Passages History 1302 Chapter 32 Outline

Chapter Outline

The nation was angry as the 1992 election approached, with an economic recession and Congressional abuses contributing to the mood of the people.

A.       Political experts expected George H.W. Bush to capitalize on the success of the Gulf War, but too many Americans came to view him as out of touch with their problems.

B.        Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination by campaigning as a “New Democrat,” but murmurings about his political and personal dealings in Arkansas caused many to view him with a degree of caution.

C.       Into this unsettled situation stepped the country’s most successful third party candidate ever, Texas billionaire Ross Perot, but by the spring he had decided to withdraw from the race.

Before the election, Perot re-entered the race, and his presence split the Republican party, ensuring a victory for Clinton and his running mate, Senator Al Gore of Tennessee.

A.       Clinton’s Domestic Agenda:  Political and social problems plagued the Clinton White House in its first year, but the new president forged ahead with grandiose plans for changing the country.

Clinton advocated passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Congress agreed to late in 1993, and other trade successes followed.

B.         Reforming Health Care:  Clinton’s major goal, health care reform, pleased almost no one and ended in defeat.

C.        Clinton’s Political Troubles:  Charges of wrongdoing dogged the Clinton administration, especially rumors of misdeeds in an Arkansas land development deal labeled “Whitewater.”

D.        Clinton and the World:  Focused on domestic matters, Clinton had a difficult time with several early foreign policy problems, notably in Somalia and the Balkans, but he achieved some success in brokering peace negotiations between the British and Ireland, as well as between Israel and the PLO.

A Republican revolution took place during the mid-term elections of 1994, as Newt Gingrich and others offered a “Contract with America” and gained control of Congress.

Race relations were clearly still a problem for America, as became clear in the polarization that took place between whites and blacks over the case of O. J. Simpson, a black athlete accused of murdering his ex-wife, and in California’s passage of Proposition 187, which barred illegal immigrants from receiving state aid.

Once they became the majority party in Congress, Republicans found it simple to accomplish some of their goals but next to impossible to achieve others.

A.       Tragedy in Oklahoma City:  National tragedy struck in April 1995 when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, killing 168 people and shocking the nation when it became known that internal terrorists were responsible, yet providing President Clinton with an opportunity to reconnect with the American people.

B.        The Republicans Falter:  Plagued with personal problems, Clinton nevertheless challenged Republican domination in mid-1995 by vetoing a spending measure that would have drastically cut education funding.

C.       Republicans had come to believe that they only needed the right person to defeat Clinton in 1996, and they thought they had found their man in Senator Robert Dole.

D.       Clinton Resurgent:  Bosnia:  Confounding his critics, Clinton managed to broker a peace deal in the Balkans, and his political star once again was on the rise.

Matters other than politics captivated Americans during 1995, most notably the acquittal of O.J. Simpson.

A.       Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan organized a Million Man March on Washington, D.C., to initiate a period of “atonement and reconciliation” for black men, but his harsh rhetoric turned off many black Americans.

B.        Americans became polarized over the issue of racial and ethnic diversity, with the highly charged terms “multiculturalism” and “political correctness” illustrating the divisions within the country.

C.       A battle over gay rights took center stage as well, as homosexuals pressed for the same rights as heterosexual couples and protection from hate crimes, but conservatives fought these ideas passionately.

D.       Affirmative action also continued to cause debate, as some whites complained of reverse discrimination and some court cases seemed to support their claims.

Clinton won a second term in 1996 after a Republican shutdown of the Congress angered many Americans, and for a time it appeared that his legacy would be a positive one.

A.       Newt Gingrich, once the darling of the Republican party, came to be viewed by many Americans as peevish and petty, and his prominent position hurt the party overall.

B.        First Lady Hilary Clinton had her own problems, as special prosecutor Kenneth Starr zeroed in on her involvement in the Whitewater affair, but no direct evidence against her materialized.

C.       The Republicans did choose Bob Dole as their candidate, but even Clinton’s continuing legal battles did little to turn Americans against him.

