On Sundays in mid-February, people gather around their television sets, sometimes with family and friends, to watch the Super Bowl. An exclusively American spectacle, it’s a huge event with great absenteeism the next day.  Musical stars perform at half-time. Often, the game is exceedingly exciting. People cheer, post things, and talk about the game the next day at work around the proverbial water cooler. Occasionally, the game, and artist, suck. Boring. That is the presidential election of 1996.

  Bill Clinton appointed men of distinction to his cabinet like Warren Christopher (State), Llyod Bentsen (Treasury), and Les Aspen (defense). His problem was his White House staff, filled with many young campaign staffers out of their league in the Executive Mansion. There is a big difference between running a campaign and governing.

            You don’t begin a presidency with gays in the military as the first issue you tackle. Clinton had trouble getting an attorney general, a Travelgate scandal, the suicide of Vincent Foster and then there is Hillary. The president traditionally works in the West Wing (hence the name of the TV show) and the first lady’s operations in the East Wing. When Bill Clinton appointed his wife to chair a Health Care Task Force not every American was pleased.

            Clinton’s foil in the GOP was House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich. The two had an unusual number of similarities- southerners born in the mid-forties, both took the surnames of stepfathers, bright, articulate men with full heads of gray hair who were less than faithful husbands. Gingrich played a pivotal role in the end of compromise in Congress replacing it with gridlock. He was a distinct contrast to the Republican leader of the Senate, Bob Dole.

            Where Gingrich was more of an attention-starved bomb thrower, Dole was a Senate institutionalist. He was born in 1923, and was a three-sport athlete at the University of Kansas before World War II called him. Dole was severely wounded requiring a thirty-nine-month hospitalization. He was elected to the House in 1961, Senate in 1969, and was Gerald Ford’s running mate in 1976. He was known for his acerbic wit and sharp tongue. He ran for president in 1980, 1988, and was considering a final attempt in 1996. He would be seventy-three, which doesn’t seem that old today but was then.

            In the 1994 midterm elections, Gingrich’s Contract for America, also called the ‘Republican Revolution,’ saw the part pick up 54 seats in the House and 8 in the Senate. The wake-up call for Clinton. The economy was growing, the Cold War had ended, and Clinton brought in former adviser Dick Morris who advised a political strategy of triangulation. His staff adopted a quasi ‘Rose Garden strategy’ with White House events designed to reinforce the idea of Bill Clinton as presidential.

            Dole’s campaign floundered with a couple of unsettling staff shakeups. Dole didn’t enjoy campaigning while Bill Clinton did. Political pundit Roger Simon observed “On Bob Dole’s bad days he looked like Grandpa Munster. On his really bad days, he sounded like him.” Their twenty-four-year difference in age showed, old school vs. new school. They had debates, and Clinton was one of the only incumbents in the history of presidential debates to not falter on stage.

            The public was uninspired, and turnout was the lowest since 1924. Slightly less than half of eligible voters participated, favoring Clinton and staying the course. Clinton’s second term was mired by scandal and impeachment. Dole had left the Senate to focus on his campaign, and later did television advertisements including a spot for Viagra.            

In an unprecedented twist, both wives entered public service after this election. Elizabeth Dole had already been Secretary of Transportation and Labor. In 2000, she sought the Republican presidential nomination unsuccessfully but was elected to the US Senate from North Carolina in 2002 and served one term. Hillary Clinton was elected to the US Senate from New York in 2000 and 2006 and narrowly lost a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. After serving as Secretary of State from 2009-2013, she was the Democratic nominee in 2016 and won the popular vote but failed in the electoral college.