Defying the Odds Read online

  The 1992 campaign seemed odd and disruptive at the time. Previously, most of the political community would have thought the revelations about Bill Clinton’s personal history to be politically fatal. However, not only did he prevail, but his victory also came after Republicans had won five of the six past presidential elections, a record that had led many to assume a GOP “lock” on the electoral college. President George H. W. Bush had seemed invincible right after the American success in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but he ended up with the smallest share of the popular tally of any incumbent president since William Howard Taft in 1912. Perot broke another record dating back to the same election, drawing nearly 19 percent of the vote, the greatest for any non-major-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose campaign.

  As Upside Down and Inside Out explained, however, the 1992 election was not as revolutionary as many commentators said. After the longest peacetime expansion in American history, the U.S. economy had just scraped through a recession. President Bush was sixty-eight years old and in shaky health. Many voters saw him as old and tired, especially in comparison with the forty-six-year-old dynamo from Arkansas. Perot proved that massive sums of money could break through the institutional barriers facing independent candidates—not a startling revelation.2 His failure to win a single electoral vote also confirmed the conventional wisdom that the Electoral College works against independent candidates lacking a strong regional base. So although many details of the campaign seemed unusual, the basic storyline was not.

  The election of 2016 really did live up to the title of the 1992 book. Hillary Clinton, of course, was the first woman to win a major-party nomination. Though historic, her nomination itself was hardly a shock, as it came decades after other major democracies had chosen female heads of government. What few foresaw was that she would face such a serious and well-funded challenge from Sanders, a self-described socialist who had never identified as a Democrat in any previous race for office. Trump was a far greater jolt. Based on recent trends in nomination politics, many pundits confidently predicted that such a controversial and inexperienced figure would fade quickly, and that GOP leaders would have the last word. Primary voters instead scorned party insiders, spurned candidates with distinguished resumes, and instead voted to hand the party’s crown to a reality TV star. On the eve of the general election, nearly every national poll showed that Clinton would win. On the evening of November 8, as political activists and commentators saw state after state tip into the Trump column, their assumptions turned to ashes.

  One could argue that the 2016 election, like its 1992 doppelganger, was more conventional than it seemed. When one party has held the White House for at least two terms, many voters start to think that it is time for a change. As President Obama’s former secretary of state, and a two-term First Lady before that, Hillary Clinton had the disadvantage of personifying the status quo. Moreover, ethics controversies over her decades in public life had made many voters uneasy about her. The economy, often the biggest thumb on the election scales, was not an asset to the Democrats. Though the Great Recession had officially ended years earlier, growth had been slow, and many Americans were still struggling. Accordingly, a strong majority told pollsters that the nation was on the wrong track.3 When scholars cranked such considerations into their forecasting models, most found that the election would be close or that the GOP would win.4 Similarly, the Electoral College map did not indicate a radical realignment. Most states voted as they did in 2012, with one key difference: Trump narrowly won several states where Romney had fallen short.5 And finally, the national polls did get it right, since Clinton ended up with a statistically notable and legally meaningless plurality of the popular vote.

  But claiming that the 2016 election followed certain established patterns is like saying The Odyssey was about a round-trip ship voyage—true in a narrow sense, but oblivious to essential parts of the story.6 There had never been a candidate quite like Donald J. Trump. Every previous major-party nominee had either served in the military or held civilian public office. (Even businessman Wendell Willkie, who won the 1940 GOP nomination without political experience, had been an army officer during the First World War.) His positions on trade, immigration, and foreign policy were fundamentally different from those of other recent GOP candidates. Few elected officials endorsed him in the early stages of the campaign, and after he was the nominee, some leading Republicans took the extraordinary step of either withholding or withdrawing their public support. Gallup found that while 51 percent of registered voters thought that Clinton had the personality and leadership qualities a president should have, only 32 percent thought the same of Trump.7 He finished the campaign as the most unpopular nominee since Gallup started polling on the question in 1956.8 Even scholars whose models pointed to a Trump victory thought that his liabilities would cause him to underperform so much that he would lose the election.9

  The outcome was a humbling reminder that the expectations of media commentators and the models of political scientists were rooted in a very small number of races. Between 1789 and 2016, there were only 58 presidential elections in all. For the first nine elections, there are no reliable records of the popular vote, so we have tallies for just 49. If we want to take public opinion into account, the number is much smaller, because scientific surveys started on the national level only during the 1930s. So with a starting point of 1936, when Gallup took its first presidential election poll, we have public opinion data on twenty-one elections. Many election forecasting models involve economic data that are unavailable for election years before 1948, leaving a grand total of eighteen. If we want to consider nomination politics, the number shrinks further. The current process, consisting mostly of primaries and caucuses, dates back only to 1972. On the GOP side, incumbent presidents did not face major intraparty challenges in 1972, 1984, and 2004, meaning that there have been nine real nomination fights. Bill Clinton (1996) and Barack Obama (2012) had uncontested renominations, so the Democratic total is ten. We should be wary of deriving “iron laws” from so few cases.

