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06/23/2004 Archived Entry: "When to Fold 'Em"

Posted by antle @ 07:59 PM EST [Link]

WHEN TO FOLD 'EM: The same week Bill Clinton begins his publicity blitz for his new book, repeatedly telling interviewers that he is proud to have never even considered resigning the presidency during the whole impeachment saga, Connecticut Gov. John Rowland announces that he is stepping down.

Why did Clinton survive when Rowland didn't? There are numerous differences between their situations and Rowland's legal difficulties were more complex, but there are two distinctions that I think are particularly important.

The first is that Clinton did a far better job of managing public opinion when his presidency was imperiled. Rowland responded to his legal troubles by just lying and stonewalling. Clinton lied and stonewalled too, but he also engaged in a ferocious campaign to demonize his opponents (Kenneth Starr and the Republicans in Congress) and exploited the public's sexual privacy concerns. Rowland, accused of accepting freebies from various cronies, did not have any detractors who lent themselves as well to being demonized as, say, Newt Gingrich. It is also a lot harder to argue that an inquiry into whether a sitting governor did favors for people in the state in exchange for goodies (home improvements, champagne, cigars, etc.) constitutes some sort of invasion of privacy.

Consequently, Clinton had only a third of the American people in favor of kicking him out office and less than half clamoring for his resignation, while Rowland was faced with a state where 70 percent of the voters wanted him to resign and 57 percent supported impeachment.

The second, and in my view more important, difference is that members of Rowland's own party wanted him out. Politicians can normally weather these types of crisises when their party stays unified behind them. They can usually survive if only backbenchers or squishier members of their party (liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats) break with them. But once their party's stalwarts, especially those in leadership positions, start to turn, the troubled politician is toast.

If people like Joe Lieberman and Robert Byrd had gone beyond denouncing Clinton in 1998 and instead called upon him to either resign or be removed from office, you can bet the man from Hope would have given resignation some thought. Because the Democrats largely remained united behind him, Clinton knew he would beat impeachment and therefore didn't have to consider resignation.