while other times require the president and his advisers to develop the framework itself. These two contexts call for different kinds of judgments on the part of a president and his advisers.

Decisions that define a major problem and place it in a context, I term framing decisions. Framing decisions are crucial because they represent key, and sometimes starkly contrasting, alternatives, each of which will point to different paths, open up some options, close others, and bring about different results. I use the term judgment framework to denote the major conceptual organization that a president brings to bear on the analysis of a problem. However, the major problem for presidents and other policy makers in new circumstances is that there are no specific frameworks. Therefore, in new, emerging circumstances the president and his advisers must be able to (1) see the framing decision for the crucial choice that it represents; (2) understand the essential elements of a problem and their significance, and place the problem within an appropriate judgment framework; and (3) develop a policy that preserves, and perhaps extends, the major values at issue.

The major defining international frame of the period stretching from the late 1940s through the late 1980s was, of course, the Cold War. The Truman presidency faced the task of devising a basic strategy to respond to challenges from the Soviet Union. Truman thus helped define every presidency that followed. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan all had to manage a Cold War that dominated the international system, alternating between rivalry and outright hostility.

The international challenges facing the Clinton presidency call for different policy making and judgment skills. The first and most obvious challenge is to define America’s role in the world. The collapse of the former Soviet Union has presented the United States with a series of dilemmas and opportunities that are in many respects unprecedented. What structures for international relations can develop now that the former Soviet Union and the United States are no longer locked in a dangerous but stabilized worldwide conflict-management paradigm? What role can and should the United States now play in these circumstances?

These basic questions raised by the demise of the Soviet Union lead to many other questions, which have been explored by a number of other writers. What are the implications of the possibility of American hegemony (Layne and Schwarz 1993)? Is it possible to develop a “New World Order,” and, if so, what would it look like (Hames 1994)? Should it be based on traditional standards of enlightened self-interest (Walt 1989), an attempt to make the world safe for democracy (T. Smith 1993), neo-Wilsonian pragmatism (Tucker 1993-94; Zoellick 1994), principles of human rights (Burkhalter 1993; Manning 1994; Posner 1994-95; Tonelson 1994-95), or economic considerations (Parker 1994; Stemlau 1994)? What role will force play in the “New World Order”? Is the United States too quick to become involved in circumstances that could lead to conflict (Stedman 1992-93), or too reluctant (Mandelbaum 1994; Tonelson 1993)? Should the United States become involved in peacekeeping operations (Evans 1993; Weinrod 1993), and if so, should it necessarily be done under U.N. auspices (Berdal 1994)? Related to these issues are the more specific questions of whether, and how, the United States should have become involved in such conflicts as Somalia (Bolton 1994; Clark 1993, 1992-1993; Stevenson 1993), Bosnia (Binder 1994-95; Freedman 1994-95), and Haiti (Martin 1994). And, of course, many have questioned how President Clinton dealt with these and other matters¹ (Maynes 1993-94; Meyerson 1994; Szamuely 1994; Wolfowitz 1994).

The Domestic Context

The list of emerging and unresolved issues in the international context are themselves daunting. Yet Clinton assumed the presidency at a time when the basic paradigms of domestic American politics were also in disarray. In the 1992 presidential election Clinton received just over 43 percent of the popular vote. His Republican rival George Bush received just over 37 percent of the vote, and the third party candidate Ross Perot received 19 percent of the vote. Perot’s total was the best showing for an independent or third party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 run for the presidency on the Bull Moose Ticket.² These statistics reflect long-term declines in support for the traditional parties, party-line voting, and the level of party identification (Wattenberg 1991, 47-65; see also Wattenberg 1990).

Political parties have traditionally served as a filter through which citizens assess presidential candidates (Campbell et al. 1954; Campbell et al. 1960). In the past, a major party nomination conferred a stamp of approval on the candidate. Voters could be assured that such a person had been selected and had obtained the approval of many party regulars who knew and presumably trusted him to lead and represent them. However, the rules of the nomination process have dramatically changed. Generally, control has passed from a cadre of party officials to party activists. The increasing importance of presidential primaries have allowed candidates’ organizations and support to bypass traditional bases of party support. As a result, the traditional apparatus of the major political parties has become increasing less important to candidates attempting to secure their party’s nomination. It has also had consequences for successful candidates once they attempt to govern. Party discipline and coherence, rarely exceptionally strong, have been further weakened by these developments.