  Moreover, generalizations and predictions in social science depend on background conditions that we may not even notice because they have been in place for so long but are still subject to change. Political scientist Yascha Mounk asks, “Do parties still retain the same influence over primary voters once public trust in politicians has plummeted to record lows? . . . And will wealthy liberal democracies continue to be stable when, for the first time since their founding, the living standards of average citizens have barely increased in a generation?”10 One way to notice shifts in background conditions and understand the evolution of the political system is to compare two elections taking place many years apart. And by happy coincidence, the 1992 election offers a good point of departure.

  INSIDE AND OUTSIDE

  Outsiders played starring roles in the 1992 and 2016 campaigns, so, before delving deeper into either election, we should briefly review the history of outsiderism. In the eighteenth century, Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote that the great political division in Britain lay between the “court party” that backed the monarchy and the “country party” that purported to stand for the great mass of the people.11 Ever since the early days of the American republic, a similar split between insiders and outsiders has repeatedly cropped up in American politics.12 In a 1793 letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson laid out embryonic lines, pitting “fashionable circles” and “paper men” against “tradesmen, mechanics, farmers and every other possible description of our citizens.”13

  Outsiderism is all about “not being part of” the establishment, whether that establishment lies in Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, or Harvard Yard. It is blurry and multifaceted, but through its many forms, it has always served as a receptacle of resentments. As the outsiders try to distill these angry feelings into political fuel, the insiders warn that the outsiders have a hidden agenda. In Federalist no. 1, Alexander Hamilton said that �
��of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”14 It was already clear at the time that insiderism and outsiderism in America did not always line up with social origins. Hamilton, though famously described by Lin-Manuel Miranda as “the bastard orphan son of a whore and a Scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot,” identified with the elites. Jefferson, who sided with the tillers of the soil, lived on a vast estate and had slaves to do the work for him. Hamilton was aware of the disconnect. “Demagogues are not always inconsiderable persons,” he said at the Constitutional Convention. “Patricians were frequently demagogues.”15

  Other features of outsiderism have echoed throughout political history. One is the notion that the insiders have rigged the system. After the 1824 election produced a deadlocked vote in the Electoral College, the House of Representatives chose John Quincy Adams as president. Followers of losing candidate Andrew Jackson charged that outcome stemmed from a “corrupt bargain” between Adams and House speaker Henry Clay, who became secretary of state. Jackson, a rough Tennessean who championed the common man (though he was a wealthy slave-owner), turned antagonism against the aristocratic Adams into a victory in the next presidential election.

  Outsiders frequently indulge in conspiracy theories and stoke prejudice against various ethnic and religious groups. The Jackson years coincided with the brief emergence of the Anti-Masonic Party, whose members believed that the Freemasons were an elite society that secretly controlled the government. The American (or “Know-Nothing”) Party arose in opposition to the immigrants who came in large numbers during the 1840s and 1850s. The Know-Nothings suspected that the Irish Catholics owed their allegiance to the pope instead of the Constitution, and they contended that these newcomers brought crime, disease, poverty, and alcoholism.

  During tough economic times, outsiders focus on the rich. The recession of the 1890s gave rise to a Nebraska outsider named William Jennings Bryan. In his famous speech at the 1896 Democratic convention, he said, “My friends, in this land of the free you need not fear that a tyrant will spring up from among the people. What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand, as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of organized wealth.” He finished with a famous allusion to the New Testament: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”16

  During the Great Depression thirty-eight years later, Senator Huey Long of Louisiana also deployed Christian imagery against the plutocratic insiders: “ ‘Come to my feast,’ He said to 125 million American people. But Morgan and Rockefeller and Mellon and Baruch have walked up and took 85 percent of the victuals off the table!”17 In a radio address, Long elaborated on the powerful few: “They own the banks, they own the steel mills, they own the railroads, they own the bonds, they own the mortgages, they own the stores, and they have chained the country from one end to the other.”18 Long led a movement with a large conspiracy-minded element, including some who believed that Franklin Roosevelt was a Jew whose real name was Rosenfeld. The FDR birthers got enough attention that the president thought it necessary to publish a dignified response.19 Beyond the eccentric fringe, Long spoke to millions who thought that the system had left them behind. His slogan— “Every Man a King”—appealed to their craving for respect and dignity. If not for his assassination in 1935, Long might have mounted a serious third-party challenge in 1936, a prospect that worried Roosevelt.

