Primaries it will be, maybe even tonight (depending on your timezone). I would have done it already but I misplaced the word document detailing the early primaries and the Clinton campaign, which means I am currently writing it again.
Spiralling out of Control: 1992 - RNC
Warning: Incoming Update
And once again I could not fulfill my promise, but I will in a dozen minutes. On the other hand, the following update is large and could serve as a jumping point off for a timeline on its own.
References and images may be slightly wonky in the draft version due to its size.
S02 EP02 Apathy, Scandals and Sharpshooting on the Campaign Trail '92 - II.
Remember to vote for the timeline or the communists win!
______________________________
______________________________
Apathy, Scandals and Sharpshooting on the Campaign Trail '92 - II.
______________________________
Open in new tab for background music
Common People, Pulp, 1995
______________________________
"Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a world in which 'the principles of justice and fair play protect the weak against the strong.' A world where the United Nations - freed from cold war stalemate - is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations."
--POTUS George H.W. Bush, address before a joint session of the Congress on the Cessation of the Persian Gulf conflict, March 6th, 1991 [1]
______________________________
______________________________
"The president is the Commander in Chief, not Calculator in Chief."
--George Bush, 1992
______________________________
A Campaign mistakenly optimistic
The 1992 was a transformational year, perhaps even more significant than the 1945. The Cold War was no more. The Berlin War was down, Germany was reunited, Arabs and Israelis were working on a peace, Eastern Europe was going democratic and the Soviet Union was no more. An era was over. George Bush and his team correctly assumed that there is a danger of America losing interest in world. After all, he had served in World War II. But his team did not realize is how Americans were concerned with their own problems.
A deep recession had hit the US, just as the elections approached. Unlike previous downturns, blue-collar workers weren't the only ones losing jobs. White-collar workers were losing their own and there was insecurity. The federal deficit continued to grow, propelled by rising expenditures for health care.
Bush's campaign was directed by a troika composed of Robert Mosbacher, a fundraiser and personal friend of George Bush, Fred Malek and Robert Teeter (pollster). They ran the campaign out of a rented office in downtown Washington. The campaign felt stilted, going through the motions, and failed to sell any achievements made by the president.
Teeter was the one who suggested Dan Quayle as a running mate to make Bush a president for the future, not a third term for Reagan, a choice that has been criticized for selecting Quayle based solely on polling data. Teeter declined an offer to become deputy Chief of Staff but declined preferring to live in Michigan. His run of the campaign has been praised for his approachable and quotable demeanor, but also criticized for being too polite and indecisive.
Their strategy hinged on "narrowcast" messages to select groups until the summer when Bush would deliver his "what-I-stand-for" speech. Unfortunately, this was the greatest weakness of Bush as a candidate - he had three decades of experience in public life but no one could name a single coherent theme or identity. Bush listened to advice that he needed only to avoid mistakes and coast on his achievements to the presidency. There was no need for new major legislation.
The strategy proved to be devastating for the campaign as by the May of 1992 nearly 82% [2] of the public disapproved of the way Bush was handling the economy. Brown famously called Bush more concerned with Russian than American economy.
In actuality Bush administration was mostly concerned with economic foundations of U.S. power. Expanding and maintaining the system of free trade ensured American prosperity, and American power ultimately rested on the strength and resilience of economy. Bush believed more trade means more jobs, and protectionism would weaken US and make it in turn vulnerable. Bush made North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) his main goal for the second half of his first term.
'Every billion dollars in trade means 20, 000 more jobs' Bush argued, but the voters were unconvinced. The people on the right was sceptical, afraid of 'foreign imports putting guys up here of jobs' as Pat Buchanan warned. The people on the left were worried that the agreement will 'hasten the exodus of US jobs to Mexico and drag down the wages of manufacturing workers.'
[...]
Bush's campaign was forced to go on the defensive early.
Democrats cited Bush's 1988 "Willie Horton" commercials as evidence of a Republican willingness to appeal to racism and fear. What was surprising was that the Horton campaign was cited more in 1992 than 1988. [3]
Nationwide, reformers called for term limits for elected officials to eliminate career politicians. Perot, Tsongas and Brown captured various demographics of anti-establishment statements about fixing the government.
Republican's own base became angered at Bush's major domestic initiative, the budget law of October 1990. Bush was previously moderate on taxes, abortion, civil rights and social programs and had to famously pledge "no new taxes" in the 1988 campaign. The budget broke that promise, increasing taxes by $ 150 billion. Instead of Reagan's third term, he was out of touch turncoat.
In reality, Bush could do little else as Democrats controlled both the House (by 85 seats) and the Senate (by 10 seats) which meant that any initiative would be dead on arrival or subject to major compromise and many of his appointees would be subject to heavy scrutiny and rejection . Bush pointlessly tried to compromise and confront the House, vetoing 44 bills in his first mandate.
Bush was perceived as a rich Ivy Leaguer, out of touch with average Americans. People recognized his New England background instead of his adult life in Texas. A notable incident was being confused over the use of bar codes at a grocery store. His campaigned failed to recognized that photo ops were contra-productive. After the Los Angeles riots Bush was ridiculed for a photo-op teaching urban youth how to apparently use a fishing pole.
Two Democratic hopefuls, Clinton and Tsongas, turned Bush's sound bites back on him. Tsongas blamed "voodoo economics - continued," borrowing the sarcastic phrase Bush leveled against Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. Clinton on the other hand appropriated Reagan's standard asking the people if they were better off today than four years ago.
Privately, Bush in 1992 was a tired man, dissatisfied with the way the politics were going in the country. His sons later claimed he hated the way his campaign in 1988 went negative and a popular rumour running up to the first primaries was that he might not even run for re-election. Various reports claimed that Bush started to ignore his campaign, starting from advice to change his appearance or becoming more engaged in the campaign.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
______________________________
[Washington] "has become a town filled with sound bites, shell games, handlers, media stuntmen who posture, create images, talk, shoot off Roman candles, but don't ever accomplish anything. We need deeds, not words, in this city."
--Ross Perot speech at the National Press Club, Washington, March 18th, 1992 [4]
______________________________
The Spanner in the Works
Perot's campaign began on the television talk-show circuit. Appearing on the cable TV show Larry King Live on February 20th, Perot promised he would run if volunteers put him on the ballot in all fifty states after months of media speculation.
Probably the most decisive factor going for Perot was his promise that he will spend up to $100 million dollars of his own money for a "world-class campaign." This led to a self-reinforcing cycle of media giving him coverage which in turn made him popular. Early polls showed Perot to be second nationally and winning some states outright.
Perot was a populist who could easily reach the people and benefitted from resentment toward establishment politicians that sought a new outlet as Buchanan and Brown seemed to be flailing. Perot filled the media vacuum during the primaries and seemed to effortlessly deflect his lack of government experience or party support. Notably, one veteran loaned Perot his Purple Heart medal as a sort of inspiration. Perot pioneered frequent use of call-in talk shows and lengthy infomercials, making Perot seem as a sort of servant-leader, unlike the distant Bush or the moralizing Tsongas.
Perot frequently used metaphor-saturated and colorful rhetoric, establishing himself as a concerned citizen. Constantly speaking about the country's best interests, he frequently referenced 'God' and 'Bible.' A common theme seemed to be finding an alternative to government that would help the 'common man.'
Unlike his image, Perot was a stubborn man, determined to bring change from the top, and no idea of how to bring it nor what specifics did they have. The special issue of Time 'Nobody's Perfect: the Doubts about Ross Perot' revealed that Perot was a tyrant who introduced military-style dress codes, led vendettas against competitors and stifled employers in their contracts.
As more and more details emerge about Perot, his image was shaken. Perot managed to make his fortune by gaining rights to a computer accounting system for government health programs and it was only his being-the-scenes lobbying that prompted the Nixon administration to halt efforts of the government to gain control over the computer system, tarnishing his image as a business sabvy pro-market entrepreneur.
As campaign went on, Perot appeared irate and uninformed about foreign affairs lacking concrete plans to improve government efficiency, improve U.S. trade and handle budget deficit. Of more concern were his conspiracy theories which made him seem paranoid and unhinged. As summer approached his volunteers had to take loyalty oaths.
Privately, Perot was concerned with polling and considered dropping out after every critique or a drop in poll numbers. He especially did not get along with his campaign managers who advised him to finally start becoming more specific on issues.
Perot did not want to throw the election to the House but win the election outright. Fortunately, from March on, Perot would regularly appear to lead in the polls or be a close second, mostly due to confusing Democrat primaries. This bolstered Perot's confidence as on two occasions, in April and May, press projections claimed Perot might win just enough electoral votes to become the president. This did not fool his campaign staff which was getting increasingly worried.
His campaign team was frustrated as they realized that establishment candidates will only grow stronger after the summer conventions and Perot is only benefitting from typical vacuum. Privately, Perot believed that Democrats would endorse him to unseat Bush, a belief apparently acquired from some baseless speculation about some overlap of Brown and Perot supporters.
Dismissing Democrats, Perot started to obsess with Bush. Only finding a suitable running mate could save his campaign.
--From Nation's Sweetheart to Nation's Satan: Perot and his times, 2001
______________________________
______________________________
"Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the week."
--POTUS George H.W. Bush, September 11th 1991 [5]
______________________________
How The Greatest Strength became the Greatest Weakness
George Bush had presided the USA over the most difficult era in American foreign policy since the era of World War Two. Prior to 1991 it was easy to have a simple backbone to foreign policy and that was containing a single dominant threat. Now the US had been left with multiple dangerous, but lesser minor perils. This resulted in a foreign policy that lacked a single coherent objective. Communism was representing an immediate threat to American lives, property, moral values, liberty and religion and now it looked like it was headed to the dustbin of history.
