#42. Clinton, Bill

Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas – William Jefferson Clinton III (Bill) (b 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993-2001. Always known as “Bill,” there is something about a first-name informality that tends to make a person more approachable, don’t you think? More youthful even. Bill is in his late 70’s and gray-headed now, but he still has a youthful look about him, something in his eyes lighting up when he spots a friend, or even when he stands in front of a crowd of thousands selling a book, or introducing one of the most famous persons in the country. I know, because I’ve been in those crowds. When he and James Patterson came to Little Rock in 2018 selling autographed copies of their book The President Is Missing (a political thriller) the crowd was ecstatic and Bill was tickled, breaking into “just one more story” to share with us as James kept trying to keep things on track about where to buy the book. (And even though it had a ridiculous plot, it sold over a million copies!) When Ruth Bader Ginsburg came to Little Rock in 2019 to speak before a sellout crowd, Bill was as mesmerized as the rest of us as he introduced her, obviously thrilled (and awed and humbled) just to know her. And Bill Clinton probably seems youthful to me because he is the first president out of 42 who is younger than I am. Yes, Bill is of the Baby Boomer generation, in fact, he is also labeled as a “New Democrat” which means his policies reflected a centrist “Third Way” political philosophy.

So what does that mean exactly? “Centrist” is another peg for “mainstream,” you know, not exactly all the way left, and not exactly all the way right. Take a little of the “right-center” folks and a little of the “left-center” folks, mix them together, and find a compromise, is that it? A Third Way? Pepper that up with some James Carville “campaign wizardry” (It’s the economy, stupid!) and you have a simple explanation of “how the Republicans were finally ousted by a young whippersnapper” who became our 42^nd president. But Bill didn’t just “become” our president, he stayed for a while – presiding over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. And when he left eight years later, he had the joint-highest approval rating of any US president. Even after he’d been impeached. What goes into the making of a man who can do all of that?

Two Towns in Arkansas

Bill was born August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital In Hope, Arkansas as William Jefferson Blythe III, the only son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr and Virginia Dell Cassidy. Hope had a population of near 8,000 in the 1940s; almost in Texas, almost in Louisiana, almost in Oklahoma, it is famous for the big juicy watermelons that grow so well there in hot summer days. Bill’s grandfather Cassidy (Pawpaw) ran a grocery store there, serving black and white equally in highly segregated times, and his grandmother Cassidy (Mawmaw) was a care-giving nurse. Imagine Bill’s early life in the small-town atmosphere; imagine peaceful front-porch evenings and church on Sundays and the freedom to run and play. And to sleep at night under his Hop-A-Long Cassidy bedspread? Hop-A-Long Cassidy was a hero in the movies and comic books and radio shows of the 40s and 50s. He was a Cassidy who represented the good, always taking up for the underdog. Did the National Park Service choose that theme for Bill’s “Clinton Birthplace” bedroom we can visit today, or is that a truth of the times?

This much is definitely true: Bill’s father, William Jefferson Blythe Jr, died in an automobile accident three months before Bill was born. Bill’s mother Virginia Cassidy was studying to be a nurse, like her mother Edith. Bill and his mother lived with James and Edith Cassidy those early years, pretty much as described, I’d say. I’ve visited Hope, and the Birthplace; that seems to be the atmosphere. Then in 1950 Virginia married Roger Clinton. They moved with Bill to Hot Springs, Arkansas, a resort town tucked in the beautiful Ouachita Mountains and famous for its health-giving mineral springs. And famous for its “gangster history” of gambling and drinking and living outside the law. A mixture of messages! Illegal gambling began there after the Civil War; it remained in some form or other until Gov Winthrop Rockefeller succeeded in shutting it down in 1967. Suite 443 of the elegant Arlington Hotel was a vacation favorite of Al Capone during the 20s and 30s – his rooms overlooked Bathhouse Row where he, and thousands of others, came for the health-spa waters offered in splendid Victorian elegance. And alcohol, and gambling.

Such was the environment in which Bill lived from 1950 to 1964. Bill’s schooling took place in Hot Springs; so did his adjustment to a different home life; his stepfather was, by all accounts, an alcoholic and a gambler. If you’ve ever lived with an alcoholic or a gambler, you get the picture. Roger Jr was born in 1956 and Bill sometimes had to intervene on behalf of his little brother, and his mother. When he was a teen, he took on the last name of “Clinton” in hopes of “being more of a family.” So there you have it. Is that the mix it takes?

Despite the distractions, Bill poured himself into his schoolwork. And he was totally nuts about music — at Hot Springs High School he was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band. For two years he performed in a jazz trio, The 3-Kings. When he was sixteen, he became interested in law due to winning a debate in a mock trial in his Latin class. When he was 17; he was selected as a Boys Nation senator to go to the White House and meet President Kennedy. That handshake was the ultimate kick-in-the-head inspiration; when he graduated in 1964 he had a scholarship in hand, headed for Georgetown University (the only place he applied) and Washington, DC.

School, More School, and Hillary

In a nutshell, Bill earned his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, in England; graduated from Yale Law School in Connecticut; and returned to Arkansas as a law professor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. All this between 1964 and 1974. Then, back in Arkansas, he ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives against an incumbent, and lost.

