Reviewed by:

• Clinton's Elections: 1992, 1996, and the Birth of a New Era of Governance by Michael Nelson
• Patrick J. Maney

The presidential campaign account, as we know it, dates to the early 1960s. It includes enduring classics by the likes of Theodore H. White, Timothy Crouse, Hunter S. Thompson, and Richard Ben Cramer. But in recent decades, the genre has devolved into a kind of anecdote-driven, gossipy tabloid purporting to relate the behind-the-scenes story of the campaign.

Michael Nelson's book is a throwback to an earlier time. It is a careful, balanced, and concise account not only of Bill Clinton's campaigns in 1992 and 1996, but also of the preceding George H. W. Bush–Michael Dukakis contest in 1988. In each case, Nelson covers the campaigns from the primaries and caucuses through the conventions to the election itself. He addresses the concurrent congressional elections, which one does not often find in the president-centric election accounts that dominate the field. Nelson, a political scientist at Rhodes College, provides no new disclosures or eye-catching scoops—just plenty of context and perspective, much of it drawn from a deep immersion in the political and social science literature. On its own, Clinton's Elections: 1992, 1996, and the Birth of a New Era of Governance stands as a reliable reference work for the contests it describes.

But there is also an argument here, and it is that Clinton's two elections birthed "a new era of governance," an era that persists to the present. For almost two centuries, voters, with rare exception, elected presidents and congresses of the same party. That changed in 1968 when divided government took hold. One party usually controlled the White House, the other both houses of Congress. This arrangement did not please everybody, but presidents and legislators accommodated themselves to the predictability and stability it afforded.

Enter William Jefferson Clinton in 1992 and the dawn of a new era. With Democrats controlling both the White House and Congress, it initially appeared that the historical, pre-1968 pattern had reasserted itself. But then, in 1994, Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years. Presidents had suffered midterm election setbacks before. This time it was different. The circumstances emboldened Republicans, and later Democrats, to draw blood right from the beginning. Presidential honeymoons became a thing of the past. From then on, the partisan scramble for control began the day after the inauguration. Politics reached an almost unprecedented level of volatility. One result, Nelson writes, "is that the old pattern of sometimes united, sometimes divided government [gave] rise to … divided government in fact even when united in form" (p. 216). The new era was not devoid of accomplishment. Even with the GOP in control of Congress, Clinton craftily achieved [End Page 370] welfare reform and a variety of deregulatory measures. Later, President Barack Obama exploited a narrow window of opportunity to pass economic recovery and health care measures. More often than not, however, partisans in both parties abandoned the legislative process in favor of executive action, congressional investigations, and judicial initiatives. Combustible cultural issues added fuel to the fire. As politics became increasingly toxic, events once deemed nearly unthinkable, such as government shutdowns or the threat of government shutdowns, became routine. It is a bleak picture—and most of it took place even before Donald J. Trump became president.

Nelson does not ignore the role of personality in his story. He sketches telling portraits of Clinton and the other key players. But one instigator, Newt Gingrich, deserves even more attention. As Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Orenstein (It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism [New York, 2012]) and, more recently, Julian E. Zelizer (Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party [New York, 2020]) have...

审核人：

• 克林顿（Clinton）的选举：1992年，1996年，以及迈克尔·尼尔森（Michael Nelson）领导的新治理时代的诞生
• 帕特里克·马尼（Patrick J.Maney）

众所周知，总统竞选活动的历史可以追溯到1960年代初。它包括Theodore H. White，Timothy Crouse，Hunter S. Thompson和Richard Ben Cramer等人的经典作品。但是在最近的几十年中，这种流派演变成了一种由轶事驱动的，八卦的小报，目的是与竞选活动的幕后故事联系起来。

迈克尔·纳尔逊（Michael Nelson）的书可以追溯到更早的时期。这不仅是比尔·克林顿（Bill Clinton）在1992年和1996年的竞选活动，而且是1988年乔治·HW·布什·迈克尔·杜卡基斯（George HW Bush-Michael Dukakis）此前的竞选活动的审慎，平衡和简洁的描述。选举本身的惯例。他在同时举行的国会选举中发言，而在以总统为中心的选举中，这一领域并不常见。罗德学院的政治学家纳尔逊（Nelson）没有提供任何新的披露或引人注目的内容，只是提供了足够的背景信息和观点，其中很大一部分来自对政治和社会科学文献的深入了解。就其本身而言，希拉里的选举：1992年，1996年和治理的新时代的诞生 可以作为它描述的比赛的可靠参考书。

但是这里也有一个争论，那就是克林顿的两次大选诞生了“新的治理时代”，这个时代一直持续到现在。在将近两个世纪的时间里，选民们极少例外地选举了同一政党的总统和代表大会。1968年分裂政府成立后，情况发生了变化。一个政党通常控制着白宫，另两个政党则控制着国会两院。这种安排并没有使所有人都满意，但是总统和立法者让自己适应了所提供的可预测性和稳定性。

1992年威廉姆·杰斐逊·克林顿（William Jefferson Clinton）进入，一个新时代的来临。在民主党人同时控制白宫和国会的情况下，最初看来是1968年以前的历史格局重新确立了自己的地位。但是随后，在1994年，共和党人四十年来首次获得对国会两院的控制权。总统以前曾遭受过中期选举的挫折。这次不一样了。这种情况使共和党人和后来的民主党人从一开始就勇往直前。总统蜜月已成为过去。从那时起，党派争夺控制权就在就职典礼的第二天开始。政治达到了前所未有的动荡程度。尼尔森（Nelson）写道：“结果是，有时团结在一起的旧模式，[第370页]福利改革和各种放松管制的措施。后来，巴拉克·奥巴马（Barack Obama）总统利用了狭窄的机会来通过经济复苏和医疗保健措施。但是，双方的党派人士往往都放弃立法程序，而倾向于行政行动，国会调查和司法举措。可燃的文化问题加剧了大火。随着政治变得越来越有害，曾经被认为几乎不可想象的事件（例如政府关闭或政府关闭的威胁）已成为例行公事。这是一幅惨淡的景象，其中大部分发生在唐纳德·J·特朗普（Donald J. Trump）成为总统之前。

尼尔森并没有忽略性格在他的故事中的作用。他以素描的方式讲述了克林顿和其他主要人物的肖像。但是，其中一位倡导者纽特·金里奇（Newt Gingrich）应该得到更多的关注。正如托马斯·曼和Norman J.奥伦斯坦（它甚至更糟的是比它看起来：如何在美国宪政制度相撞极端主义的新政治[纽约，2012]），以及最近，朱利安E.泽利泽（烧毁众议院：纽特·金里奇（Newt Gingrich），议长的垮台和新共和党的崛起[纽约，2020年]）...