What Bush believed would be his supreme advantage, his foreign affairs, turned out to be his biggest weakness. The realignment of world politics meant that the Republicans lost their "gut" issue against Democrats who railed on about economy. How do you turn The End of the Cold War into a soundbite or a theme?
One of Bush's advisors, Bent Scowcroft noted that the end of the Cold War marks "the outlines of a very messy world." [6] Robert Gates commented in early 1992 "We should expect continuing change and upheaval around the world", and the US "should conform to the reality of an unstable, unpredictable, dangerously overarmed, and still transforming world." [7] Cheney argued that "the old strategy that has dominated our thinking for so many years" was no longer valid. [8]
Neoconservatives like Charles Krauthammer feared multipolarity and wanted the US to chair the global affairs. The US should not seek multipolar cooperation but unipolar centralization around the US. The United Nations were useless and it was the US who assembled and led the coalitions. [9]
Jeanne Kirkpatrick advocated restraint, fearing that the US would soon succumb to 'imperial overstretch' and a return to domestic problems. They have accumulated while the US lead the fights against the Soviet world domination attempts and the end of that struggle led to opportunity to tend to this concerns. The US should abandon globalist pretensions and become a regular country. [10]
Pat Buchanan advocated a return to isolationism. He attacked the "internationalist set, never at loss for new ideas to diver US wealth and power into crusades and causes having little or nothing to do with the true national interest of the United States." According to him, "blessed by Providence with pacific neighbors, north and south, and vast oceans, east and west, to protect us, why seek permanent entanglement in other people's quarrels" [11]
Political scientist Bruce Russett claimed that a new dawn of attainable collective security was at hand. International cooperation against Saddam could mark a new age of security, and establishment of a permanent UN army would be the logical new step. United Nations were the key to post Cold War world order. [12]
Bush was afraid of isolationism as was his administration. As early as 1991, National Security Strategy, warned against retrenchment, reminding of ghosts of 1920. Bush publicly attacked creeping isolationism that would render the nation vulnerable. People who advocated "isolationism" lived in the last century.
Senator Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska) publicly stated unease over instant deployment of over 100 000 troops over "false assertions that Saddam Hussein is Adolf Hitler, that our way of life is at clear and present danger, that we have as much at stake as we did in World War II." [13] Polling showed majority of people believed this policy was not borne out of 'a moral principle' but out of selfish economic concerns.
Scowcroft came to the rescue by helping coin a new term - 'New World Order,' the beginnings of greater international cooperation against the various forms of disorder that threatened in the early 1990s.
According to Bush, the NWO was 'a challenge to keep the dangers of disorder at bay.' According to Scowcroft the US could mobilize UN support to combat aggression and resolve crises and conflicts. Despite that, Scowcroft told in 1991 that the term was merely a 'catchphrase,' as did other officials complaining that the 'term' was a 'buzzword for nothing.' [14] The term would soon evolve into a common core for a geopolitical backbone of several policies.
Building support, Bush started to downplay pragmatic and emphasize idealistic elements of the New World Order. At every opportunity he reminded audience that the Gulf war was more about the principles than the Gulf.
In April, Bush reinforced Wilsonian underpinnings of the doctrine in a speech at the Air War College: 'the order gains its mission and shape not just from shared interests but shared ideals [...] a set of principles that undergird our relations: peaceful settlement of disputes, solidarity against aggression, reduced and controlled arsenals, and just treatment of all peoples. [15]
In September 1991 Bush gave a speech announcing 'we have a real chance to fulfill the UN Charter's ambition' of working 'to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.' Bush encouraged the UN to play a key role in resolving disputes and encouraging nations to honor the ideals of the New World Order.
Polls showed that Bush's emphasis on human rights was particularly popular, with one poll showing that 58% viewed protecting and defending human rights in other countries very important and additional 33% as somewhat important. [16]
A poll taken in June 1991 revealed that 80% of those surveyed advocated the multilateral use of force against a regime that used unconventional weapons or violated the sovereignty of another country. A full 91% agreed that a dictator who violated the human rights of his own citizens represented a grave danger to international order. Public enthusiasm soon exceeded the administration's willingness to pursue that ideas.
The Pentagon was quite hostile to type of missions that would fall within the purview of the New World Order. Powell repeatedly stated that the military is supposed to defend vital US interests, not the to guarantee ideals around the world. Powell served in Vietnam and was appalled with how JCS lead the war, without clear objectives and no exist strategy. This policy did not disappear with Vietnam, as Powell noted US intervention in Lebanon where the US sent marines in 1983. "we inserted those proud warriors into the middle of a five-faction civil war complete with terrorists, hostage-takers, and a dozen spies in every camp, and said, 'gentleman, be a buffer,' The results were 241 dead Marines and Navy personnel and a U.S. withdrawal from the troubled area." [17]
Scowcroft began to complain he lost control of his own creation as public commentators gave unintended specific meanings to a rhetorical abstraction. [18] Baker did not like the idea as the US now had multiple interests that may be potentially contradictory and certainly inexpressible in a single phrase. For multiple problems, multiple strategies, not a catchphrase.
Yugoslavia proved to be an ideal test bed for the New World Order. Milosevic, Kadijevic and Adzic were a trio of leaders that brutalized that encouraged ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, rapes and murder, brutalized democracies, culminating in Adzic causing a nuclear catastrophe. An editorial in New York Times noted 'the issue in Yugoslavia is the illegitimate use of force for armed ends [...] the last time that happened, the president said such aggression could not stand.' [19]
The Bush administration was now in trouble. To support their pragmatic goals they invented an idealistic goal which would force them to act against strategic interests. Baker noted early on that 'Milosevic had Saddam's appetite, but Serbia didn't have Iraq's capabilities or ability to affect America's vital interests, such as access to energy supplies.' [20] The forced intervention in Yugoslavia in December of 1991 only made the situation worse. Now the US was involved.
Bush and his cabinet carefully crafted the goals of the operation so they could call it successful in early 1992 but the conflicts continued. Critics attacked him for either not doing enough or for exacerbating the problems. 'You have ancient ethnic rivalries that have cropped up as Yugoslavia is dissolved or getting dissolved,' Bush argued. 'It isn't going to be solved by sending in the 82nd Airborne.' [21] Although he was correct, Bush was getting hammered by his opponents as duplicitous and misguided in foreign politics.
Conservatives, moderates and liberals appeared to believe that the US is getting too interventionist and not involved enough at the same time according to various surveys which confused the pundits. As 1992 went on, more and more people started to believe that the grand vision of the Bush administration is wrong. Atrocities in former Yugoslavia continued, Greece was being destabilized by ultranationalists and by summer fledgling Russian democracy was now visibly collapsing.
But the worst was yet to come. In early 1992 Pentagon strategists drafted a defense strategy for the rest of the twentieth century. The Defense Planning Guidance for 1994-1999 was complete in March.
The document bluntly stated 'we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.' The US should strengthen its alliances in Europe and Asia and retain the capability to fight two major regional war at once. It emphasized power over principle, preventing that no enemy capable of threatening US was primary, promoting human rights was ancillary, 'addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, of which could seriously unsettle international relations.' It apparently promoted preventive war against potential regional hegemons.
The draft became public and came under fire. The Washington Post declaimed the draft's 'muscle-flexing unilateralism.' Others believed that the document outlines plans for US world domination. Bush was taken aback by this and claimed that he had not read the draft, and the Defense Department backtracked, releasing a revised draft that put emphasis on strengthening US alliances rather than subduing regional powers. [21]
While it at best made Bush look incompetent in the US, the document was however circulated widely in Russia, fueling the growing paranoia about the West and capitalism.
--Misunderstood: An Untold Story of the George Bush Presidency, 1999
______________________________
"It's not one we have to mastermind... this concept that we have to work out every problem, everywhere in the world is crazy."
--George H.W. Bush, diary entry [22]
______________________________
______________________________
Kroft (60 Minutes): You've said that your marriage has had problems that you've had difficulties. What do you mean by that? What does that mean? Is that some kind of - help us break the code. I mean, does that mean...
Clinton: I don't me...
Kroft (60 Minutes): ... you were separated?
Clinton: I think the American people, at least people that have been married for a long time, know what it means and know the whole range of things that it can mean.
Kroft (60 Minutes): You've been saying all week that you've got to put this issue behind you. Are you prepared tonight to say you've never had an extramarital affair?
Clinton: I'm not prepared tonight to say that any married couple should ever discuss that with anyone but themselves. I'm not prepared to say that about anybody. I think that the issue...
Kroft (60 Minutes): Governor, that's what - excuse me. That's what you've been saying, essentially, for the last...
______________________________
"Bill Clinton smoked marijuana and didn't inhale. And they call Dan Quayle stupid."
--Jay Leno, 1992 [23]
______________________________
The Man who would be President
Initially, the primary race was expected to be dominated by Arkansas governor William J. Clinton. Considered to be a rising star in the party, he was most notable on a national level for delivering a long rambling speech nominating Michael Dukakis at the Democratic convention of 1988.
Clinton was ambitious and already planned on running in 1988, counting on the natural pendulum swinging towards Democrats after Reagan's two terms. The developing Iran-Contra scandal seemed like a good opportunity. Allegedly his first wife, Hillary Rodham, dissuaded him, believing that George W. Bush will coast on and win a third term for Reagan. Clinton's close aide Betsey Wright also warned him that his sexual transgressions might as well derail his campaign and disrupt his family life. Prophetically enough, this happened in 1988 when early frontrunner Gary Hart had to abandon the race before it even began.
Clinton impressed the nation by becoming object of ridicule for his overly long speech at the convention and than instantly coming recovering from that. Senator Sam Nunn (GA) joked to TIME in January 1992 that Bill Clinton is 'the only politician to be a rising star in three decades.' [24] Clinton was reelected in his home state in a landslide in 1990, with his performance as governor receiving national attention and widespread praise. Clinton was one of the founding members of the DLC, and prepared years building a nationwide organization and recruiting the party establishment.
