♪ ♪
(helicopter blades whirring)
(sirens wailing)
BILL CLINTON:
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker,
my fellow Americans.
Again, we are here
in the sanctuary of democracy,
and once again,
our democracy has spoken.
NARRATOR:
On January 24, 1995,
President Bill Clinton
addressed Congress
and the American people.
Two years into his presidency,
and just months after suffering
the worst midterm election
defeat in modern history,
he was chastened and humble.
And now all of us,
Republicans and Democrats alike,
must say, "We hear you.
We will work together to earn
the jobs you have given us."
(audience applauding)
♪ ♪
MARK PENN:
After the midterms,
the president, I think, felt
that he was almost a hostage
in his own White House.
He was unhappy
with the White House staff,
he was unhappy
with the policy direction,
and so he actually began
a very quiet operation
to begin to change
his administration.
NARRATOR:
Beginning in early 1995,
White House staffers
began to notice
a change in the president.
His speeches contained
unfamiliar language
and cadences.
In meetings, he'd get up
abruptly and leave the room.
Many aides felt he was
no longer listening to them.
ROBERT REICH:
I recall a meeting
that the president's
economic advisers
and political advisers
were having
about how he was going
to spend the next three weeks,
what themes he was going
to emphasize.
And I remember somebody
from the back of the room,
I think it was Erskine Bowles,
then the president's
chief of staff,
saying,
"This is all irrelevant."
Irrelevant?
We're the staff.
We are the people
who help the president.
Why are we irrelevant?
And he didn't exactly say.
He said there was some other
force in the White House.
And again and again,
there seemed to be instances--
it was almost like in astronomy,
there's a black hole,
and you can only tell it's there
because planets begin moving
into its gravitational orbit.
But you look
and there's nothing there.
That was Dick Morris.
Dick Morris was the black hole.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR:
Dick Morris,
an abrasive political consultant
from New York,
had a history with the Clintons
that went all the way back
to Arkansas.
HARRIS:
Other than Hillary Clinton,
he was the most important
political adviser
that Bill Clinton had had
over the course of his career.
He was there for the very first
election to governor in 1978
and had been with Bill Clinton
for most of the Arkansas
gubernatorial years.
NARRATOR:
Morris set up shop
in the White House
and began to chair
weekly strategy meetings
that were attended by most of
the president's senior staff.
HAROLD ICKES:
Clinton typically dominates
any group or discussion
that he's in.
In the meetings on the second
floor of the residence,
which we had every week,
Clinton would literally
sit there for an hour sometimes,
hardly saying a word,
listening to Morris.
MORRIS:
When I first started to work
for Clinton in the White House,
he had two big negatives:
a third of the country
thought he was immoral
and a third of the country
thought he was weak,
and I basically went to him
and I said,
"I can't do much
about the immoral,
but we sure can solve the weak."
And therefore we embarked
on a conscious strategy
of making sure people
saw Clinton as strong.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR:
The heart of Morris's operation
was his polling,
which he used to diagnose
where Clinton's weaknesses lay
and how he could correct them.
HARRIS:
Polling became
absolutely central.
How do we present ourselves as
an alternative to Newt Gingrich?
How are people
seeing the president?
What sort of policies
would make them feel better
about Bill Clinton?
JOE KLEIN:
They polled everything.
They polled every last word
that came out of his mouth.
They polled where he should go
on vacation.
Instead of going
to Martha's Vineyard,
that elite island
off the coast of Massachusetts,
they had him riding a horse
in Wyoming.
I think Bill Clinton's allergic
to horses.
But that's what the focus groups
said would be
more, a more acceptable
vacation.
MORRIS:
One of the big problems
was the relationship
between Bill and Hillary.
Voters thought that it was
a zero-sum game,
that for Hillary to be strong,
Bill would have to be weak.
And as a result, the perception
of Hillary's strength
became a perception
of Bill's weakness.
The polling made me
understand that,
and when I came back
to work for Clinton,
one of the first things I did
was to tell Hillary,
"You can be as influential
as you want to be,
"but do it in private.
"Don't sit in
on the strategy meetings,
"don't make the appointments,
"don't make everybody
be cleared with you.
"At the bedroom at night,
tell him what to do,
but don't let it be seen
in public."
♪ ♪
NARRATOR:
Morris's advice hit home.
After the stunning defeat
in the midterm elections,
Hillary had received
a large share of the blame.
ICKES:
She was outspoken, she was
smart, she was hard-driving,
and some people resented her.
Remember, during the campaign,
there was two
for the price of one?
Well, people aren't electing
two for the price of one.
They're electing the president.
GAIL SHEEHY:
She had been caught out
trying to be a co-president.
That just wasn't gonna fly,
and that's when she had to begin
to really re-examine,
again, as she did
as governor's wife,
"What does the public
want from me in this role?"
And to take on gradually
a little bit more of the
traditional role of first lady.
Well, welcome to the White House
and to the beginning
of the Christmas season here.
NARRATOR:
Unsatisfied by her ceremonial
role as first lady,
Hillary began working on issues
important to her,
but not alarming to the public.
She began writing
a book about children
and traveled abroad with Chelsea
to advocate for women's rights.
She wrote a weekly
syndicated column,
and even consulted a psychic
in the White House.
But it wasn't enough.
SHEEHY:
She felt, for one of the rare
times in her life,
completely depressed.
She said everything that she
was doing wasn't working.
She just didn't know
what to do anymore,
because she really wanted
to be in there
right at Bill Clinton's side,
fighting all the political
battles that he was doing.
The president wants to defend
Washington bureaucracy,
Washington red tape,
and Washington spending,
and higher taxes to pay
for less out of Washington.
NARRATOR:
While the Clintons struggled
to find their way back
from the political wilderness,
their rival, Republican speaker
of the House Newt Gingrich,
was dominating politics
in Washington.
TRENT LOTT:
I think Newt felt like he had
led a great revolution
and led the House--
and, and the Senate,
for that matter-- to victory,
and that he could...
we could be the, you know,
the driving force in this city,
and that he was, in effect,
comparable or equal
to the president.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR:
Gingrich and his
newly elected army
of Republican representatives
quickly passed bill after bill
from their
"Contract with America."
Sensing his strength, Gingrich
was intent on drawing Clinton
into a political showdown
that would determine, once and
for all, who was in charge.
♪ ♪
In the spring of 1995, Gingrich
picked his battleground.
I think the central issue
that we challenged
the Clinton administration on
was on the budget.
We wanted to balance the budget.
We thought that was the most
important domestic policy issue
that existed in the country,
and it was gonna be ugly, as all
deficit fights inevitably are.
What you currently have is
a system designed to be
a centralized bureaucracy.
NARRATOR:
In May, Gingrich unveiled a plan
to eliminate the federal budget
deficit in seven years
through huge cuts
in government spending.
Most of the cuts
would be concentrated
in two government
health insurance programs:
Medicare and Medicaid.
(cameras clicking)
Gingrich had managed
to shift the focus of power
and media attention
from Clinton to himself.
CHRIS JENNINGS:
Washington and the media
is all about
the new flavor of the month.
And the new flavor of the month
was not the Clinton
administration.
You had Newt Gingrich.
I mean, he was a powerful,
charismatic figure
who had an answer
to every question.
There are three themes that
define where we are right now.
JENNINGS:
And he not only
wasn't afraid to talk,
he longed to talk.
His problem was,
over time, he talked too much.
