852 Chapter 32 Shocks and Responses: 1992–Present
Eager to take advantage of Clinton’s troubles,
Republicans looked to the 1994 congressional elec-
tions. Led by Congressman Newt Gingrich of
Georgia, they offered voters an ambitious program to
stimulate the economy by reducing both the federal
debt and the federal income tax. Federally adminis-
tered welfare programs were to be replaced by block
grants to the states. Many measures protecting the
environment, such as those making businesses
responsible for cleaning up their waste, were to
be repealed.
On election day, the Republicans gained control
of both houses of Congress. Under the firm direc-
tion of Gingrich, now Speaker, the House approved
nearly all of the provisions of thisContract with
America. This appalled Clinton, who vetoed the
1995 budget drafted by the Republicans. When nei-
ther side agreed to a compromise, the government
for a time ran out of money and shut down all but
essential services.
The Election of 1996
The public tended to blame Congress, and particu-
larly Speaker Gingrich, for the shutdown. The pres-
ident’s approval rating rose. But the main issue of
the day was the economy, and the upturn during
and after 1991 benefited Clinton enormously. By
the fall of 1996, unemployment had fallen well
below 6 percent, and inflation below 3 percent. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average of leading stocks
soared past 6,000, more than triple the average in
- Clinton was renominated for a second term
without opposition.
A number of Republicans competed in the presi-
dential primaries, but after a slow start Bob Dole of
Kansas, the Senate majority leader, won the nomina-
tion. Dole had been a senator for more than thirty
years, but despite his experience he was a poor cam-
paigner, stiff and monotone. His main proposal was a
steep reduction of the deficit and a 15-percent
income tax cut. Pressed to explain how this could be
done without drastic cuts in popular social programs,
especially Social Security and Medicare, he gave a dis-
tressingly vague reply. Clinton, a charismatic cam-
paigner, stressed preparing for the twenty-first
century and took, in general, an optimistic view of
the economy.
On election day Clinton won an impressive vic-
tory, sweeping the Northeast, all the Midwest except
Indiana, the upper Mississippi Valley, and the Far
West. He divided the South with Dole, who carried a
band of states running north from Texas. Clinton’s
Electoral College margin was substantial, 379 to 159.
The Republicans, however, retained control of both
houses of Congress. Many retained, as well, an
unquenchable hatred of Clinton.Clinton Impeached
Although President Clinton steadfastly denied allega-
tions of womanizing, in January 1998 a judge
ordered him to testify in Paula Corbin Jones’s lawsuit
against him. Jones, who sought to strengthen her suit
by showing that Clinton had a history of proposition-
ing women, also subpoenaed a former White House
intern. Her name was Monica Lewinsky.
Lewinsky and Clinton were separately asked if
they had had an affair, and each denied the charge.
When word of their alleged relationship was leaked to
the press, Clinton declared in a TV news conference,
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman,
Miss Lewinsky.” Hillary Clinton denounced the alle-
gations as part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy”
against her husband.
Unbeknown to the Clintons, however, Lewinsky
had been confiding to Linda Tripp, a former White
House employee, and Tripp had secretly tape-
recorded some twenty hours of their conversations.
Tripp turned these tapes over to special prosecutor
Starr, whose investigations of the Clintons’ roles in
the Whitewater scandal had broadened into a more
general inquiry. In the tapes Lewinsky provided inti-
mate details of repeated sexual encounters with the
president. Clinton and Lewinsky appeared to have
lied under oath. Starr threatened to indict Lewinsky
for perjury. In return for immunity from prosecution,
she admitted that she had engaged in sexual relations
with the president and that he and his aides had
encouraged her to give misleading testimony in the
Jones case.
When called in August to testify on videotape
before the Starr grand jury, Clinton conceded that
he had engaged in “inappropriate intimate contact”
with Lewinsky. But he insisted, “I have not had sex
with her as I defined it.” When pressed to supply his
own definition, he responded with legalistic obfusca-
tion: “My understanding of this definition is it cov-
ers contact by the person being deposed with the
enumerated areas, if the contact is done with an
intent to arouse or gratify.” Because Clinton had not
intended to arouse or gratify Lewinsky, he had not
“had sex” with her. He allowed that this definition
was “rather strange.”
More legalisms followed. When asked if he had
ever been alone with her, he responded, “It depends
on how you define alone.” When asked if his lawyer
had been correct when he had assured the judge in