The Psychological Assessment of Political Leadersidency—be sufficient to allow him to navigate through the morass of
politics: compromise, frustration, gridlock, independent power cen-
ters, difficulties in implementing policy, and so forth?
After the 1994 midterm elections, it looked as though Bill Clin-
ton's presidency was indeed going to end in a single-term frustration
of Carteresque proportions. His political obituaries were being pre-
pared by journalists and pundits who were confident that his very
ability to govern, let alone his chances of reelection, had been per-
manently disabled by the Republican juggernaut. Eighteen months
later, during the 1996 campaign, it was the Republican forces that
were in disarray. Through deft handling of the 1995—96 budget
debates and the government closings, the Clinton administration
rolled the advance guard of the Gingrich "revolution" back upon
itself. Meanwhile, the Republicans emerged from the 1996 primary
season with an aging, lackluster candidate who may have trouble
holding his party together with its platform. As a result, Clinton was
reelected by a substantial margin.
What happened? Drawing on stock political cliches, we could say
that Bill Clinton repeated his 1992 success as the "Comeback Kid."
But this does not tell us the kind of comeback he made or how he
came to make it. However, a New York Times analysis by Alison
Mitchell (1996) provides a clue. Drawing on four major Clinton
speeches during 1995—96, Mitchell concluded that Clinton changed
from a policy wonk "bogged down in particulars" into the "man in
the bully pulpit," willing and able to use the full rhetorical powers
of the presidency. In motivational terms, such a change suggests an
increase in the power motive, relative to achievement.
To track changes in Clinton's motive profile, I scored his four
State of the Union messages, along with four "landmark" speeches
identified by Mitchell (1996) as prototypical of the "new Clinton"
(Dallas, April 7, 1995; Georgetown University, July 6, 1995; Hous-
ton, October 17, 1995; and Long Beach, February 24, 1996).
Because this analysis considers only a single leader over time, in
which different speeches by the same person are compared with each
other, there is no need for an external control or comparison sample.
However, by itself such an intrapersonal study cannot tell us much
about the leader in comparison to other people.
As shown in figure 12.1, Clinton's four State of the Union mes-