Even before the primaries many Democratic leaders endorsed him. Clinton won 57 percent of the straw vote [25] at the Democratic convention in December, compared to 31% to Senator Tom Harkin and 10% for Sen. Bob Kerrey. Clinton was also scheduled to appear on the cover of the January 27th issue of Time.
Clinton had started his campaign in a relaxed mood on October 1991, counting to emerge as the strongest option against Bush. When Cuomo announced he will not run, it seemed that Clinton was the obvious choice - Clinton had the name recognition, charisma and a successful team behind him.
Unlike other players in the field, Tsongas, Kerrey or Brown, Clinton was a great orator. And Clinton was the one of the two candidates having a strong theme (the other one was Paul Tsongas). Iowa primary went overwhelmingly to its senator Tom Harkin who was a traditional liberal with strong support, but lacking name recognition or organization to compete in other states. This made New Hampshire take the important role that was usually attributed to the Iowa primary.
On the ewe of the primary in New Hampshire, it seemed that Clinton's main opposition will be former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas, cancer survivor who also boasted economy as his campaign theme. January polls showed that Clinton had moved ahead of Tsongas and his path to the nomination seemed assured. Clinton led him by 16 points. And then everything changed.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
"Vicepresident Quayle said recently that the three words Bill Clinton feared most were "telling the truth." Actually, the three words Clinton fears the most are "Hi, 'member me?"
--Jay Leno, 1992 [26]
______________________________
______________________________
The Man who would be President (continued)
The first major scandal to hit Clinton's campaign was the Gennifer Flowers affair. The Flowers affair first came to public attention during a press conference at the Arkansas state capitol on October 19th 1990. There, a disgruntled former state employee Larry Nichols announced filing of a $ 3 000 000 lawsuit against the governor Clinton. Nichols asserted that he was fired as a scapegoat to conceal misuse of state funds to pay off five alleged mistresses. One of them was a 40 year old cabaret singer, Gennifer Flowers. The lawsuit was dismissed in the state court due to lack of evidence and forgotten after the reelection. But the issue persisted.
In December 1990 Gennifer Flowers made first of the four telephone calls to Bill Clinton, complaining that Nichols allegations were hurting her ability to get gigs. Clinton spoke clearly, unaware she was taping him. Further calls and letter would ensue, and Flowers would get a job as an administrative assistant in June 1991. While working, Flowers proved to be a demanding worked, lacking computer expertise and making tasteless sexual remarks. In summer of 1991, Flowers started a new series of recorded phone calls to Clinton, just after Clinton announced forming an exploratory committee for the presidency. In the end, Flowers recorded four conversations that revolved around Nichols, republican operatives trying to approach her and tabloid press.
Larry Nichols shared his knowledge of Clinton's sex life to the supermarket tabloid Star which published the story in the January 28th edition. The tabloid repeated Nichols’s claims that Clinton had used a slush fund of public money to wine and dine his girlfriends, spent state funds to visit a beauty queen on “love trips” to New York and misused state police cars to ferry him to and from his secret trysts. Clinton mocked the tabloid for preoccupation with aliens and called the story as trash, and then his current wife Hillary called the allegations "absurd... the equivalent of a conversation with Elvis."
However, Gennifer Flowers would also sell her story to the Star a week later, along with tapes. “Sex was wonderful with Bill,” she confided. “He introduced me to things I’d never done before, like oral sex…. In the beginning, he’d talk about leaving Hillary for me, and I wanted so much for that to happen, but that was my heart talking. My head told me he’d never leave.” [27]
Although major TV networks with the exception of the NBC ignored the story, tabloids and newspapers in New England quickly ran wild with the story. The issue became an issue not because voters thought Clinton to be disqualified by infidelity, but because they doubted other voters would, making Clinton unviable.
The Clintons chose an unprecedented interview on CBS News’s 60 Minutes as their forum for a rebuttal. Unfortunately, their joint appearance was flawed. Bill Clinton described Gennifer Flowers as a “friendly acquaintance” whom he had met during the late seventies but barely met, admitting that his marriage had problems. Hillary tried to play off the accusations as overblown from a wacky woman and support her husband. However, Hillary was still under medication from the amputation of the part of her foot back in December, and she appeared to be dazed or unconvinced in her own words.
The next day Gennifer Flowers and the Star editors held a riotous press conference in midtown Manhattan. Flowers cried before the reporters. “Yes, I was Bill Clinton’s lover for 12 years. And for the past two years I have lied about the relationship. The truth is, I loved him. Now he tells me to deny it. Well, I’m sick of all the deceit, and I’m sick of all the lies.” She maintained that she had intended to keep the affair secret until she learned the Star planned a feature on Larry Nichols’s lawsuit and played selections from her tape-recorded conversations —including her own raunchy remark about “eating p***y.” Although many of the Flowers claims would later be discredited by Arkansas journalists, Flowers opened the floodgates. Mere days later, Clinton would be rocked by another affair.
Tracey Livermore was a soon to be nineteen old student from Michigan that met Clinton when he mingled with the anti-nuclear protesters in Washington (December, 15th). Livermore and Clinton were enchanted with each other and they spent several nights together. Tracey was officially a 'volunteer,' helping Clinton to draft his antinuclear policy, before she was abandoned in early January. Livermore contacted the media after seeing the Flowers issue escalate in the media, feeling both betrayed and jealous. She claimed that Clinton promised her to bring her to the White House, once in office and produced several receipts that supposed to prove she and Clinton stayed in the same hotels.
The Clinton campaign tried to downplay the accusation as coming from an inexperienced student seduced by the media. The media attention seemed to move back to Flowers who now claimed that Clinton personally paid her to get an abortion in 1977. But Livermore then returned with a bombshell, providing a detailed account of the lurid affair with Clinton, including oral and anal intercourse and attempts to bring another woman in for a threesome on a private party after a fundraising event. The following day, a photographer for an event found Livermore and Clinton holding hands while talking to another woman at a party, a photograph that was mistakenly attributed to document the solicitation of the menage-a-trois.
By now, Clinton campaign was in non-stop denial mode about the both accusations and the rumors sprouting about his marriage. Various sources claimed that Clintons had an open marriage, that Hillary was bisexual, that Bill suffered from satyriasis , that Hillary was drugged not to divorce her husband and so on. Another bombshell dropped when Juanita Broaddrick came out with her story.
Broaddrick was a nurse who met Clinton when he made a visit to her nursing home as attorney general running for governor in 1978, Broaddrick wanted to volunteer for the campaign and Clinton invited her to stop by his campaign office. A few weeks later Clinton met her at a hotel and led her into her room, allegedly to have coffee. After a brief conversation Clinton suddenly kissed her and forced himself upon her, despite her crying out she is married and not interested. Broaddrick claimed she tried to push him away but was unable to stop him. "When everything was over with, he got up and straightened himself, and I was crying at the moment and he walks to the door, and calmly puts on his sunglasses." [28]
But the most damning was accusation that Broaddrick later attended a Clinton fundraiser where Hillary Clinton approached her, took her hand and told her she wants her "to know how much Bill and I appreciate what you do for him.” This prompted Broaddrick to move her hand away but Hillary held on to her and said, "Do you understand? Everything that you do." Broaddrick claimed that this was Hillary Clinton thanking her for keeping quiet.
Broaddrick would soon produce an additional witness, her friend Norma Rogers who found her crying with torn pantyhose and swollen lip, as well as several other friends who confirmed she told them about the incident. The media quickly established this happened at the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock on April 25th, 1978 but it was unfortunately closed.
The Clinton campaign denied accusations and tried to smear Broaddrick as an unreliable witness, questioning why she continued to participate in Democratic campaigns. There was no physical evidence to verify it. But the damage had been done.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
"Clinton's economic proposals are voodoo economics with a kinder, gentler face."
--Paul Tsongas, 1992 [29]
______________________________
______________________________
"Jerry Brown doesn't even have a wife to cheat on."
--Harry Shearer, 1992 [30]
______________________________
How the Democratic Primaries entered a Tailspin
The sexual scandals did not mix well with the accusations that Clinton was a draft dodger. Clinton's advantage over Tsongas melted down. In the New Hampshire primaries on February 18th Clinton placed third, winning 13% percent of the vote behind Tsongas who won 36% of the vote and Bob Kerrey who won 14%. The campaign tried to portray this as a comeback, noting Clinton was nearly a second in a state where Tsongas had the natural advantage. The claim was famously mocked in an SNL skit.
Following were Maine Caucus (February 23rd) and South Dakota (February 25th). Brown managed to pull out a narrow victory over Tsongas in Maine, getting 32% compared to Tsongas's 31% while Clinton won 12%. In South Dakota Clinton finished third, winning 16% of the vote, behind 42% Bob Kerrey won and 26% Harkin won.
Other scandals continued to emerge. At the end of February, Clinton unknowingly made a comment into an open microphone about the Reverend Jesse Jackson's supposed back-stabbing tendencies. In early March Clinton's involvement in a real estate deal with a former Clinton assistant and a failed Arkansas savings and loan. Although none of them was damaging on its own, it solidified the image of Clinton as scandal ridden. Former Miss America, Elizabeth Gracen also came out with her story about a one-night stand with Clinton in 1982.
By early March the Democratic primary was shaping to become a two-way race between Clinton and Tsongas. Clinton's once commanding lead was quickly narrowing amidst constant scandals. Although Clinton was the better fundraiser, he also spent more and had accumulated the same debt as Tsongas.
Clinton's greatest advantage was not his charisma (although it was a close second) but his fundraising potential. Unlike Tsongas or Brown, he had no qualms about accepting any form of donations and had managed to avoid using future federal matching funds as a collateral. Thus, he managed to get a large loan from his Worthen Bank (Arkansas) line of credit to keep his campaign afloat and outspend his opponents.