At the same time, the major political parties have retreated from their traditional role as ideological and policy guides. Knowing that a presidential candidate was running as the standard bearer for one of the political parties once conveyed something concrete about a candidate. It reflected his political identity, suggesting for whom and for what he stood. Political party affiliation keyed the public to a presidential candidate’s policy positions. Moreover, the candidate’s political identity and his party’s ideology were mutually reinforcing. Making a choice for the Democrat (Lyndon Johnson) or Republican (Barry Goldwater) party in 1964 or choosing Ronald Reagan (the Republican) or Walter Mondale (the Democrat) in 1984 were essentially related choices. Each candidate’s political philosophy and persona were reflected in the official and unofficial policy views of the party. The coherence and stability of this link provided the public with a broad, but nonetheless accurate, indication of how the successful presidential candidate would proceed and where he would lead if elected.

Over the past two decades, the link between presidential candidates and their political personas, on the one hand, and party ideology and policy, on the other, has become attenuated. Political circumstances have caused political parties to move toward the center. Political parties whose platforms and candidates reflected too narrow an ideological spectrum, as did the Republicans in 1964 and the Democrats in 1984, suffered electoral losses. This is a powerful political incentive toward moderation.

What is true for political parties has also become true of the presidential candidates themselves. The threat of electoral loss is a powerful political incentive for candidates to blur ideological and policy distinctions. This development can be traced to the presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon. Nixon was a Republican, but he rejected discussions of whether he was “conservative” or “liberal.” He saw himself as “pragmatic” rather than ideological, and his policies tended to follow from that perception. Nixon was a conservative anticommunist, and yet he was prepared to engage in strategic negotiations with his adversaries. Nixon’s anticommunist views did not keep him from forging a new relationship with China. His domestic policy shows the same blending of ideological strands. Nixon was “tough on crime,” in both rhetoric and policy. But Nixon the conservative Republican was not a mortal foe of liberal welfare programs. In fact, he attempted to reform and improve several of these programs. In answer to whether Nixon was a moderate, liberal, or conservative, one would have to answer, “It depends on the issue.”

One can see similar trends in the Carter candidacies in 1976 and 1980. Jimmy Carter, a Southern Democrat, ran on a personal platform in which supporting a “strong defense” and being “tough on criminals” played prominent roles. Was Carter a traditional Democratic liberal? No, not really. Was he a “conservative?” In some respects yes, but in others no. Carter, like Nixon before him, campaigned and governed as a pragmatist, not an ideologue.

In the presidential election of 1988, the same trends are observable for both candidates. George Bush had so blended and moderated his views on many policy issues that many asked, “Who is George Bush?” In the area of civil rights, for example, Bush was known to be generally supportive, though he opposed quotas and other preferential systems for minorities. His Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, completely disavowed any political ideology, liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican. His campaign slogan that the election was “about competence, not ideology” reflected in the most pristine form attempts by presidential candidates to bypass ideology, and the labeling and filtering function that it served.

That trend continued in the 1992 presidential campaign. President Clinton’s campaign promised a candidate who reflected a “new Democratic party,” presumably one unlike its predecessor. His policy positions, expressed in general terms, continued the trend of blending ideologies. Thus, candidate Clinton was for “a strong America,” but also promised to drastically reduce the military budget. He was a supporter of social welfare programs, but promised to “end welfare as we know it” during his presidency. His 1996 State of the Union Address continued this strategy.

The Presidency: A Powerful or Deflated Institution?

American political culture reflects a deep ambivalence regarding the exercise of executive and especially presidential power that dates back to the framing of the Constitution. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention, in the process of breaking away from oppressive executive power in the form of the King, fiercely debated just how much power to give to the new institution of the president. The dilemma then, as now, was clear. On the one hand, a president needs sufficient power to govern effectively. On the other hand, too much unrestrained power might lead to the very excesses that fueled the American Revolution.

This same ambivalence permeates the modern presidency. Scholars have worried that the presidency is too powerful, too imperial (Schlesinger 1973). Richard Pious notes that “the presidency may be an instrument of representative democracy, benevolent autocracy, or malevolent Caesarism—depending on the interplay of constitutional interpretation, institutional competition, and personality and leadership qualities of the incumbent” (1979, 14, emphasis mine). Others have worried that it was not powerful enough to accomplish all its public purposes (Lowi 1984). At the same time, the presidency is still seen as the engine of the American political system (Mansfield 1989) and, in many ways, still imperial (Lind 1995). Whether in domestic or foreign affairs, presidents are routinely expected to be conversant with an enormous range of issues. Small wonder that some fear that no institution or person could survive the expectations that surround the modern presidency.

