Why did congressional Republicans obsessively pursue the impeachment of President Bill Clinton when the 1998 midterm elections and public opinion polls suggested that the majority of Americans opposed it? Some claimed indignation over perjury, others outrage over immorality. But as Nicol Rae and Colton Campbell show, the driving force behind the impeachment was nothing less than the intensifying partisanship of American politics.Impeaching Clinton offers a fascinating case study of how the American political system operated during the 1990s and of the critical factors underpinning the political process. It particularly examines the congressional aspect of the drama to show that the Lewinsky affair was simply a trigger—that the context for impeachment had been set over the course of two decades of partisan warfare.Drawing on new interviews with six of the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee in 1998, Rae and Campbell reexamine why the House Republicans acted in defiance of electoral rationality on the impeachment issue, demonstrating that they took their cues from the voting party faithful rather than from the nation's centrist citizenry. The authors unravel the web of partisan politics to reveal how the pattern of events was determined, from the decision to open an impeachment inquiry to the eventual acquittal of the president.Rae and Campbell also look at the Judiciary Committee proceedings from the perspective of the Democratic minority, who helped shape media coverage and public opinion and the eventual Senate outcome. They show how the Senate was able to bring closure to this highly polarizing proceeding.Overdramatized by the media, the Clinton impeachment process was nevertheless the most extreme manifestation of partisan warfare in our time. The authors' special contribution here is to greatly expand our understanding not only of a particular constitutional crisis but also of a dynamic that still prevails in congressional politics today.

Product Description: The Senate is becoming more like the House of Representatives in its increasing levels of partisanship and ideology. A transformation of the institution is underfoot, posing questions about the Senate's role as the chamber in which 'cool judgment' prevails...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The elections of 1998 bear out the thesis of this book: so far, the Republicans in Congress are operating more like an old minority party than the new majority party they've become. Still, Congress has changed under Republican leadership and the Republicans have changed, too...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Nicol Rae's engaging account of the Republican revolutionaries' freshman year in Congress persuasively demonstrates that the precepts set forth by Madison in Federalist 10 and 51 are still in force in our remarkably stable political system...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: In this brand new, fully up-to-date textbook, Tim Hames and Nicol Rae provides a complete introduction to the American system of government. It takes the student reader through from the Founding Fathers to Clinton’s foreign policy, building an understanding of how American politics works on a knowledge of the history, groundrules, and cultural influences that shape American society...read more

Product Description: This text provides an introduction to the American system of government. It takes the student reader through from the Founding Fathers to Clinton's foreign policy, building an understanding of how American politics works on a knowledge of the history, groundrules and cultural influences that shape American society...read more

Charts the rise of the southern Democrats as a force in American politics since the 1960s. Drawing on interviews with many southern politicians, it traces the history of southern Democrats from the erosion of their national influence in the early 1960s to the 1992 election of Clinton and Gore.

Product Description: Showing how changes in electoral behavior, party structures and candidate appeal have contributed to the decline of liberal Republicans, Rae here demonstrates how these changes permitted conservatives to gain control of the GOP. He also discusses party factionalism and the rise of new political elites...read more