Tsongas was the overall winner of the March 3 Supertuesday, although Jerry Brown emerged as an unlikely third contender. Colorado went to Brown (29%), while Tsongas placed second (27%) and Clinton third (24%). Clinton won Georgia (41%), but Tsongas managed to win 35% of the vote with minimum campaigning. Tsongas also narrowly won Idaho Caucus, tying neck to neck with Harkin at 30%. Maryland went to Tsongas who won 49% and Clinton winning 29%. Harkin won Minnesota Caucus (26%), Utah Caucus went to Tsongas (36%) and Brown (32%) while Clinton barely placed third with 12%, just ahead of Kerrey (11%). Finally, Tsongas won Washington Caucus with 34% with Brown taking the second (21%) and Clinton third place (15%).
Clinton hoped to rebound in southern states, especially Florida, but primarily outlast his opponents, facing deep funding issues. The main concern of the Clinton campaign was the establishment running over to Bob Kerrey who nearly dropped out of the race but was now receiving increased interest as the possible new party favorite. On March 7th Clinton won South Carolina with 56% but shockingly lost Wyoming Caucus to Brown who won it (27%) by two points. Clinton also finished third in Arizona Caucus, just behind Brown who took the second place 28% and Tsongas naturally winning 36%.
For a time it seemed that the Brown insurgent candidacy might enable Clinton to jump ahead to the first place ahead of Brown and Tsongas. Despite that, Clinton narrowly managed to lose Florida to Tsongas, although he outspent him $500 000 to $300 000 in expenses on television commercials.
Tsongas won Florida winning 41% of the vote while Clinton won 39%. Clinton won Hawaii Caucus (47%), Louisiana (62%), Oklahoma (59%), Missouri (37%) while Tsongas won his home state of Massachusetts (78%) and nearly won Texas which went to Clinton by two points (37%).
However, Michigan surprisingly went to Brown (32%) who placed just ahead of Tsongas (31%) and Clinton (29%) and Illinois went to Tsongas (40%) while Clinton managed to take the second place with 31%.
Despite everything, Clinton campaign still hoped they will rebound as Tsongas was uncharismatic and heavily in debt while Brown was seen as a fad. By the end of March Clinton managed to win North Dakota Caucus but troublingly enough Connecticut and Vermont Caucus went to Brown.
April 7th was rebound or die for the Clinton campaign. Unfortunately, Clinton won only Kansas (31%) while Minnesota went to Brown (34%) and Tsongas (26%), New York to Tsongas (44%) and Brown (27%), Minnesota to Brown (33%) and Tsongas (29%) and Wisconsin to Brown (36%) and Tsongas (28%). Clinton suspended his campaign the day after, thanking everyone for their support. Despite multiple damaging scandals, Clinton performed admirably, mostly due to his touch with the people and charisma.
Clinton would continue to receive support in primaries, notably winning states like North Carolina and West Virginia. Some even speculated that Clinton may hope for a contested convention and get elected as a compromise candidate although polling now showed his image was too tarnished for a national race. The situation was furthermore complicated by Perot entering the campaign. The best Clinton could hope for now is to play kingmaker on the convention.
--Fear, Loathing and Change in the Democratic Primary of 1992, 1995
______________________________
______________________________
For every dollar that Michael [Dukakis] got, I get 10 cents.
--Paul Tsongas, 1991 [31]
______________________________
'Sing me a Song of Tsongas'
Paul Tsongas was a former senator and congressman from Massachusetts who emerged as the most serious alternative to Bill Clinton. Tsongas was an oddity, having announced his candidacy on April 30th, 1991 after leaving politics to battle lymphatic cancer. Tsongas had previously served two terms in the House and one term as a senator from Massachusetts. He was forced to leave the Senate in 1984 due to cancer of the lymphatic system. The cancer went into remission but Tsongas was out of the public news for more than five years.
Within a week from starting the campaign, Tsongas raised $350 000 dollars and formed a campaign team with fourteen paid members. Due to his early candidacy Tsongas had the comparative advantage of public spotlight, but his unusual politics and lack of personal charm did not serve him. Many donors waited for a more serious Democratic alternative. In comparison, Dukakis, a fellow Greek-American Democrat from Massachusetts raised $4,6 million by the start of July but Tsongas had raised only $500 000. By September of 1991 the gap grew, with Tsongas having raised only $800 000 compared to $8,1 million raised by Dukakis.
Tsongas ran as an anti-politician, emphasizing nation's economic woes. He advocated atypical or even anti-liberal solutions like opposing Clinton's proposed middle-class tax cut, favored cutting the capital-gains tax rate (a Republican goal) and emphasized the need to reduce the budget deficit. According to him, Democratic Party and the nation should dramatically change their thinking regarding economic policy to be more business friendly. Tsongas outlined his proposals in a lengthy campaign manifesto "A Call to Economic Arms." Among proposals were increased gasoline taxes, restoration of the country's manufacturing base and support for free trade, including NAFTA.
Unusual for politicians, Tsongas eschewed sound bites early on, believing that the American people were tired of slick candidates that spoke in zingers. He stated on multiple occasions that he relied on people to make an informed, well-thought-out decision.
Tsongas was also weary of special interests, turning against the influence of PAC money despite his record of accepting contributions for his previous campaigns. Tsongas called PAC money a "destructive stench" in June of 1991 surprising even his fund raiser Nick Rizzo who had already raised $70 000 dollars in PAC money that had to be returned.
Tsongas main issue early on was lack of a capacity for nationwide infrastructure. His efforts focused on New Hampshire and lacked offices outside New England. His campaign heavily relied on the Greek-American network that Dukakis built in the previous elections but the network was barely supportive now. Low name recognition translated into a lot of unwillingness from donors but great interest in his campaign themes.
The greatest advantage Tsongas had was the lack of entry of serious Democratic contenders, with most of them being afraid of Bush's invincible standings or governor Cuomo entering the race. By the end of 1991 Tsongas managed to visit thirty states and focus on New Hampshire, Maryland, Florida, Washington and other state holding early primaries or caucuses. His campaign adapted by holding numerous low ticket fund raising events. His campaign had only one office in Manchester, New Hampshire and staff assistants operated from the homes of campaign supporters around the state. A Boston-based firm, Goldman Associates ran the direct mail approach to targeted base members (Greek-Americans, former Peace Corps volunteers) with encouraging results and response rate between 2 to 7%.
Although by January of 1992 Tsongas' campaign chest was well behind Clinton, Harkin, Kerrey and even the NAP candidate Fulani, he planned his strategy carefully, focusing on making him seem electable by a series of early wins that would make him seem a viable candidate. He saved his money for TV ads to be ran in New Hampshire, making him competitive to better-financed candidates. One of those was a thirty-second ad showing him swimming the butterfly stroke with commentators deliberately discussed how he could beat the odds like he did with cancer.
The strategy worked, as his New Hampshire victory gave a significant boost to his fund-raising effort. But Clinton had a nationwide campaign while Tsongas did not. For Tsongas Florida was the state that would decide his faith. Prior to that, he tried to get the Democratic chairman Ronald Brown to offer a "non-aggression pact" for all the Democratic candidates that would mean a moratorium on negative campaigning. This hope was dashed as other candidates sought to dislodge him, especially Clinton. Tsongas authorized counter-punch commercials refuting claims by other candidates very reluctantly. [32]
During that time, with the nationwide increased scrutiny into funds after Savagate affair kept getting more complicated, Tsongas campaign authorized an internal probe into determining if all of its money was accounted for. In a shocking turn of events, Tsongas's fund-raising chairman Rizzo was found to be embezzling funds, obtaining fraudulent loans from supporters, faking bills and expenses and diverting funds into his own bank account to pay for gambling debts. [33] Although Tsongas had some trouble believing the extent of it, the issue was up and potentially damaging for the campaign. Tsongas with great reluctance decided to force Rizzo to come clean and turn himself in a public conference that made Tsongas's honesty and campaign the news.
Suddenly the campaign had a new spin - Tsongas lack of funds was largely due to embezzlement, not his lack of appeal (which was more false than true). Tsongas win in Florida, that was mostly due to Clinton's campaign collapsing, portrayed Tsongas as a candidate that came out cleaner and stronger out of scandals while the Clinton became more and more tainted. [33] Tsongas was also successful in Michigan and Illinois where he spent over a million dollars explaining his manufacturing-based economy.
And so it came to be that the more charismatic and better financed Clinton had to suspend his campaign. Polls showed that Tsongas was now the main contender for the nomination solely due to lack of serious competitors (outside Brown) despite his campaign being in debt and reorganizing itself. If Clinton had not suspended his campaign, Tsongas would have done the same feeling that he would be forced to play the spoiler. Instead, he used a good part of his personal net worth (between $ 1.2 and $ 1.4 million) to loan to his campaign while the donors turned to him. This kept him afloat.
But the campaign was far from over. Clinton still received votes in primaries and Jerry Brown proved to be surprisingly resilient. Worse of all, there were rumours that the Democratic leadership was trying to get Cuomo, Gore or some other more electable candidate to jump in late in the campaign (or in the case of Kerrey reenter the race) seeing that polling showed Bush to be surprisingly vulnerable.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
"The fuel of my campaign is based on very solid ground, more solid than in any campaign I have ever run. It's based on the truth of what is happening in this country. And it's not compromised by the contradictions of the rhetoric and the money paying for the rhetoric...."
--Jerry Brown, 1992 [34]
______________________________
Jerry Brown announces his campaign
______________________________
"Money is the problem, not the answer."
--Jerry Brown [35]
______________________________
"Governor Brown is America's ultimate teenager."
