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Campaigning as Governing: The 1996 US Presidential Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

David McKay
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Extract

ON TUESDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 1996 BILL CLINTON WAS REelected President of the United States by a comfortable margin. In addition, the Republicans retained control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Although these results were generally unsurprising, the election was an important one for students of American electoral behaviour. In particular, the results were widely expected to cast new light on two distinctive strands of thought in the literature: claims that we are in the midst of a realignment of the electorate towards the Republicans; and claims that American voters now consciously choose divided government so as to limit the scope of government and avoid the extremes in both parties. The second part of this article will address these questions and will discuss their implications for President Clinton's second term. First, however, it will be useful to examine the results in more detail.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , January 1997 , pp. 25 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1997

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References

1 For an account see USA Today, 8 November 1996, p. 7A; The New York Times, 6 November 1996, p. B5.

2 For a good recent discussion of this point, see Wayne, Stephen J., The Road to the White House, 1996: The Politics of Presidential Elections. New York, St Martin’s Press, 1996 Google Scholar, Ch. 3.

3 Comments by Gary C. Jacobson in USA Today, 8 November 1996, p. 7A.

4 The New York Times, 7 November 1996, p. B5.

5 The New York Times, 7 November 1996, p. B5.

6 Fiorina, Morris, ‘Divided Government in the States,’ in Cox, Gary W. and Kernell, Samuel (eds), The Politics of Divided Government, Boulder, Co., Westview, 1991, pp. 179 and 202Google Scholar.

7 In Campbell, Colin and Rockman, Bert A. (eds), The Clinton Presidency: First Appraisals, Chatham NJ, Chatham House, 1995, pp. 363–95Google Scholar.

8 Burnham, op. cit., pp. 363, 371.

9 US National Election Studies, quoted by Wayne, The Road to the White House, Table 3.3.

10 For a summary see Jacobson, Gary C., The Electoral Origins of Divided Government: Competition in US House Elections, 1946–1988, Boulder Co., Westview Press, 1992, Chs 1–5Google Scholar; McKay, David, ‘Divided and Governed: Recent Research on Divided Government in the US’, British Journal of Political Science, 24, 1994, pp. 517–534 Google Scholar.

11 See Jacobson, Electoral Origins, Ch. 6; also Shafer, Byron, Bifurcated Politics, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 1988 Google Scholar; Fiorina, Morris, Divided Government, New York, Macmillan, 1992 Google Scholar.

12 King, Anthony, Running Scared Why American Politicians Campaign Too Much and Govern Too Little, New York, Free Press, 1997 Google Scholar.

13 Harold W. Stanley, ‘The Parties, the President and the 1994 Midterm Election’, in Colin Campbell and Bert A. Rockman, The Clinton Presidency, pp. 188–211.

14 For a good analysis of the psychology of Clinton’s leadership style, see Renshon, Stanley A. (ed.), The Clinton Presidency: Campaigning Governing and the Psychology of Leadership, Boulder Co., Westview, 1995 Google Scholar.