Consider the electoral fate of the last seven presidents. Lyndon Johnson won election in a landslide in 1964 but did not have the political capital to stand for reelection in 1968. Richard Nixon won election in 1968, was reelected in 1972, but was forced to resign from office under threat of impeachment. Gerald Ford became president upon Nixon’s resignation, but was unable to gain election 1976. Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976, but was not reelected in 1980. Only Ronald Reagan was able to manage reelection, in 1984. George Bush was elected in 1988, but rejected by voters in 1992. Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 with only a 43 percent plurality of the vote and was handed a stinging rebuke in the 1994 midterm election when his party lost control of both the House and Senate in the equivalent of a political earthquake.

What accounts for the difficulties presidents have had in sustaining public support? Has the growth of public expectations simply transcended any president’s ability to accomplish them? If this is true, how did Ronald Reagan manage to get elected and reelected when the four presidents who preceded him and the one who immediately followed him did not?

Changes in public psychology represent a part of the answer, but the focus on increased public expectations misses a central point. Public psychology has become unhinged from its foundation. It has done so because trust, the psychological cement which secures the attachment between the public and its leaders and institutions, has weakened and seriously eroded. The central issue now is not the growth of expectations for presidential and public performance, but its opposite, a decline in confidence and trust in public leadership and institutions.

The Decline of Public Confidence in Policy Solutions

Americans have traditionally been optimistic about their ability to solve problems and are consequently great believers in the idea of progress. It seemed only reasonable, therefore, to believe, as was the case in the 1960s, that an emphasis on aggressive government policies coupled with a growing command of developing social technologies would usher in a period of prosperity. In domestic politics, it was believed that this combination would address and eradicate major social problems such as poverty. Internationally, superior military power would assure the triumph of our policies where the virtue of our positions was not otherwise persuasive.

From our present perspective this view seems somewhat naive, but it is worth asking how it became so. In the international arena from 1948 to 1988, Americans were forced to face the fact that there were limits to the nation’s ability to accomplish its policy purposes abroad. A partial list of the historical experiences that reinforced the idea of limits include the fight to stalemate in Korea, the (apparent) rise to scientific and military parity of the Soviet Union, the decline of colonial systems, the failure of U.S. policy in Vietnam, and the failure to bring about a comprehensive Middle East settlement.

Even after the demise of the Soviet Union, American power has come up against limits. American interventions in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and even Haiti have proved ample evidence of these limits. While the existence of the Soviet Union no doubt played a major role in limiting American power in the 1948-88 period, its demise suggests there was more to these limits than the efforts of one major adversary.

The paradox of enormous formal power coupled with limited ability to effect outcomes has also had its counterpart in domestic public policy. It was the hope of many that important domestic problems such as poverty and race and class divisions would yield to a combination of technical solutions and large-scale government intervention. However, this has not proved to be the case. No doubt one reason is that these policy problems have complex causes that are not easily amenable, even to complex, comprehensive solutions. Homelessness, for example, does not simply reflect a lack of housing but rather results from a complex series of causes having to do with economic and skill marginality in relation to shifting economic and employment trends, as well as with drug and alcohol abuse (Jenks 1994). Each of these problems, in turn, are complex, difficult, and not easily resolved.

Not only have social problems proved difficult to eradicate, but large-scale government policy programs have sometimes brought with them paradoxical and perverse effects. One illustration of this is the dependency and the institutionalization of the poverty cycle that have accompanied income-maintenance programs for the poor (Murray 1984). An analysis of New York City’s policy of providing housing to anyone who said they needed it found that the city’s initial generous policy had the perverse effect of encouraging many less well-off New Yorkers to declare themselves homeless, so that a new system was needed to make sure that only the truly homeless were served (Dugger 1993a, 1993b).

Addressing complex social problems is difficult enough under any circumstances. However, the approach of some public officials and advocacy groups charged with dealing with social problems have exacerbated already difficult situations. For example, it was well known in policy circles that drugs and alcohol abuse were a serious problem among the homeless, yet advocates persisted in minimizing this problem to win public sympathy. Marsha A. Martin, who served on the board of New York City’s Coalition for the Homeless, recalled that “there was a discussion that went on amongst us all. Do you market it as a problem of shelter, or do you tell people about alcoholism, drug addition, mental illness, and concerns...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I. PRESIDENTS, PSYCHOLOGY, AND THE PUBLIC
• PART II. THE CHARACTER OF BILL CLINTON
• PART III. GROWING UP, COMING OF AGE
• PART IV. THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF CHARACTER
• PART V. CONCLUSION
• APPENDIX Bill Clinton’s Character and Presidency: A Note on Method
• Notes
• References
• Subject Index
• Name Index