--Dennis Miller [36]
______________________________
Another Wrench in the Works
Former California Governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. announced on September 3rd, 1991 he was launching an exploratory campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and formally announced his campaign on October 21st, 1991. Brown had previously tried to run for president twice, in 1976 and 1980, but found his political future at the crossroads.
In a ten-page letter to his supporters, during the exploratory phase, Brown said that American politics had been taken over by "corruption, careerism and campaign consulting." Brown recast himself as the populist defender against special interests, promising he will not run a campaign "but a cause." According to him, there were no longer two political parties but one, "A Washington's Incumbent party," result of "an unholy alliance of private greed and corrupt politics."
Unlike any other presidential candidate in history, Brown made campaign reform the main issue of his campaign, noting that he will only accept donations up to $100. This message was registered by the many but they preferred their own economic problems to be in the spotlight. Jerry Brown was also a poor choice of a populist to act on this issue, given that in 1990 he raised thousands of dollars from lobbyists to wage a legal challenge to overturn the Proposition 73 ballot initiative that imposed a $1000 contribution limit.
Among other issues Brown raised was greater energy conservation and the need for new fuel-efficient automobiles and a drastic reworking of the tax system to that of a flat tax with exemptions for only charitable contributions, rent and home mortgage payments.
Brown's campaign was even more surprisingly successful than Tsongas. His staff were mostly volunteers, chaired by a Brown aide from the time of his governorship (Jodie Evans). Brown used the radio as his main outlet, mostly because of the low cost of being on the radio and the television becoming the site of infomercials. Brown stayed at the homes of supporters and paid only seven staff members.
Brown appeared on many radio and cable interview shows that other national candidates ignored and promoted his famous 800 donation number. An example was his interview with shock-radio disc jockey Howard Stern. Another famous staple of the Brown campaign was him insisting on giving out his number over rules and protestations during the debates.
In January 1992, Brown raised $159 713 dollars (all of which qualified for federal matching funds) and by early February held a fund raiser in Los Angeles with 15000 supporters. A multi-racial church choir opened the program, and the event was attended by actor Martin Sheen and actress Talia Shire and Bonnie Bedelia. The even raised $40 000 dollars and was Brown's largest, but paled in comparison to the other contenders.
Brown's greatest strength was his stereotypical image as a crazy hippie as it reinforced his support from radical liberals, consumer activists, LGB activists and students. Brown praised his "Rainbow Coalition." Although this gave him a small but fiercely loyal cadre of supporters in most states, Brown performed poorly in polls and even worse in donations which relied on contributions from the many.
Brown's most important early effort was a thirty-minute 'infomercial' entitled "Take Back America" that portrayed Brown as political outsides whose ridiculed policies were sound and anti-establishment. Brown failed to win 10% vote in the first two consecutive primaries, New Hampshire and South Dakota, making him ineligible for matching federal funds if he did not win 20 % of the vote in an upcoming primary within a month. Although many believed that Brown is over, he rebounded in Colorado and was saved by Clinton's campaign imploding.
By early March, Brown had raised more than a million dollars from nearly 20 000 small contributors, which was not even one fifth of what Clinton had raised. But his surprising results became a story themselves. If not money, Brown now had the national coverage. Brown managed to deflect attacks that he is a hypocrite for his past connections to big money by claiming that is "cynical opposition to reforming the system" as he tried to reform the system within and failed.
It turned out that Brown only had to survive to become somewhat viable, operating on a shoestring budget. The 1992 primaries were a confused field of candidates where the Clinton campaign managed to eliminate off most of candidates before destroying itself. The aftermath was far less than clear as there was some speculation candidates might enter or reenter the race and Tsongas campaign was also lacking money. Many speculated Brown wanted to play the kingmaker at the convention by playing spoiler to Clinton and Tsongas. His campaign focused whatever resources they had to Florida and Texas to pull off admirable results but relied on the rust belt primaries in April and May to knock out Tsongas and establish Brown as a legitimate candidate by June and his home primaries of California.
The Brown campaign conducted no polling, had no political consultants and still had only ten paid staff members. He rejected Secret Service assistance as an unnecessary perk. Despite the chaos in the primaries, Brown could still not run television ads, relying on local press coverage, satellite television interviews, radio talk shows, personal appearances, radio spots and three thirty-minute infomercials.
No one knew what Brown really wanted. Would he really try to go for the nomination or would he be content with playing kingmaker? More speculation abounded after an independent survey conducted in the aftermath of the Clinton withdrawal showed that Brown would do nearly as well as an independent candidate. Many suspected that pro-Bush supporters were trying to spin off an already three-way race into a four-way race.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
"Jerry Brown's campaign got a fresh infusion of funds this week when his flight was overbooked."
--Johnny Carson, 1992 [37]
______________________________
______________________________
"If you call Brown's "800" number, they'll ask you to donate a hundred dollars. If you call Perot's "800" number he'll give you a hundred dollars."
--a running joke in 1992
______________________________
"Jerry Brown's campaign for the Democratic candidacy looks promising. The media is paying attention, the unions are supporting him and Mars is in the seventh house."
--Jay Leno, 1992 [38]
______________________________
An Election turned on its Head
As May of 1992 approached, no one could predict what would be the outcome of the elections. Less than six months ago it seemed Bush would coast to an easy reelection. Now, not only was a three way race plausible, but so could a four-way race be if Brown decided to run as an independent (a rumor allegedly spread by the Bush campaign).
Despite Bush's overwhelming Foreign Policy credit, it was not issue the public was concerned about. Tsongas and Perot warned against the danger of ever-increasing debt, an issue that surprisingly resonated with the public. Brown and Perot criticized the establishment and wanted to reform the political system. Recession coupled with savings and loan crisis made people convinced that domestic problems have been set aside to make place for grandiose visions of the New World Order.
Bush could not deal with this issue effectively as he was already under fire for reneging on his "no new taxes" pledge which his campaign tried to present as a measure to address the growing deficit. Nor he could call Tsongas or Brown typical "tax and spend" Democrat.
Democrats also faced a difficult prospect as its two forerunners each went against typical Democratic policies. "Tsongas is more like a liberal republican while Brown is more like a liberal Martian", one pundit quipped. Tsongas became the frontrunner despite being outside of public life for years, having little name recognition and being described as a 'moralizing wooden plank.' Despite Brown running a shoestring budget he continued to score votes, threatening to cause a contested convention.
The best hope for Democrats was for Clinton to endorse Tsongas and settle the nomination but that did not happen. Some believed that the Clinton people wanted to get concessions from Tsongas, perhaps even a spot in the administration, while others believed that Tsongas and Clinton could not stand each other. Others hoped Brown and Tsongas would eventually settle for a unity ticket, capitalizing on their appeal as anti-politicians.
Even strange speculation floated around - a Tsongas-Perot ticket? Brown-Perot ticket? Cuomo or Gore entering the race or being chosen as the compromise candidates on the convention?
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
Political scientists recently coined the '92 rule - predictability of the elections is inversely proportional to the presumptive eligibility of the frontrunners.
--Washington Post headline, November, 1992
______________________________
[024.01] OTL quote.
[024.02] OTl disapproval is 76%, slightly higher OTL.
[024.03] Willie Horton is an American convicted criminal who was beneficiary of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program despite serving a life sentence for murder. He abused the furlough to escape, commit rape, assault and armed robbery. Members of the Bush team, Roger Ailes and Lee Atwater used this to mastermind an attack campaign against Dukakis which was falsely attributed to his defeat.
[024.04-24; 26-32; 35-38] OTL statement.
[024.25] OTL was 54%, Clinton makes a slightly stronger showing.
[024.33] OTL the case became known much later and Rizzo was charged in 1993 with embezzlement in the so called 'largest campaign fraud case in American history.'
[024.34] OTL Tsongas considered reentering the race after he did well in New York despite lack of active campaigning.
______________________________
______________________________
Apathy, Scandals and Sharpshooting on the Campaign Trail '92 - II.
______________________________
Open in new tab for background music
Common People, Pulp, 1995
She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge,
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College,
That's where I,
Caught her eye.
She told me that her Dad was loaded.
I said "In that case I'll have a rum and coca-cola."
She said "Fine."
And in thirty seconds time she said:
I want to live like common people!
I want to do whatever common people do!
I want to sleep with common people!
I want to sleep with common people!
Like you.
Well what else could I do.
I said "I'll see what I can do."
I took her to a supermarket.
I don't know why.
But I had to start it somewhere.
So it started there.
I said pretend you've got no money.
She just laughed and said.
"Oh you're so funny"
I said "Yeah?
Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here.
Are you sure you want to live like common people?
You want to see whatever common people see,
You want to sleep with common people,
You want to sleep with common people,
Like me?
But she didn't understand.
She just smiled and held my hand.
Rent a flat above a shop.
Cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your Dad he could stop it all
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
And dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do
Sing along with the common people
Sing along and it might just get you through
Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along even though they're laughing at you
And the stupid things that you do
Because you think that poor is cool
Like a dog lying in a corner
They will bite you and never warn you
Look out, they'll tear your insides out
'Cause everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh
Yeah and the chip stain's grease
Will come out in the bath
You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning or control
And with nowhere left to go
You are amazed that they exist
And they burn so bright
Whilst you can only wonder why
Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
And watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all
Yeah
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do what common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
And then dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do
I want to live with common people like you.
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College,
That's where I,
Caught her eye.
She told me that her Dad was loaded.
I said "In that case I'll have a rum and coca-cola."
She said "Fine."
And in thirty seconds time she said:
I want to live like common people!
I want to do whatever common people do!
I want to sleep with common people!
I want to sleep with common people!
Like you.
Well what else could I do.
I said "I'll see what I can do."
I took her to a supermarket.
I don't know why.
But I had to start it somewhere.
So it started there.
I said pretend you've got no money.
She just laughed and said.
