When he took office in 1993, Bill Clinton was an easy mark. Elected in a three-candidate contest with far from majority support, he quickly took on the aura of a politically troubled president. Fierce attacks from talk radio and his Republican opposition questioned his ideas, his policies, his appointments to office, and, most of all, his character. Lacking the customary bubble of public support we call the honeymoon, Clinton started his presidency in trouble with the public and stayed there for his first two years. Democrats were depressed over his (and their) prospects. Potential Republican challengers for 1996 emerged early and in number, planning to fight the “real” presidential election in Republican primaries – a prelude to an easy contest with Clinton. Then it got worse. When he fought the “Republican Revolution” in the 1994 congressional elections and lost, the election was universally interpreted as a repudiation of the Clinton Presidency. After it was over, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pronounced the president “irrelevant.”

But then something happened. As a beleaguered Clinton began to oppose a congress controlled by his political enemies, his standing with the public began to rise. Ever so slightly, month by month, more Americans began to say that they approved of the way he was handling his job as president. As he contested with the Republican congress over the budget – and ultimately over the scope of the federal government in American life – he began to become tenacious in defense of moderate positions.