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Reelection: William Jefferson Clinton as a Native-Son Presidential Candidate (review)
- Rhetoric & Public Affairs
- Michigan State University Press
- Volume 4, Number 4, Winter 2001
- pp. 762-764
- 10.1353/rap.2001.0080
- Review
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Rhetoric & Public Affairs 4.4 (2001) 762-764
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Book Review
Reelection: William Jefferson Clinton as a Native-Son Presidential Candidate
Reelection: William Jefferson Clinton as a Native-Son Presidential Candidate. By Hanes Walton Jr. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000; pp. xxxv + 308. $49.50 cloth; $22.00 paper.
In Reelection, Hanes Walton Jr. examines the important role that regionalism plays in presidential election outcomes. Looking at presidential elections since the [End Page 762] 1960s, Walton shows how and why the South has become a critical factor in the electoral success of Democratic Party candidates. Since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, only three Democrats have been elected to serve in the White House: Johnson in 1964, Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Democratic candidates from other regions of the country have not been elected, while only Carter among the Southern candidates was unsuccessful in his bid for the presidential office (his 1980 reelection campaign) until the defeat of Al Gore in 2000. Hence, regional factors are critical to our understanding of recent and (the author promises us) future presidential politics.
Walton's focus on regionalism, and in particular the native-son candidacy of Bill Clinton, is both the strength and weakness of the book. Theoretically, Walton borrows and expands upon V. O. Key Jr.'s writings about (1) regional political effects and (2) the friends and neighborhoods hypothesis, which suggests that southerners are more likely to vote for candidates from the South because such candidates represent their culture and values. Walton provides a thorough analysis of electoral outcomes, beginning with a historical portrait of the politics of Arkansas. This historical analysis takes us from the post-Civil War/Reconstruction era to the present and provides copious data on demographic and other political trends in the state and how they have affected voting behavior. Walton next takes us systematically through each of Bill Clinton's Arkansas elections (primary and general) and shows how his winning electoral constituency was formed and sometimes reformed. In so doing, Walton provides the most detailed analysis of Arkansas electoral/political history ever produced. This, along with his early analysis of Georgia politics and the building of the Carter native-son presidential coalition, provides a plethora of data on the politics of these two important southern states.
In addition to the focus on Arkansas and Clinton, Walton also demonstrates how the African American vote shifted over time, documenting the various methods that were used to disenfranchise blacks and then explaining why blacks moved inexorably to the Democratic Party. He also shows how the votes of southern African Americans became a critical building block in the electoral success of southern Democratic candidates, and in particular Bill Clinton. The documentation and analysis in these sections of the book, which comprise its main body, are quite impressive indeed.
The problem with the book is that its theoretical focus on regionalism does not justify a full-length book treatment. The main point, the importance of regional factors, is demonstrated beyond doubt early in the book and much of what follows is really a political history of Arkansas. In some sense, I would have felt much more comfortable had this book been advertised as such a history. It is clearly superior in that realm. As an explanation for the success of Bill Clinton and as a prescription for the electoral future of the Democratic Party, however, it is often tedious and repetitive. We already know that regionalism is important. We already know that southern Democrats do better in presidential elections than do candidates from other regions [End Page 763] of the country. Repeating this central theme in book length takes away from the book's main contribution. The real story here is the impressive political history of Arkansas. This is an achievement of monumental proportions. Anyone in the future who is interested in Arkansas politics but does not reference this book will be missing a seminal study in that area. It is in the area of Arkansas political history that...