"Oh you're so funny"
I said "Yeah?
Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here.
Are you sure you want to live like common people?
You want to see whatever common people see,
You want to sleep with common people,
You want to sleep with common people,
Like me?
But she didn't understand.
She just smiled and held my hand.
Rent a flat above a shop.
Cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your Dad he could stop it all
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
And dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do
Sing along with the common people
Sing along and it might just get you through
Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along even though they're laughing at you
And the stupid things that you do
Because you think that poor is cool
Like a dog lying in a corner
They will bite you and never warn you
Look out, they'll tear your insides out
'Cause everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh
Yeah and the chip stain's grease
Will come out in the bath
You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning or control
And with nowhere left to go
You are amazed that they exist
And they burn so bright
Whilst you can only wonder why
Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
And watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all
Yeah
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do what common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
And then dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do
I want to live with common people like you.
______________________________
"Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a world in which 'the principles of justice and fair play protect the weak against the strong.' A world where the United Nations - freed from cold war stalemate - is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations."
--POTUS George H.W. Bush, address before a joint session of the Congress on the Cessation of the Persian Gulf conflict, March 6th, 1991 [1]
______________________________
______________________________
"The president is the Commander in Chief, not Calculator in Chief."
--George Bush, 1992
______________________________
A Campaign mistakenly optimistic
The 1992 was a transformational year, perhaps even more significant than the 1945. The Cold War was no more. The Berlin War was down, Germany was reunited, Arabs and Israelis were working on a peace, Eastern Europe was going democratic and the Soviet Union was no more. An era was over. George Bush and his team correctly assumed that there is a danger of America losing interest in world. After all, he had served in World War II. But his team did not realize is how Americans were concerned with their own problems.
A deep recession had hit the US, just as the elections approached. Unlike previous downturns, blue-collar workers weren't the only ones losing jobs. White-collar workers were losing their own and there was insecurity. The federal deficit continued to grow, propelled by rising expenditures for health care.
Bush's campaign was directed by a troika composed of Robert Mosbacher, a fundraiser and personal friend of George Bush, Fred Malek and Robert Teeter (pollster). They ran the campaign out of a rented office in downtown Washington. The campaign felt stilted, going through the motions, and failed to sell any achievements made by the president.
Teeter was the one who suggested Dan Quayle as a running mate to make Bush a president for the future, not a third term for Reagan, a choice that has been criticized for selecting Quayle based solely on polling data. Teeter declined an offer to become deputy Chief of Staff but declined preferring to live in Michigan. His run of the campaign has been praised for his approachable and quotable demeanor, but also criticized for being too polite and indecisive.
Their strategy hinged on "narrowcast" messages to select groups until the summer when Bush would deliver his "what-I-stand-for" speech. Unfortunately, this was the greatest weakness of Bush as a candidate - he had three decades of experience in public life but no one could name a single coherent theme or identity. Bush listened to advice that he needed only to avoid mistakes and coast on his achievements to the presidency. There was no need for new major legislation.
The strategy proved to be devastating for the campaign as by the May of 1992 nearly 82% [2] of the public disapproved of the way Bush was handling the economy. Brown famously called Bush more concerned with Russian than American economy.
In actuality Bush administration was mostly concerned with economic foundations of U.S. power. Expanding and maintaining the system of free trade ensured American prosperity, and American power ultimately rested on the strength and resilience of economy. Bush believed more trade means more jobs, and protectionism would weaken US and make it in turn vulnerable. Bush made North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) his main goal for the second half of his first term.
'Every billion dollars in trade means 20, 000 more jobs' Bush argued, but the voters were unconvinced. The people on the right was sceptical, afraid of 'foreign imports putting guys up here of jobs' as Pat Buchanan warned. The people on the left were worried that the agreement will 'hasten the exodus of US jobs to Mexico and drag down the wages of manufacturing workers.'
[...]
Bush's campaign was forced to go on the defensive early.
Democrats cited Bush's 1988 "Willie Horton" commercials as evidence of a Republican willingness to appeal to racism and fear. What was surprising was that the Horton campaign was cited more in 1992 than 1988. [3]
Nationwide, reformers called for term limits for elected officials to eliminate career politicians. Perot, Tsongas and Brown captured various demographics of anti-establishment statements about fixing the government.
Republican's own base became angered at Bush's major domestic initiative, the budget law of October 1990. Bush was previously moderate on taxes, abortion, civil rights and social programs and had to famously pledge "no new taxes" in the 1988 campaign. The budget broke that promise, increasing taxes by $ 150 billion. Instead of Reagan's third term, he was out of touch turncoat.
In reality, Bush could do little else as Democrats controlled both the House (by 85 seats) and the Senate (by 10 seats) which meant that any initiative would be dead on arrival or subject to major compromise and many of his appointees would be subject to heavy scrutiny and rejection . Bush pointlessly tried to compromise and confront the House, vetoing 44 bills in his first mandate.
Bush was perceived as a rich Ivy Leaguer, out of touch with average Americans. People recognized his New England background instead of his adult life in Texas. A notable incident was being confused over the use of bar codes at a grocery store. His campaigned failed to recognized that photo ops were contra-productive. After the Los Angeles riots Bush was ridiculed for a photo-op teaching urban youth how to apparently use a fishing pole.
Two Democratic hopefuls, Clinton and Tsongas, turned Bush's sound bites back on him. Tsongas blamed "voodoo economics - continued," borrowing the sarcastic phrase Bush leveled against Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. Clinton on the other hand appropriated Reagan's standard asking the people if they were better off today than four years ago.
Privately, Bush in 1992 was a tired man, dissatisfied with the way the politics were going in the country. His sons later claimed he hated the way his campaign in 1988 went negative and a popular rumour running up to the first primaries was that he might not even run for re-election. Various reports claimed that Bush started to ignore his campaign, starting from advice to change his appearance or becoming more engaged in the campaign.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
______________________________
[Washington] "has become a town filled with sound bites, shell games, handlers, media stuntmen who posture, create images, talk, shoot off Roman candles, but don't ever accomplish anything. We need deeds, not words, in this city."
--Ross Perot speech at the National Press Club, Washington, March 18th, 1992 [4]
______________________________
The Spanner in the Works
Perot's campaign began on the television talk-show circuit. Appearing on the cable TV show Larry King Live on February 20th, Perot promised he would run if volunteers put him on the ballot in all fifty states after months of media speculation.
Probably the most decisive factor going for Perot was his promise that he will spend up to $100 million dollars of his own money for a "world-class campaign." This led to a self-reinforcing cycle of media giving him coverage which in turn made him popular. Early polls showed Perot to be second nationally and winning some states outright.
Perot was a populist who could easily reach the people and benefitted from resentment toward establishment politicians that sought a new outlet as Buchanan and Brown seemed to be flailing. Perot filled the media vacuum during the primaries and seemed to effortlessly deflect his lack of government experience or party support. Notably, one veteran loaned Perot his Purple Heart medal as a sort of inspiration. Perot pioneered frequent use of call-in talk shows and lengthy infomercials, making Perot seem as a sort of servant-leader, unlike the distant Bush or the moralizing Tsongas.
Perot frequently used metaphor-saturated and colorful rhetoric, establishing himself as a concerned citizen. Constantly speaking about the country's best interests, he frequently referenced 'God' and 'Bible.' A common theme seemed to be finding an alternative to government that would help the 'common man.'
Unlike his image, Perot was a stubborn man, determined to bring change from the top, and no idea of how to bring it nor what specifics did they have. The special issue of Time 'Nobody's Perfect: the Doubts about Ross Perot' revealed that Perot was a tyrant who introduced military-style dress codes, led vendettas against competitors and stifled employers in their contracts.
As more and more details emerge about Perot, his image was shaken. Perot managed to make his fortune by gaining rights to a computer accounting system for government health programs and it was only his being-the-scenes lobbying that prompted the Nixon administration to halt efforts of the government to gain control over the computer system, tarnishing his image as a business sabvy pro-market entrepreneur.
As campaign went on, Perot appeared irate and uninformed about foreign affairs lacking concrete plans to improve government efficiency, improve U.S. trade and handle budget deficit. Of more concern were his conspiracy theories which made him seem paranoid and unhinged. As summer approached his volunteers had to take loyalty oaths.
Privately, Perot was concerned with polling and considered dropping out after every critique or a drop in poll numbers. He especially did not get along with his campaign managers who advised him to finally start becoming more specific on issues.
Perot did not want to throw the election to the House but win the election outright. Fortunately, from March on, Perot would regularly appear to lead in the polls or be a close second, mostly due to confusing Democrat primaries. This bolstered Perot's confidence as on two occasions, in April and May, press projections claimed Perot might win just enough electoral votes to become the president. This did not fool his campaign staff which was getting increasingly worried.
His campaign team was frustrated as they realized that establishment candidates will only grow stronger after the summer conventions and Perot is only benefitting from typical vacuum. Privately, Perot believed that Democrats would endorse him to unseat Bush, a belief apparently acquired from some baseless speculation about some overlap of Brown and Perot supporters.
Dismissing Democrats, Perot started to obsess with Bush. Only finding a suitable running mate could save his campaign.
--From Nation's Sweetheart to Nation's Satan: Perot and his times, 2001
______________________________
______________________________
"Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the week."
--POTUS George H.W. Bush, September 11th 1991 [5]
______________________________
How The Greatest Strength became the Greatest Weakness
George Bush had presided the USA over the most difficult era in American foreign policy since the era of World War Two. Prior to 1991 it was easy to have a simple backbone to foreign policy and that was containing a single dominant threat. Now the US had been left with multiple dangerous, but lesser minor perils. This resulted in a foreign policy that lacked a single coherent objective. Communism was representing an immediate threat to American lives, property, moral values, liberty and religion and now it looked like it was headed to the dustbin of history.
