The Hope Of America: 1992
1996
The events of Brown's first term saw a dramatic upheaval of economic policy. Upon assuming office, he worked with the Democratic majority in Congress to raise corporation tax, eliminate loopholes in the system, and replace the US's sales tax with a value added tax system, all of which worked to reduce consumer costs and played fairly well with voters. While these had been part of Brown's agenda in the first place, he emphasized these as a prefix of sorts to the vote on NAFTA, trying to distance himself from a potential vote in favour of the agreement from Congress; in October 1993, he declared that 'on the current terms, I personally cannot abide NAFTA. I hope that forces in our neighbouring countries will reconsider the impact of this agreement and its ramifications for poorer people across the Americas.' In mid-November, newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who was more friendly to Brown's policy on NAFTA than the two previous PC premiers had been, agreed to rescind the Treaty after efforts to renegotiate it and its terms were found to be taking too long to agree on, with a decision being required for a Senate vote pencilled in in December; that vote was never held, as NAFTA fell through, though the existing Canada-US Free Trade Agreement stayed.
Republicans and free-trade Democrats were outraged, with House Minority Leader Bob Michel famously declaring 'President Brown has just thrown America's economy off a cliff while claiming he will save it'. The infighting within the Democrats proved an embarrassment, and the emergence of conservative firebrand Newt Gingrich as Republican leader in the House appealed to conservative votes who affiliated with both parties. Due to a mix of disunity and poor turnout from Democrats and conservative engagement with the Republican plans to try to cut 'government waste' and reduce the deficit, the Republicans took back control of the House and Senate in the 1994 midterms.
However, this effectively brought the party straight onto the firing line. Gingrich quickly acquired a reputation for focusing less on wastage and more on partisan restriction. He and Brown loathed each other, and when Brown refused to deviate from his spending pledges in the 1995 budget, opposing aspects such as increasing Medicare premiums and limiting the scope of environmental regulation, the Republicans instigated a government shutdown; Brown comically remarked to the press, 'I suppose if the government doesn't do anything, it can't waste anything.' Voters came to see Gingrich as a self-motivated opportunist, and as public opinion turned against him, the act establishing his Temporary Assistance to Needy Families plan had to be heavily amended, actively preventing states from eliminating welfare provisions and ensuring recipients were properly informed of appointments for meetings concerning welfare rolls.
Further hampering the Republicans was an alleged conversation between Gingrich and Brown in which, in response to Brown stating that 'these cuts will put millions into poverty,' Gingrich asserted, 'Why does that matter if it gets the deficit down?' Using these accounts and the shutdown, Brown was able to present the Republicans as trying to deprive poor Americans of security, claiming that Republican tax cuts would 'blow a hole in the deficit', which had been doing fairly well during this period of economic recovery, as well as striking a populist note by suggesting the Republicans 'want these things for the same reasons they wanted NAFTA: to make more money for themselves and less money for the man on the street'.
The Republican primaries, seen as an uphill battle for any potential candidate due to their unpopularity in Congress, saw several senior figures like Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas and Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana come forward, although the figure to particularly catch on with primary voters was dark horse Representative Bob Dornan of California, an outspoken conservative who seemed to care more for attacking Brown than winning. His running mate was Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, who was little different ideologically, although he did provide a regional balance to the ticket.
Unsurprisingly, the campaign was fairly easy for Brown, whose campaign successfully portrayed Dornan as a clone of Gingrich, most notably stating 'There are plenty of Republicans I'm willing to work with. It's a pity most of them are being downtrodden by extremists who only care for big business.'
On election day, it seemed like most people agreed with his assessment.
Brown/Harkin (Democratic): 382 EVs, 53.8%
Dornan/Smith (Republican): 156 EVs, 45.3%
The result was a distinct increase in Brown's margin from 1992 in both the popular vote and the electoral vote, in conjunction with Democrats recapturing both houses of Congress, decapitating several Republican firebrands in the process. Democrats celebrated the result as an endorsement of the President over an extremist Congress, but some grievances still remained with Brown; these manifested more in the low turnout than through any particular display of voting against him, with turnout almost slipping below 50% for the first time in 72 years.
The Republicans would be left licking their wounds, but a 'quiet revolution', as it would be known, was on the horizon.