Oval Office

President Clinton contacted Dick Morris, an associate of seventeen years, one
month before the 1994 gubernatorial elections with one goal in mind, to win the
1996 presidential election. His intentions were to get Morris’s help to win
back the presidency and redefine his image as the Commander in Chief. With the
notion of the permanent campaign, Clinton was able to gain back public appeal
and win the 1996 election with ease. Recent history has shown that presidents
can not only be brought down by their failures but by their successes as well.

Although they may accomplish what they say they are going to, failures to
initiate new programs and innovate cause voters to lose interest. This was where
Dick Morris and the permanent campaign stepped in. Clinton employed Morris to
figure out which way the public was going on issues and what they really wanted
out of their president. What the majority of people wanted was change. The
public wanted a president who acted like a president. The use of extensive
polling helped Morris and Clinton determine the popular stances on issues, which
arguments were more persuasive, and why certain voters liked or disliked the
President. Clinton needed to get a clear idea of how he had gone wrong in the
eyes of his public in order to get back on track with them. Polling was not used
to tell the President what to do, but was a good gauge as to what the public
felt was important for him to do and where they stood as a society. Clinton’s
easy win in 1996 was a result of his new definition of the job and the new
substance that was added to his campaign. It was not the result of”spinning.” Spinning refers to when consultants or “spin doctors” change
the way in which their candidates and their positions on issues are presented.

Substance is not created. Their views are merely twisted to change the
public’s perception of them. What Dick Morris did with Bill Clinton was not
spinning. Morris used already set positions that had not been publicized and put
them out in the open. He used the Presidents basic themes and found new issues
that would accentuate his views on them. He never intended to change the
President’s mind or “flip flop” on anything but instead brought to
attention the Presidents already taken positions that would be popular among
voters. This added new substance to Clinton’s campaign. At first, instead of
following through with the things that won him the election in 1992, Clinton
sought to please his Congressional Democrats and gain party support. Morris felt
that if they continued to worry about pleasing congressional Democrats, they
would get nowhere. Clinton did not wish completely abandon his Democratic Party.

He only wished to change it. Another factor leading to President Clinton’s
success was Triangulation. The President succeeded in creating a third person
that accommodated the needs of both parties yet was unique to him. He attempted
to pull both sides more towards the center discovering a common ground in which
both parties’ views could be molded into one moderate consensus. One major
example of Triangulation was Clinton’s tax-cut. Morris explained that the
Republicans wanted tax cuts for the rich, and the Democrats did not want tax
cuts of any kind. To create a third argument Clinton proposed a broad-based tax
cut based on functional differences instead of economic class. This was greatly
approved by the public who was becoming much more concerned with society as a
whole rather than the individual. Another example was Clinton’s “Pile of
Vetoes Speech,” where he reached out to congressional Republicans to move more
towards the middle. Dick Morris urged the President to take moderate positions
overall but to take strong and opposing positions on the worst of the right wing
issues like abortion, gun control, and militia. The public was tired of
Republican extremism, and wanted to move forward. Dick Morris said, “In
politics, power and information are everything.” There was a great lack of
communication between the two parties. This ended when Clinton, Morris, and
Republican Trent Lott formed an alliance that would prove vital in the years to
come. Lott was a conservative but not extreme right wing. Clinton trusted him.

He was a man that honestly believed in doing what was best for the country. This
bi-partisan backchannel allowed them to coordinate their views to work for both
parties. Lott could help Clinton with Republican votes. In turn, Clinton could
let Lott know where he and the