Bill clinton age of President of the United States

Bill clinton, now 50, becomes the first Democrat elected to two terms as president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, his victory was unpredictable two years earlier, when his health reform project failed and the Republicans took control of the Senate and the House of Representatives. A vigorous recovery of the economy, however, gives new impetus to the president who has quite easy access to Bob Dole, a sixty-year-old veteran of the Vietnam War, who was a senator from Kansas for several years. After some hesitation, Texan billionaire H. (Henry) Ross Perot also entered the race. His result is, however, lower than that of 1992 when he obtained only 8,085,402 (8.4%) votes. Despite Democratic gains, Republicans retain majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Albert “Al” Gore, seen by many as a future presidential candidate, remains vice president.

Bill Clinton Age 78 years on 19 August 1946

For the last elections of the 20th century, the Americans decided without deciding, preferring stability to adventure. By returning Bill clinton to the White House and retaining a Republican-dominated Congress in both chambers, America has confirmed the clearest message of this campaign: pushing back against the extremes, voters want to be governed at the center. In fact, Bill clinton‘s mandate remains ambiguous: he becomes the first Democratic president to obtain a second term since Franklin Roosevelt, but, at the same time, his actions will be under the control of a Congress which had never had a Republican majority twice in a row since the 1930s. For these four years to come, no one doubts that Bill clinton should remain the president of this “Central America”. His priorities are known: achieving a balanced budget, implementing cost-saving measures for the health system, trying to lower taxes here and there. Already, the President has repeatedly boasted of having reduced the size of government, ‘like no one had done before him’.”

Libération (France), November 7, 1996, p. 6.

Sylvie Kauffman, “Bob Dole’s defeat leaves room for a new generation of Republicans”

This defeat is first and foremost the personal failure of Bob Dole. Disconnected from the daily concerns of Americans by thirty-five years spent in the inner circle of Washington, a poor orator, served by an electoral team with whom he never ceased to be in conflict, Bob Dole never managed to hang on to the electorate (…) But the Republican Party also has its share of responsibility. Bob Dole inherited a profound misunderstanding about the meaning of the Republican triumph in the 1994 legislative elections. The architect of this victory, Newt Gingrich, saw a mandate for a right-wing “revolution” in what was only a rejection of the supremacy of the Democrats, whose left wing dominated Congress. Pumped up, Newt Gingrich pushed his advantage too far and made huge tactical errors in Congress, threatening to sacrifice social programs, like retiree health insurance, while cutting taxes on higher incomes. “Newt Gingrich scared the shit out of voters,” a local Republican official in Ohio recently confided, and the first to flee the Republicans were women, frightened by the image of a party too close to the crusaders of the fight against abortion and militias, the gun lobby and the tobacco lobby.”

Le Monde (France), November 7, 1996, p. 2.

François Brousseau, “Ambiguous America”

Re-election which now puts Mr. Bill clinton – along with Franklin Delano Roosevelt – on the short list of Democratic presidents re-elected to a second term this century. But unlike FDR, and despite his clever slogan “A bridge to the 21st century”, Bill Clinton does not appear as the passionate visionary who wants to relaunch American society towards new frontiers. And despite the political exploit of this great charmer, Tuesday’s message bears the mark of a certain popular reserve, in the country supposedly “the largest democracy in the world.” When less than 50% of the population takes the trouble to vote, can we speak of enthusiasm, of a healthy democracy? For more than half of people, representative democracy no longer represents the place of the polis, the place “where it happens”: a worrying fact, which places the United States in the basement of democratic countries in this regard. Bill clinton triumph? The most we can say is that on Tuesday, some Americans – a little less than a quarter of the adult population, to be more precise – placed their cross in front of the name of the outgoing president. This is the exact measure of this “triumph”.”

Le Devoir (Quebec, Canada), November 7, 1996, p. A6.

Todd S. Purdum, «The Second Term : Promise and Peril»

That juxtaposition of expansive impulses and accommodationist tactics has been the hallmark of Mr. Bill clinton‘s career ever since he was turned out of office after one term as Governor of Arkansas by voters who thought he had overreached, only to win re-election two years later as a chastened, scaled-down centrist. Once again Mr. Bill clinton has a chance for a fresh start, and his capacity for adjustment has repeatedly helped him turn weaknesses into strengths and setbacks into progress, in a perpetual campaign in which winning is all. The tantalizing difference is that for the first time in his life, Mr. Bill clinton will be running no longer for re-election but instead for his place in the history books he loves to read. In their more exhausted moments, Mr. Bill clinton‘s own longest-serving aides sometimes wonder aloud what he stands for besides winning, and they assume the world will finally find out.»

New York Times (United States), November 6, 1996.

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