Strong Campaign Gives Clinton His Second-Term Triumph

Bill Clinton has become the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to a second term as president of the United States. The fact that it is considered a major victory that incumbent Clinton rolled to a decisive win is a measure of the tightrope he has walked all of his political life, as well as a measure of how hard it is for a modern American president to be a big winner with an electorate that wants to be less cynical than it is.

In the end, it may have been a simple calculation: A good economy means reelection of the incumbent. But that wrongly implies Clinton just stumbled into reelection. Clinton’s quick ability to reevaluate and readjust--what critics have called the “slick factor”--turned out to be a major asset in his last two years in the White House. With a new GOP Congress flexing its muscles, he found noncontroversial, largely symbolic issues--such as school uniforms and longer hospital stays for new mothers--that aptly demonstrated that he would not allow the Republicans to corner the “family values” market.

The end of the campaign means the end of the political career of Bob Dole, a masterful veteran of Capitol Hill, whose skills there did not translate well in his three bids for the presidency. While the lowlights of his poorly run campaign will be recounted for weeks, Dole, gracious in defeat, may just have been what a former Dole strategist called “a Man Not of This Time,” one who could not connect with today’s voters’ needs and expectations.

The end of the campaign is also the beginning of the end of Clinton’s political career; campaigning is a hard thing for Clinton to let go of. He seemed on the verge of tears in New Hampshire Monday as he wrapped up his last campaign. The new focus of this man of ambition is likely to be on his legacy.

His almost dismissive reaction to serious questions about the sources and appropriateness of several campaign contributions raises red flags. President Clinton would be well-advised to take a lesson from the hubris shown by the Republican leadership after the 1994 election. The GOP congressional landslide of two years ago caused Republican leaders to overreach in their anti-government efforts; it turned out, for example, that most Americans blamed the Republicans for the federal legislative and budget stalemates that led to the temporary government shutdown. It was when the Republicans got off their high horse, about the same time Clinton got off his and moved to the center, that Washington actually began to move on tough issues like health insurance and welfare reform.

The political deals Clinton cut on welfare reform leave him with some of the biggest policy headaches of his final term. But for now, he’s entitled to enjoy the smart campaign he ran, and his mastery of the art of politics, with all the imperfection--and perfection--that entails.