aggressive attempt to do so. The situation required the President to exercise leadership of
public opinion, and the method employed here provided a valid indicator of those efforts.
In January of 1994, 51% of Americans gave Clinton “poor” marks for reducing
the deficit (in a Time magazine poll); a New York Times poll found that 68% said that he
had not made significant progress in reducing the deficit. Most notably, a Newsweek poll
in November 1994 showed that 54% of Americans thought that the deficit had not been
reduced in the first two years of Clinton’s term – a staggering factual error, since it had
actually dropped by almost $100 billion (nearly a third). Given these assessments, it is
easy to understand why voters delivered both houses of Congress to Republicans in the
Midterm elections. Clinton quickly learned his lesson, and his next economic proposal
required no leadership, offering the middle class tax cut he had rejected – and then some.
Clinton reversed course, allowing us to address this question in the following section:
When the president is following public opinion, will the coding method correctly reflect
that by registering very low scores?
A Case of Following the Public: The Middle Class Bill of Rights
After suffering the ignominious 1994 elections, Clinton rebounded aggressively
and strategically. The election was widely perceived as a rebuke of Clinton, rather than
an enthusiastic endorsement of the Republican agenda. The President, then, could seize
the opportunity to reclaim the position he had staked out as a candidate – the pragmatic,
ideologically moderate politician. He secretly employed the services of his old friend,
political strategist Dick Morris, to help him devise a way to move back into the political
center. Morris did not disappoint, arguing that Clinton would have to distinguish himself
not only from the conservative Republicans, but also from the liberal wing of his own
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Convention