He’d started preparing humbly enough; with an International Affairs major at Georgetown he supplemented his scholarship with a job clerking in Arkansas Senator William Fulbright’s office, which greatly shaped his perspective on the Vietnam war. By the time he graduated (with honors) in 1968 he’d won a prized Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford University in England for two years. And he also faced being drafted for the war. He was an anti-war demonstrator; he connected with Arkansas ROTC. Reconsidering, he submitted himself for the draft; his number was drawn, but he was never called to service; it was a confusing time and his coursework at Oxford did not result in a degree. He entered Yale in 1970, and that’s where he met Hillary Rodham. The two moved to Texas temporarily in 1972 to help lead George McGovern’s presidential campaign, working at campaign headquarters in Dallas with Texas future governor Ann Richards, and the then unknown Steven Spielberg. (Good contacts in the pocket, eh?)

Back in New Haven, Bill and Hillary continued to live, and study, together; in 1973, when they both graduated, he moved back to Arkansas, but Hillary continued postgraduate work at Yale. Bill kept asking her to marry him; she kept delaying. But then a quirky thing happened. She failed the bar in DC but was admitted to the bar in Arkansas. “I chose to follow my heart instead of my head,” she later wrote. In 1974 she followed Bill to Arkansas.

So Many Firsts

Can you keep track? Bill lost his bid for US Representative and Hillary failed a DC bar exam. Then they started racking up firsts. Hillary became one of only two female faculty members at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville, and then the first director of a new legal aid clinic at the University. Bill and Hillary bought their first house together in Fayetteville in 1975, and had their wedding there that October; it was a small family ceremony in the living room with a very large party in the backyard. In 1976 Hillary worked in Indiana for the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter. He won. And Bill Clinton had a win; he was elected Arkansas attorney general. The couple moved to Little Rock. In 1977 Hillary joined the Rose Law Firm, co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and was appointed to the board of Legal Services Corporation by Jimmy Carter; meanwhile Bill began a campaign for governor.

In November 1978, at the age of 32, Bill was elected governor of Arkansas, becoming one of the nation’s youngest governors ever. So in January 1979 Hillary became Arkansas’ First Lady, at the age of 32. The couple moved into the historic Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock, and that’s where they were living in February 1980, when their daughter Chelsea was born. After a few missteps, Bill was ousted in the 1980 election (making him the youngest former governor, he joked), but he quickly righted his ship (a learning experience) and won the next four terms, Governor of Arkansas from 1983-1992! That’s twelve non-consecutive years Bill was governor and Hillary was the first lady of Arkansas.

On October 3, 1991, on the front steps of the Old State House in Little Rock, Bill Clinton announced the beginning of his 1992 presidential campaign. You know what happened after that. On January 20, 1993, Bill and Hillary and Chelsea moved into the White House. Republicans were out; the New Democrat was in. They stayed eight years.

The Spotlight.

Chelsea was given the codename name Energy by the Secret Service in 1993, and Bill and Hillary’s first concern was giving their 13-year-old daughter some privacy and a normal life. So much for that hope. She was 18 when her father was impeached. His trial took place between December 19, 1998 – February 12, 1999; he was acquitted by the US Senate and remained in office. Charges of perjury were approved – this was for lying to a grand jury about having sex with a White House aide. It must have been a brutal time for Chelsea, and for Hillary, but whatever may have been said in private, publicly they stood behind Bill.

And so did most everybody else. Bill’s public approval rating reached its highest point during his impeachment proceedings; he left office with a rating of 68 percent, his final quarter Gallup rating was the highest any president has received in 50 years. “He’s got weak morals,” one reporter said about him, “but he’s done a heck of a good job.” Were citizens simply more concerned with how things were going for themselves than a personal dally? (Or perhaps, mentally at least, acknowledging their own frailty?) Life was humming smoothly for most folks; the rate of inflation hovered around 2.2%; the unemployment rate was the lowest since 1969; the crime index the lowest since 1973. The US was not involved in any major warfare and wonder of wonders, the federal budget had a surplus of $124 billion, the first balanced budget in 30 years.

On A Personal Level.

There was a poster on exhibit in the Clinton Center at one time that featured Virginia Cassidy’s message to her son “Life happens in the present, and you’d better make the best of it.” So you move on. You try harder. And you get better.

Chelsea went on to be an exemplary daughter; married with three kids, a slew of college degrees (the last a Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford in 2014), and an astounding record of public service. Hillary went on to become a US Senator, then Secretary of State, and twice a presidential candidate. That, and more about her childhood, as we look at #44 and #45.

Bill and Hillary moved to Chappaqua, New York and bought a house in 2001; that’s still home base today, but they maintain an apartment atop the Clinton Presidential Center alongside the Arkansas River in Little Rock where they pop in frequently. The Park for the Clinton gravesites is along the back side of the building; inside exhibits detail every year of the accomplishments of the eight-year Clinton presidency; upstairs is a collection of Clinton personal items (including a saxophone). There’s a replica of the Oval Office, and a restaurant downstairs named, appropriately, “42.” Next door are classrooms for the Clinton School of Public Service and the Presidential Archives where approximately 78 million pages of official records documenting the life and career of the 42nd president of the United States are available for research. Opportunities for learning and participating abound.

In his 1993 Inaugural Address Bill made the statement: “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” The Clinton story isn’t over.

As to a party? Well, I’d choose to have it at the Center, with Bill playing his saxophone and Harry Truman at the piano. And as I recall, Thomas Jefferson did a mean violin. Stay tuned.