US voters have rejected Bob Dole and, with reluctance, elected Bill Clinton for a second term. Only a dozen American presidents have been given a second term. Since Independence Americans have not been backward in exercising their democratic rights in throwing out incumbents. And even when incumbents have been elected or re-elected, the second term has usually not been very auspicious. Perhaps it was the recognition that incumbency has a corrosive effect that caused the US to change its Constitution to limit a person to two consecutive terms. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the last president to have more than two consecutive terms when he was elected for his fourth term in 1944.
Americans and, indeed, Mr Clinton, should look back with trepedation at the record of second-term presidents in recent history. Roosevelt, after lifting the US from Depression with by starting the New Deal in his first term, began to stack the Supreme Court and much of the bureaucracy in his second term. Dwight Eisenhower’s second term was as mediocre as his first. Lyndon Johnson, after carrying through much of Kennedy’s civil rights program in his first term, was paralysed in his second term by Vietnam. Richard Nixon had the worse second term in the nation’s history, being embroilled in Watergate and the exposure of the mendacity of “”peace with honour” in Viet nam. Ronald Reagan, having done his best work in his first term to tackle the Soviet Union was embroiled in the Contra arms deal in his second.
Mr Clinton, unfortunately carries all the baggage that is likely to mar his second term, without even getting many major achievements on the board in his first. He has two potential scandals. The sexual harassment allegations against him are of less moment than the Whitewater financial affair. Action in the former will apparently be postponed until after his term finishes. Investigation in the latter continues with the possibility of severely embarrassing or even immobilising him, particularly as he has no majority in Congress.
Mr Clinton’s main difficulty will be a lack of personal mandate. People voted for him despite his shortcomings and because his opponent did not present an acceptabale alternative, rather than because they embraced the Clinton message, whatever that was. The disillusion with Mr Clinton, despite his majority, is evidenced by the fact that voters ensured his influence would be counter-acted by a republican majority in Congress.
The personal mandate is very importanat in the US constitutional context.
Where the powers of the executive anad legislataure are separated anad where the legilsature is not divided by strict party discipline, it is often the character of the President and his personal credentials that carry the day on legislation. Mr Clinton will often find legislators all to willing to defy his will, especially as he will not be abale to run for a third term and they have nothing to lose in the form of personal preferment.
Mr Clinton faces many difficulties at home anad abroad. He may have been a better choice than Mr Dole, who was clearly yesterday’s man who offerred little more than a foolish, unsustainabale tax-cut bribe, but that does not mean Mr Clinton has much auathority to deal with those difficulties. If he is to establish authority he must reform his first-term habit of bombastic rhetoric in foreign affairs unmatached by physical action. Leadaership requires some risk. In his first term, Mr Clinton preferred to try to be all thigns to all people. Maybe, with the election behind him and a constitutional bar against a third successive term, Mr Clinton can be more decisive.