  In 1968, former Alabama governor George Wallace carried several Southern states under the banner of the American Independent Party. A few years earlier, he had literally stood in the schoolhouse door as federal officials arrived to integrate the University of Alabama. Now he was running as a fighter for the little guy, attacking the “pseudo-intellectuals and the theoreticians and some professors and some newspaper editors and some judges and some preachers” who looked down on “the pipe-fitter, the communications worker, the fireman, the policeman, the barber, the white-collar worker.”20 Wallace boasted that he would run over demonstrators who tried to lie down in front of his car. Though he never did any such thing, his supporters cheered the threat. Columnist David Broder wrote, “When Wallace has finished his harangue, the emotion is closer to that of a lynch mob—a pack of angry, frustrated men and women, who see his cause, not just as a chance for victory but as a guarantee of vengeance against all who have affronted them for so long.”21

  With Democratic presidential contender Jesse Jackson in 1984, outsiderism took a different form. Whereas Wallace had stood for segregation, Jackson led a “Rainbow Coalition” of African Americans and other minority groups. His language, ironically, had a faint echo of Wallace: “My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised.”22 As with so many outsider movements, the 1984 Jackson campaign had a whiff of prejudice and menace. Jackson confronted charges of anti-Semitism after a press report revealed that he had referred to Jews as “Hymie” and New York City as “Hymietown.”23 Louis Farrakhan, minister of the Nation of Islam and a key Jackson supporter, said that he would “ ‘make an example’ of the reporter who disclosed the comments, and at one point said, ‘At this point, no physical harm.’ ”24 (He did not follow through.)

  Jackson ran again in 1988. His second campaign was more professional than his first, buffing off some of the rough edges. Among other things, he hired a campaign manager who happened to be Jewish. But like the earlier effort, his 1988 campaign was still in the outsider tradition, emphasizing positioning over positions, attitude over agenda. Journalist Elizabeth Drew wrote:

  For a large portion of Jackson’s supporters and would-be supporters, whether his proposals stand up to scrutiny is irrelevant. Their support for him is in a different category—as the leader of a movement. Jackson has become the vehicle for their discontent—with current policies, with the other candidates. He stands in bold, interesting contrast to some fairly dull candidates. He is the anti-politics candidate. Measuring his program is linear, rational, while most of the support for him is based on emotion.25

  Substitute “Trump” for “Jackson,” and that passage would fit nicely into an account of the 2016 campaign. It is also worth noting that Jackson got an endorsement from the socialist mayor of Burlington, Vermont—Bernie Sanders. In a speech for Jackson, Sanders said, “Tonight we are here to endorse the candidate who is saying loud that enough is enough, that it’s time that this nation was returned to the real people of America, the vast majority of us, and that power no longer should rest solely with a handful of banks and corporations who presently dominate the economic and political life of this nation.”26

  By the time of the 1992 campaign, conditions were ripe for a spurt of outsiderism. The recession of 1990–1991 was not long or deep by historical standards, but it seemed harsh to many Americans because it hit right after a lengthy economic boom. And unemployment kept creeping up after the recession had officially ended, peaking at 7.8 percent in the summer of 1992. These developments followed the collapse of the savings and loan industry. The crisis had not only endangered the savings of millions of Americans but also revealed widespread corruption in the industry and the officials who were supposed to regulate it. A government bailout gave rise to charges that Washington cared less about struggling Americans than about the corporations that had hurt them. Meanwhile, scandals involving members of Congress had deepened the mood of cynicism. Despite a burst of good feeling following victory in the 1991 Gulf War, polls found satisfaction with the state of the nation dropping from 66 percent in February 1991 to 14 percent in June 1992. Trust in government plunged from 47 percent in March 1991 to 22 percent in October 1992.27

  Anger at insiders naturally fell upon President George H. W. Bush, the kind of man whom the Federalists would have recognized as one of their own. Even apart from his status as the incumbent, nearly everything about him radiated ol
d-fashioned insiderism. He was a rich Wall Street banker’s son, a high church Episcopalian, a Yale graduate, and a veteran of the oil industry. Before winning the 1988 election, he had held government posts ranging from House member to CIA director to vice president. He was a profoundly decent man, but his WASP reserve could come across as cold indifference. By early 1992, it looked as if a Democrat could beat him. But which one?

  The Democratic nomination contest saw a flameout of two Washington insiders: Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. Paul Tsongas, a former senator from Massachusetts, tried to run as an outsider but was miscast for the role. His cerebral approach to policy focused on fiscal responsibility, and he said that proposals for a middle-class tax cut amounted to pandering. He soon found that the Democratic primary electorate did not consist of pitchfork-bearing accountants. Meanwhile, another contender for the Democratic outsider mantle was Jerry Brown, who had been a two-term governor of California, just like his father, and whose sister was serving as the state’s treasurer. Despite these establishment credentials, he got a bit of traction by courting labor, opposing NAFTA, and attacking big money in politics.

  The winner was Bill Clinton. His career was an epic tale of contradictions and ambiguities, so it makes sense that he was a hybrid of insider and outsider. On the one hand, he had never held office in Washington and was governor of Arkansas, a poor state far removed from the seats of political and economic power. On the other hand, his resume was deeply wired to the inside: Georgetown University, an internship with Senator J. William Fulbright, a Rhodes Scholarship, Yale Law School. He campaigned as a change agent who would put people first, even as he aggressively raised special-interest money and had personal financial dealings that would cause him years of political trouble. As early as the 1992 campaign, Jerry Brown was alleging conflicts of interest arising from Hillary Clinton’s legal work in Little Rock. Brown’s criticism foreshadowed attacks that both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump would mount against her in 2016.