D.       The Rise of the Internet:  Computers became a powerful force in American culture, with the rise of the Internet changing ordinary people’s lives as perhaps nothing else had ever done.

E.        Welfare and Other Reforms in Congress:  As the presidential conventions approached, Congress reached political compromises with the White House, and major welfare reforms were enacted.

F.        A Mixed Result:  With Dole running for the Republicans, Ross Perot once again entered the fray, and once again, his candidacy helped elevate the Democrats to victory, even in the face of continuing political scandals for Clinton.

G.       A New Cabinet:  Clinton began his second administration with a shake-up of his cabinet; he named Madeline Albright his secretary of state and Republican William Cohen secretary of defense, thus illustrating his ability to build coalitions.

H.       The stock market soared, a budget surplus seemed possible, and in response, Clinton chose to focus on small issues and leave major projects for a later time.

I.          An Ambitious Foreign Policy:  Clinton did have an aggressive foreign agenda, pushing for inclusion of Eastern European nations into NATO and pressing both sides in the Middle East conflict to continue their efforts toward peace.

The last two years of Clinton’s presidency were filled with controversy and upheaval, as the president was tied to sex scandals as well as to campaign finance misdeeds.

A.       The Monica Lewinsky Scandal:  After several months of denial in 1998, Clinton finally admitted to an “inappropriate” relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and the nation absorbed all the sordid details as Kenneth Starr’s investigation zeroed in on when and to what degree Clinton had lied.

B.        The 1998 Elections:  Republicans hoped that Clinton’s conduct would bring out the voters for them in the 1998 elections, but the Democrats actually gained a few seats in Congress.

C.       Clinton Impeached and Acquitted:  Clinton faced impeachment early in 1999, but he was acquitted on all charges, despite the agreement of many that he was probably guilty on all counts.

D.       The 2000 Presidential Campaign:  Bush versus Gore:  The stage was set for a tumultuous campaign in 2000, and the candidates did not disappoint; Vice President Al Gore held on in a contested election that required a decision from the Supreme Court to put George W. Bush, son of the former president, in office.

During his first months in office, Bush operated as the conservative that he was, and a friendly Congress enacted his tax cut proposal before the move of Republican James Jeffords to Independent status gave control of the Senate to the Democrats.

A.       Other matters ceased to be important on September 11, 2001, when international terrorists led by Osama bin Laden attacked America.

Bush sent troops into Afghanistan to search for bin Laden and to remove from power the Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic sect that had seized control of that country in 1996.

The president also tied Saddam Hussein of Iraq to the war on terrorism, and late in 2002 the United Nations agreed to a resolution ordering Hussein to rid his country of weapons of mass destruction.

Responding strongly yet calmly to the terrorist threat, Bush saw his ratings skyrocket in the aftermath of “9-11.”

In March of 2003, coalition forces led by the U.S. invaded Iraq and freed the Iraqi people from the rule of Sadaam Hussein.

Although the major military operations ended soon after the invasion began, the Iraqi resistance launched guerrilla attacks against the coalition forces.

               As the war ground on, Democrats began to grow disillusioned with the war

effort and began actively campaigning to promote new leadership in the White House.

               1.     John F. Kerry was nominated as the Democratic candidate for the 2004

                       election.

               2.     In the largest voter turnout in U.S. history, George W. Bush won reelection by a

                       significant margin.

Conclusion: As the new millennium arrived in 2001, Americans enjoyed optimism and confidence about the future, but by the end of that year the situation had changed dramatically. Bill Clinton’s administration had been filled with political and personal missteps, yet his management of the economy caused many Americans to look the other way. James Carville’s statement that “It’s the economy, stupid,” appeared to be a valid one. Yet Al Gore was unable to capitalize on Clinton’s record, and George W. Bush came to the presidency in 2001 determined to bring a sense of security to the country. September 11, 2001 changed that agenda, and up to 2005 his time in office was spent mostly in fighting terrorism around the world. In 2004, Bush faced Vietnam veteran Senator John Kerry, but was able to defeat him while winning a majority of the popular vote. The last time a president had won over half of the votes cast was in 1988, when George H.W. Bush won the presidency.