What Bush believed would be his supreme advantage, his foreign affairs, turned out to be his biggest weakness. The realignment of world politics meant that the Republicans lost their "gut" issue against Democrats who railed on about economy. How do you turn The End of the Cold War into a soundbite or a theme?
One of Bush's advisors, Bent Scowcroft noted that the end of the Cold War marks "the outlines of a very messy world." [6] Robert Gates commented in early 1992 "We should expect continuing change and upheaval around the world", and the US "should conform to the reality of an unstable, unpredictable, dangerously overarmed, and still transforming world." [7] Cheney argued that "the old strategy that has dominated our thinking for so many years" was no longer valid. [8]
Neoconservatives like Charles Krauthammer feared multipolarity and wanted the US to chair the global affairs. The US should not seek multipolar cooperation but unipolar centralization around the US. The United Nations were useless and it was the US who assembled and led the coalitions. [9]
Jeanne Kirkpatrick advocated restraint, fearing that the US would soon succumb to 'imperial overstretch' and a return to domestic problems. They have accumulated while the US lead the fights against the Soviet world domination attempts and the end of that struggle led to opportunity to tend to this concerns. The US should abandon globalist pretensions and become a regular country. [10]
Pat Buchanan advocated a return to isolationism. He attacked the "internationalist set, never at loss for new ideas to diver US wealth and power into crusades and causes having little or nothing to do with the true national interest of the United States." According to him, "blessed by Providence with pacific neighbors, north and south, and vast oceans, east and west, to protect us, why seek permanent entanglement in other people's quarrels" [11]
Political scientist Bruce Russett claimed that a new dawn of attainable collective security was at hand. International cooperation against Saddam could mark a new age of security, and establishment of a permanent UN army would be the logical new step. United Nations were the key to post Cold War world order. [12]
Bush was afraid of isolationism as was his administration. As early as 1991, National Security Strategy, warned against retrenchment, reminding of ghosts of 1920. Bush publicly attacked creeping isolationism that would render the nation vulnerable. People who advocated "isolationism" lived in the last century.
Senator Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska) publicly stated unease over instant deployment of over 100 000 troops over "false assertions that Saddam Hussein is Adolf Hitler, that our way of life is at clear and present danger, that we have as much at stake as we did in World War II." [13] Polling showed majority of people believed this policy was not borne out of 'a moral principle' but out of selfish economic concerns.
Scowcroft came to the rescue by helping coin a new term - 'New World Order,' the beginnings of greater international cooperation against the various forms of disorder that threatened in the early 1990s.
According to Bush, the NWO was 'a challenge to keep the dangers of disorder at bay.' According to Scowcroft the US could mobilize UN support to combat aggression and resolve crises and conflicts. Despite that, Scowcroft told in 1991 that the term was merely a 'catchphrase,' as did other officials complaining that the 'term' was a 'buzzword for nothing.' [14] The term would soon evolve into a common core for a geopolitical backbone of several policies.
Building support, Bush started to downplay pragmatic and emphasize idealistic elements of the New World Order. At every opportunity he reminded audience that the Gulf war was more about the principles than the Gulf.
In April, Bush reinforced Wilsonian underpinnings of the doctrine in a speech at the Air War College: 'the order gains its mission and shape not just from shared interests but shared ideals [...] a set of principles that undergird our relations: peaceful settlement of disputes, solidarity against aggression, reduced and controlled arsenals, and just treatment of all peoples. [15]
In September 1991 Bush gave a speech announcing 'we have a real chance to fulfill the UN Charter's ambition' of working 'to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.' Bush encouraged the UN to play a key role in resolving disputes and encouraging nations to honor the ideals of the New World Order.
Polls showed that Bush's emphasis on human rights was particularly popular, with one poll showing that 58% viewed protecting and defending human rights in other countries very important and additional 33% as somewhat important. [16]
A poll taken in June 1991 revealed that 80% of those surveyed advocated the multilateral use of force against a regime that used unconventional weapons or violated the sovereignty of another country. A full 91% agreed that a dictator who violated the human rights of his own citizens represented a grave danger to international order. Public enthusiasm soon exceeded the administration's willingness to pursue that ideas.
The Pentagon was quite hostile to type of missions that would fall within the purview of the New World Order. Powell repeatedly stated that the military is supposed to defend vital US interests, not the to guarantee ideals around the world. Powell served in Vietnam and was appalled with how JCS lead the war, without clear objectives and no exist strategy. This policy did not disappear with Vietnam, as Powell noted US intervention in Lebanon where the US sent marines in 1983. "we inserted those proud warriors into the middle of a five-faction civil war complete with terrorists, hostage-takers, and a dozen spies in every camp, and said, 'gentleman, be a buffer,' The results were 241 dead Marines and Navy personnel and a U.S. withdrawal from the troubled area." [17]
Scowcroft began to complain he lost control of his own creation as public commentators gave unintended specific meanings to a rhetorical abstraction. [18] Baker did not like the idea as the US now had multiple interests that may be potentially contradictory and certainly inexpressible in a single phrase. For multiple problems, multiple strategies, not a catchphrase.
Yugoslavia proved to be an ideal test bed for the New World Order. Milosevic, Kadijevic and Adzic were a trio of leaders that brutalized that encouraged ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, rapes and murder, brutalized democracies, culminating in Adzic causing a nuclear catastrophe. An editorial in New York Times noted 'the issue in Yugoslavia is the illegitimate use of force for armed ends [...] the last time that happened, the president said such aggression could not stand.' [19]
The Bush administration was now in trouble. To support their pragmatic goals they invented an idealistic goal which would force them to act against strategic interests. Baker noted early on that 'Milosevic had Saddam's appetite, but Serbia didn't have Iraq's capabilities or ability to affect America's vital interests, such as access to energy supplies.' [20] The forced intervention in Yugoslavia in December of 1991 only made the situation worse. Now the US was involved.
Bush and his cabinet carefully crafted the goals of the operation so they could call it successful in early 1992 but the conflicts continued. Critics attacked him for either not doing enough or for exacerbating the problems. 'You have ancient ethnic rivalries that have cropped up as Yugoslavia is dissolved or getting dissolved,' Bush argued. 'It isn't going to be solved by sending in the 82nd Airborne.' [21] Although he was correct, Bush was getting hammered by his opponents as duplicitous and misguided in foreign politics.
Conservatives, moderates and liberals appeared to believe that the US is getting too interventionist and not involved enough at the same time according to various surveys which confused the pundits. As 1992 went on, more and more people started to believe that the grand vision of the Bush administration is wrong. Atrocities in former Yugoslavia continued, Greece was being destabilized by ultranationalists and by summer fledgling Russian democracy was now visibly collapsing.
But the worst was yet to come. In early 1992 Pentagon strategists drafted a defense strategy for the rest of the twentieth century. The Defense Planning Guidance for 1994-1999 was complete in March.
The document bluntly stated 'we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.' The US should strengthen its alliances in Europe and Asia and retain the capability to fight two major regional war at once. It emphasized power over principle, preventing that no enemy capable of threatening US was primary, promoting human rights was ancillary, 'addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, of which could seriously unsettle international relations.' It apparently promoted preventive war against potential regional hegemons.
The draft became public and came under fire. The Washington Post declaimed the draft's 'muscle-flexing unilateralism.' Others believed that the document outlines plans for US world domination. Bush was taken aback by this and claimed that he had not read the draft, and the Defense Department backtracked, releasing a revised draft that put emphasis on strengthening US alliances rather than subduing regional powers. [21]
While it at best made Bush look incompetent in the US, the document was however circulated widely in Russia, fueling the growing paranoia about the West and capitalism.
--Misunderstood: An Untold Story of the George Bush Presidency, 1999
______________________________
"It's not one we have to mastermind... this concept that we have to work out every problem, everywhere in the world is crazy."
--George H.W. Bush, diary entry [22]
______________________________
______________________________
Kroft (60 Minutes): You've said that your marriage has had problems that you've had difficulties. What do you mean by that? What does that mean? Is that some kind of - help us break the code. I mean, does that mean...
Clinton: I don't me...
Kroft (60 Minutes): ... you were separated?
Clinton: I think the American people, at least people that have been married for a long time, know what it means and know the whole range of things that it can mean.
Kroft (60 Minutes): You've been saying all week that you've got to put this issue behind you. Are you prepared tonight to say you've never had an extramarital affair?
Clinton: I'm not prepared tonight to say that any married couple should ever discuss that with anyone but themselves. I'm not prepared to say that about anybody. I think that the issue...
Kroft (60 Minutes): Governor, that's what - excuse me. That's what you've been saying, essentially, for the last...
______________________________
"Bill Clinton smoked marijuana and didn't inhale. And they call Dan Quayle stupid."
--Jay Leno, 1992 [23]
______________________________
The Man who would be President
Initially, the primary race was expected to be dominated by Arkansas governor William J. Clinton. Considered to be a rising star in the party, he was most notable on a national level for delivering a long rambling speech nominating Michael Dukakis at the Democratic convention of 1988.
Clinton was ambitious and already planned on running in 1988, counting on the natural pendulum swinging towards Democrats after Reagan's two terms. The developing Iran-Contra scandal seemed like a good opportunity. Allegedly his first wife, Hillary Rodham, dissuaded him, believing that George W. Bush will coast on and win a third term for Reagan. Clinton's close aide Betsey Wright also warned him that his sexual transgressions might as well derail his campaign and disrupt his family life. Prophetically enough, this happened in 1988 when early frontrunner Gary Hart had to abandon the race before it even began.
Clinton impressed the nation by becoming object of ridicule for his overly long speech at the convention and than instantly coming recovering from that. Senator Sam Nunn (GA) joked to TIME in January 1992 that Bill Clinton is 'the only politician to be a rising star in three decades.' [24] Clinton was reelected in his home state in a landslide in 1990, with his performance as governor receiving national attention and widespread praise. Clinton was one of the founding members of the DLC, and prepared years building a nationwide organization and recruiting the party establishment.
