Given what I’ve seen of the McCain campaign so far, an incumbent Gore would have easily beaten McCain in 2000 if Bush had not run.
Wait, what are we saying here? Are we saying that Clinton was convicted and removed from office making Gore the incumbent President heading into 2000, or are we saying that impeachment never happened at all, allowing Gore to use Clinton more in his campaign as a positive?
An 8-yr younger McCain who did not have the albatross of a Bush II Admin would have probably been much feistier & sure of himself than the present McCain.
McCain was eight years younger. Straight talk. Not a right wing conservative, calling Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell “agents of intolerance”. A lot of swing voters there. War hero. I think McCain beats President Gore in this scenario.
Remember the weekend before the 2000 election, Bush was estimated to win about 320 EVs with 52 or 53 percent of the popular vote before the DUI story came out. Pretty close by historical standards, but not the nailbiter it really was.
The basic motive of the 2008 impeachment was IMO petty jealousy; the Congressional Republicans simply had to beat Clinton at something, had to find some way to “get him”. Perhaps rendering him politically impotent was a secondary motive, but given Clinton’s history (he’d skated past many such scandals in the past), his popularity with the electorate (his approval rating never fell below 57% during the last three years of his presidency, and even during the height of the scandal he was comfortably in the 60’s), the rather obvious characterization of Ken Starr’s investigation as a fishing expedition (remember, this all started with Whitewater and went thru Travelgate and Filegate before stumbling on Lewinsky as part of an investigation into the Paula Jones lawsuit), it’s hard to believe anyone thought it would be a good political move going in. The elections in the fall of 1998 (just before impeachment) prove that to a T: Congressional Republicans lost badly, Gingrich and his replacement Livingston were effectively booed off the stage, and yet the great machine roared on even though it was obvious to everyone Clinton would not be damaged in the least.
But, as usual, Karl Rove made chicken salad out of chicken shit. With his encouragement, people soon forgot the rank political opportunism of the right in this sad little episode and focused on the one fact even Clinton admitted: That he was “not completely truthful” in court. Suddenly moral character in the president was an issue; tie in Gore’s false yet widely-believed penchant for exaggeration, and you’ve paved the way for the born-again man of integrity, GWB. I don’t think the Republicans planned the impeachment as a groundwork toward electing a morally-superior candidate like Bush, but that was the net result. Bush would not have been the Republican candidate if not for his appearance as the perfect moral antidote to the “stain” Clinton’s “lie” had supposedly left on the presidency (such was the narrative of 2000, a full year after the events themselves had slipped down the memory hole).
I’ll also agree with Tomndebb’s assertion that, practically, the overly-political use of impeachment in 1998 raised the bar tremendously for future accusations–IMO too far if the excesses of the current chief executive aren’t considered impeachable offenses.
Clinton is convicted by the Senate. He is removed from office. Gore becomes president and runs for reelection in 2000.
In retrospect, they should simply have censured him. That would have made it clear that he was guilty (he was) and not taken the risk of garnering sympathy for the Sleazebag-in-Chief.
These conspiracy theories about plans to inoculate future Republicans against impeachment are as ridiculous as such things usually are.
Regards,
Shodan
The Republican Ccongress was in response to Hillary’s health care project.
I assumed he meant the victories in 2002, though, which gave them a majority in the Senate and a tighter grip in the House. But since the Republicans already had the House, which I forgot about, you’re right.
In 2000 I would’ve voted for McCain over Gore hands down. Straight talk maverick Vs. stuffed shirt/robot. It wouldn’t even be a contest.
In 2008, if they ran against each other, it would be the other way around. My opinion of each man has basically reversed since then.
Surprisingly, I agree with you on both points. Compared with what Nixon did (and what Bush is being accused of now), Clinton’s offenses were small potatoes so there probably would’ve been more of a consensus for censure as punishment than removal from office. However, the Republicans were so petty and vindictive that they just HAD to go for his removal even though everybody outside their fanatical circle knew getting it would be impossible. Thus, more money and time was wasted on something that could’ve been easily settled. Senator Sam Ervin once said he saw no redeeming features in Watergate. I feel the same way about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment that followed. I can’t think of anybody who came out of that tiresome farce looking good.
As for it being an attempt to innoculate future Republican presidents from impeachment, I don’t think that was ever a conscious plan on their part. In 1999, it was just as likely that the Democrats would hold on to the White House so such a ploy, assuming for the sake of argument that it existed, could’ve easily backfired on the GOP.
And congressional corruption. One of the big points in the Contract with America was Congressional reform.
I’d disagree. The blatant partisanship of Clinton’s impeachment lowered the bar on all future impeachments. Impeachments like Johnson’s and Nixon’s were based on the question “Is this issue important enough?” After Clinton’s impeachment, the question’s going to be “Do we have the numbers on our side to get away with this?”
I’d disagree with that. 
Johnson’s impeachment, by most historical views, was a total partisan act by the Radical Republicans. Nixon’s crimes were to date the only ones committed by a President that both parties agreed would rise to the level of removal from office (and he was forced to resign before facing his certain removal)
The Dems would have impeached Reagan over Iran-Contra, and Bush II over the Iraq war if the votes were there. The GOP was united enough in its hatred of Clinton to have the votes to proceed.
The great thing about the system is that it requires a broad bi-partisan agreement to get rid of a President…
I’m not sure how you get there. Clinton’s impeachment was clearly motivated by nothing buty politics, but the reaction of the public to the impeachment means that any effort to impeah a future president will be met with a withering outcry of public disdain that it was “just” politics, an opinion that will cause all serious efforts to impeach to fail.
(I will also point out that my “brilliant” comment was sarcastic. I do not have any belief that the Republicans were trying to destroy the impeachment process for the purpose of protecting GWB. Rather, they were simply so intent of destroying Clinton that they were willing to wreck a potentially effective tool in the system of checks and balances in order to accomplish that purpose.)
Thank heavens. I had spent the subsequent posts wondering if it was you or me who had lost our mind. If Clinton hadn’t been impeached, we could have been rid of GWB or at least Cheney 2-3 years ago, and we sure as hell could be rid of Cheney now! Instead, we have a Congress so terrified of cutting its own throat that it refuses to impeach an administration that has blatantly violated the law in extremely serious ways resulting in numerous deaths for both American citizens and others.
Heckuva job there, Newtie.
There were real issues like Reconstruction and the power of Congress over the President being argued over by two factions that have different plans.
There were no greater issues being decided by Clinton’s impeachment. The issue was basically who was going to come out of it with looking worse.
Impeachment used to be like declaring war: it was an issue that rose above party politics (or at least plausibly looked like it did). Now it’s been reduced to just another topic where politicans check the polls and decide whether their numbers will go up or down. That’s the lowering of the bar.
The old bar on impeachment was a major constitutional crisis. The new bar on impeachment is unpopular the President is. You seemed to be saying that the backlash against Congress will make future impeachments less likely. But I feel that unpopular Presidents will happen more often than major constitutional crises.
But right now, we have both a Constitutional crisis and an unpopular president, and yet there are no impeachment proceedings. Part of that is that the elections are quite close. But most of that is that the Congress is too afraid of the backlash to do it. IMHOYMMV.
Those issues were bullshit. They were invented because Johnson consistently vetoed the Repub’s reconstruction bills. A political disagreement; no crimes at all.
Again, Johnson’s impeachment certainly didn’t rise above party politics. It was fueled by it.