Reelection : William Jefferson Clinton as a native-son presidential candidate / Hanes Walton, Jr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walton, Hanes, Jr., 1941-2013.

Series:

Power, conflict, and democracy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Elections--Arkansas.

Elections.

Voting--Arkansas.

Voting.

African Americans--Suffrage--Arkansas.

African Americans.

Clinton, Bill, 1946-.

Clinton, Bill.

African Americans--Suffrage.

Arkansas.

Physical Description:

xxxv, 308 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2000]

Summary:

Since the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, only three Democrats have captured the White House--all of them natives of southern states. The ascendancy and reelection of Bill Clinton to the presidency is a prime example of this phenomenon, and although books have been published on the "native son" psychological variable in electoral contests, no work to date has investigated this aspect of Clinton's political career.

Covering all of Clinton's twenty-one elections to state and national offices, Hanes Walton Jr. explores one of the political success stories of our century, showing how Clinton's popularity in his southern home has had a profound influence on his national electoral dominance. Walton combines the native-son theory with the issue of race to describe how the Democrats have built a vital power base in the South, in large measure because of their popularity among African-American voters.

With an epilogue on the Monica Lewinsky scandal and its effect on the Democratic Party, Reelection is a major contribution to the literature on the psychology of national elections at a time when its insight into the possibility of Democratic leadership into the next century is most critical.

Contents:

Presidential Politics and the Native-Son Contextual Variable: A Prologue / Vincent C. Hutchings xxv

1. Elections 1

Part 1 Epistemology and the Native-Son Candidate 23

2. Theory 27

3. Methodology 49

Part 2 The Political Context of a Native-Son Candidate 59

4. The Arkansas Electorate 67

5. The African American Electorate 89

Part 3 The Making of a Native-Son Candidate 117

6. The Congressional Vote for Clinton 119

7. The Attorney General Vote for Clinton 133

8. The Gubernatorial Vote for Clinton 145

Part 4 The Southern Native-Son Presidential Candidate 165

9. The Presidential Vote for Clinton 169

10. The Regional Vote: Clinton and Carter 187

Part 5 The Native-Son Candidate and the Democratic Party 209

11. The Democratic Party in Presidential Elections: The Native-Son Theory Revisited 215

12. Epilogue: Scandal, Public Support, and the Native-Son Variable 237

Appendix The Election Data: A Research Note 253.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [261]-294) and index.

ISBN:

0231115520

0231115539

OCLC:

123137314