If the Republican effort to impeach Bill Clinton had succeeded, then Al Gore would have become president.
The 2000 race would have been different. Gore runs as an incumbent and doesn’t pick Lieberman as a running mate. Florida isn’t as close and Gore wins.
The Republicans who won Congress in 1994 with their extreme hatred of Clinton would have hurt themselves in the long run.
Did they even consider this scenario?
I don’t know what they were considering at the time. In hindsight I think most observers agree that the impeachment was a trainwreck.
A trainwreck followed two years later by the election of a Republican president, two years after that a Republican Congress. Sounds like it was a rip-roaring success, to me.
Well “election” isn’t really an accurate word for what happened in 2000, and there was already a Republican Congress. Also, neither of those elections were affected in any way by the impeachment.
So all you have to do now is draw a connection between those events. 'Cause I think the Republican Congress thing had a lot more to do with September 11th than it did with the impeachment of Clinton.
And let’s not forget that Republicans did poorly in the Congressional election following the impeachment, with Gingrich stepping down.
It was a bad political move because it set it precendent that’s is ok to stoop that low.
I don’t think it was a bad political move in the sense of the OP because I doubt they expected him to be removed from office. They just wanted to tarnish his image and legacy out of spite.
I wouldn’t say they weren’t affected in any way by the impeachment. One of the things Bush ran on was that he’d bring honor and dignity back to the presidency, and the impeachment was a Republican attempt to spread the idea “Look how slimy and corrupt Clinton” is.
Yeah, but Bush lost.
Well, he clearly didn’t, because otherwise Al Gore would have been sitting in the Oval Office for all these years. But you don’t think public perception of Clinton corrpution didn’t get Bush votes he otherwise wouldn’t have?
He’s got a point, Dio. The impeachment was at least a factor in Gore’s campaign fuckups, including cutting out Clinton, not playing up their record like he could have and choosing a VP who didn’t help at all.
I seem to remember that after the impeachment proceedings against Clinton were in full swing, Gingrich asked for another Justice Department investigation into Al Gore. Because it was denied by the Justice Department, nobody made a big stink of it, but I remember thinking at the time, “Jeez, is this the most obvious power ploy for the Presidency I’ve ever seen, or what?”
Besides that, the Republicans lost several veteran politicians from the fallout: Speaker Gingrich had to admit to his own marital indiscretions, and the proposed replacement Speaker Bob Livingston was rejected under similar accusations. The Republicans lost 5 seats in the election following.
Mmm… no, I’d have to say it wasn’t a stroke of political genius to impeach Clinton.
Moronic. I was stuck covering the damn thing. What a damn wreck.
Not only was it a bad idea politically for the reasons stated but I knew congressional Republicans who had that exact reservation and didn’t WANT impeachment to go forward for just that reason.
In addition, as mentioned, in the practical world it destroyed the political careers of Gingrich (though he appears to want to try again) and Livingston and damaged the career of Henry Hyde for his ‘youthful indiscretion’. For a while we considered a betting pool in the newsroom for how many would eventually be forced to resign in the Republican leadership.
They overreached. The misjudged their support and position and paid the price.
I think it was brilliant.
There was so much hoopla over ther triviality of the “crimes” when measured against the huge expense and wasted resources investigating and prosecutiong it, that impeachment is now off the table for any serious crimes by a president for the foreseeable future. No one can suggest impeachment without immediately being overwhelmen by a chorus of "this is nothing but a political move to undermune the president."
After Nixon, impeachment remained a valid (if “nuclear”) option to rein in a mad president who was abusing the public trust. After Clinton, it will be decades before any president could be impeached on any charges short of finding a live boy or dead girl in his bed.
But everything else changes as well. Maybe Bush would have decided to remain as Texas governor instead of challenging a sitting President, making the 2000 race different in almost all aspects?
Are you implying that a better candidate was waiting in the wings, in case GW didn’t run? The Republicans were fielding their best player and he barely won. It’s not unreasonable to assume that without the impeachment Gore would’ve taken the presidency.
What tomndebb said. Clinton vaccinated Bush against impeachment. I think the case against Bush is a thousand fold stronger than that against Clinton, but the Rethugs can paint any future impeachment attempt as political retribution.
I can’t agree with tomndebb’s position unless I can see proof that the impeachment proceedings were put forward, and Gingrich sacrificed, as a deliberate move to install a neocon President with immunity from impeachment.
Frankly, I think everything that happened after the impeachment succeeded (and the conviction fell through) has been the work of brilliant opportunism, not design. I mean, how could anybody predict that Bush would be installed into the Presidency by the Supreme Court? How could anybody predict the voting fiascos of 2000 and 2004? It seems like instituting false impeachment proceedings and taking a huge political hit (in the short term) for a long-term gain like that would be extremely risky.
After all, Gore might have won and become immune to impeachment. Then where would the strategy have been?
That was the result, but I don’t think they could think that far ahead, or count so strongly on things to go their way. They could’ve been inoculating another Democratic president [whom they perceived to be] 10x worse than Clinton.
Edit: Fish, looks like you and I feel pretty much the same about this. Funny how that works out, innit?
The Clinton impeachment was a complete success.
It made Congress impotent. That allowed the succeeding president to rape, plunder and pillage the Constitution with impunity.