Even before the primaries many Democratic leaders endorsed him. Clinton won 57 percent of the straw vote [25] at the Democratic convention in December, compared to 31% to Senator Tom Harkin and 10% for Sen. Bob Kerrey. Clinton was also scheduled to appear on the cover of the January 27th issue of Time.
Clinton had started his campaign in a relaxed mood on October 1991, counting to emerge as the strongest option against Bush. When Cuomo announced he will not run, it seemed that Clinton was the obvious choice - Clinton had the name recognition, charisma and a successful team behind him.
Unlike other players in the field, Tsongas, Kerrey or Brown, Clinton was a great orator. And Clinton was the one of the two candidates having a strong theme (the other one was Paul Tsongas). Iowa primary went overwhelmingly to its senator Tom Harkin who was a traditional liberal with strong support, but lacking name recognition or organization to compete in other states. This made New Hampshire take the important role that was usually attributed to the Iowa primary.
On the ewe of the primary in New Hampshire, it seemed that Clinton's main opposition will be former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas, cancer survivor who also boasted economy as his campaign theme. January polls showed that Clinton had moved ahead of Tsongas and his path to the nomination seemed assured. Clinton led him by 16 points. And then everything changed.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
"Vicepresident Quayle said recently that the three words Bill Clinton feared most were "telling the truth." Actually, the three words Clinton fears the most are "Hi, 'member me?"
--Jay Leno, 1992 [26]
______________________________
______________________________
The Man who would be President (continued)
The first major scandal to hit Clinton's campaign was the Gennifer Flowers affair. The Flowers affair first came to public attention during a press conference at the Arkansas state capitol on October 19th 1990. There, a disgruntled former state employee Larry Nichols announced filing of a $ 3 000 000 lawsuit against the governor Clinton. Nichols asserted that he was fired as a scapegoat to conceal misuse of state funds to pay off five alleged mistresses. One of them was a 40 year old cabaret singer, Gennifer Flowers. The lawsuit was dismissed in the state court due to lack of evidence and forgotten after the reelection. But the issue persisted.
In December 1990 Gennifer Flowers made first of the four telephone calls to Bill Clinton, complaining that Nichols allegations were hurting her ability to get gigs. Clinton spoke clearly, unaware she was taping him. Further calls and letter would ensue, and Flowers would get a job as an administrative assistant in June 1991. While working, Flowers proved to be a demanding worked, lacking computer expertise and making tasteless sexual remarks. In summer of 1991, Flowers started a new series of recorded phone calls to Clinton, just after Clinton announced forming an exploratory committee for the presidency. In the end, Flowers recorded four conversations that revolved around Nichols, republican operatives trying to approach her and tabloid press.
Larry Nichols shared his knowledge of Clinton's sex life to the supermarket tabloid Star which published the story in the January 28th edition. The tabloid repeated Nichols’s claims that Clinton had used a slush fund of public money to wine and dine his girlfriends, spent state funds to visit a beauty queen on “love trips” to New York and misused state police cars to ferry him to and from his secret trysts. Clinton mocked the tabloid for preoccupation with aliens and called the story as trash, and then his current wife Hillary called the allegations "absurd... the equivalent of a conversation with Elvis."
However, Gennifer Flowers would also sell her story to the Star a week later, along with tapes. “Sex was wonderful with Bill,” she confided. “He introduced me to things I’d never done before, like oral sex…. In the beginning, he’d talk about leaving Hillary for me, and I wanted so much for that to happen, but that was my heart talking. My head told me he’d never leave.” [27]
Although major TV networks with the exception of the NBC ignored the story, tabloids and newspapers in New England quickly ran wild with the story. The issue became an issue not because voters thought Clinton to be disqualified by infidelity, but because they doubted other voters would, making Clinton unviable.
The Clintons chose an unprecedented interview on CBS News’s 60 Minutes as their forum for a rebuttal. Unfortunately, their joint appearance was flawed. Bill Clinton described Gennifer Flowers as a “friendly acquaintance” whom he had met during the late seventies but barely met, admitting that his marriage had problems. Hillary tried to play off the accusations as overblown from a wacky woman and support her husband. However, Hillary was still under medication from the amputation of the part of her foot back in December, and she appeared to be dazed or unconvinced in her own words.
The next day Gennifer Flowers and the Star editors held a riotous press conference in midtown Manhattan. Flowers cried before the reporters. “Yes, I was Bill Clinton’s lover for 12 years. And for the past two years I have lied about the relationship. The truth is, I loved him. Now he tells me to deny it. Well, I’m sick of all the deceit, and I’m sick of all the lies.” She maintained that she had intended to keep the affair secret until she learned the Star planned a feature on Larry Nichols’s lawsuit and played selections from her tape-recorded conversations —including her own raunchy remark about “eating p***y.” Although many of the Flowers claims would later be discredited by Arkansas journalists, Flowers opened the floodgates. Mere days later, Clinton would be rocked by another affair.
Tracey Livermore was a soon to be nineteen old student from Michigan that met Clinton when he mingled with the anti-nuclear protesters in Washington (December, 15th). Livermore and Clinton were enchanted with each other and they spent several nights together. Tracey was officially a 'volunteer,' helping Clinton to draft his antinuclear policy, before she was abandoned in early January. Livermore contacted the media after seeing the Flowers issue escalate in the media, feeling both betrayed and jealous. She claimed that Clinton promised her to bring her to the White House, once in office and produced several receipts that supposed to prove she and Clinton stayed in the same hotels.
The Clinton campaign tried to downplay the accusation as coming from an inexperienced student seduced by the media. The media attention seemed to move back to Flowers who now claimed that Clinton personally paid her to get an abortion in 1977. But Livermore then returned with a bombshell, providing a detailed account of the lurid affair with Clinton, including oral and anal intercourse and attempts to bring another woman in for a threesome on a private party after a fundraising event. The following day, a photographer for an event found Livermore and Clinton holding hands while talking to another woman at a party, a photograph that was mistakenly attributed to document the solicitation of the menage-a-trois.
By now, Clinton campaign was in non-stop denial mode about the both accusations and the rumors sprouting about his marriage. Various sources claimed that Clintons had an open marriage, that Hillary was bisexual, that Bill suffered from satyriasis , that Hillary was drugged not to divorce her husband and so on. Another bombshell dropped when Juanita Broaddrick came out with her story.
Broaddrick was a nurse who met Clinton when he made a visit to her nursing home as attorney general running for governor in 1978, Broaddrick wanted to volunteer for the campaign and Clinton invited her to stop by his campaign office. A few weeks later Clinton met her at a hotel and led her into her room, allegedly to have coffee. After a brief conversation Clinton suddenly kissed her and forced himself upon her, despite her crying out she is married and not interested. Broaddrick claimed she tried to push him away but was unable to stop him. "When everything was over with, he got up and straightened himself, and I was crying at the moment and he walks to the door, and calmly puts on his sunglasses." [28]
But the most damning was accusation that Broaddrick later attended a Clinton fundraiser where Hillary Clinton approached her, took her hand and told her she wants her "to know how much Bill and I appreciate what you do for him.” This prompted Broaddrick to move her hand away but Hillary held on to her and said, "Do you understand? Everything that you do." Broaddrick claimed that this was Hillary Clinton thanking her for keeping quiet.
Broaddrick would soon produce an additional witness, her friend Norma Rogers who found her crying with torn pantyhose and swollen lip, as well as several other friends who confirmed she told them about the incident. The media quickly established this happened at the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock on April 25th, 1978 but it was unfortunately closed.
The Clinton campaign denied accusations and tried to smear Broaddrick as an unreliable witness, questioning why she continued to participate in Democratic campaigns. There was no physical evidence to verify it. But the damage had been done.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
"Clinton's economic proposals are voodoo economics with a kinder, gentler face."
--Paul Tsongas, 1992 [29]
______________________________
"Jerry Brown doesn't even have a wife to cheat on."
--Harry Shearer, 1992 [30]
______________________________
How the Democratic Primaries entered a Tailspin
The sexual scandals did not mix well with the accusations that Clinton was a draft dodger. Clinton's advantage over Tsongas melted down. In the New Hampshire primaries on February 18th Clinton placed third, winning 13% percent of the vote behind Tsongas who won 36% of the vote and Bob Kerrey who won 14%. The campaign tried to portray this as a comeback, noting Clinton was nearly a second in a state where Tsongas had the natural advantage. The claim was famously mocked in an SNL skit.
Following were Maine Caucus (February 23rd) and South Dakota (February 25th). Brown managed to pull out a narrow victory over Tsongas in Maine, getting 32% compared to Tsongas's 31% while Clinton won 12%. In South Dakota Clinton finished third, winning 16% of the vote, behind 42% Bob Kerrey won and 26% Harkin won.
Other scandals continued to emerge. At the end of February, Clinton unknowingly made a comment into an open microphone about the Reverend Jesse Jackson's supposed back-stabbing tendencies. In early March Clinton's involvement in a real estate deal with a former Clinton assistant and a failed Arkansas savings and loan. Although none of them was damaging on its own, it solidified the image of Clinton as scandal ridden. Former Miss America, Elizabeth Gracen also came out with her story about a one-night stand with Clinton in 1982.
By early March the Democratic primary was shaping to become a two-way race between Clinton and Tsongas. Clinton's once commanding lead was quickly narrowing amidst constant scandals. Although Clinton was the better fundraiser, he also spent more and had accumulated the same debt as Tsongas.
Clinton's greatest advantage was not his charisma (although it was a close second) but his fundraising potential. Unlike Tsongas or Brown, he had no qualms about accepting any form of donations and had managed to avoid using future federal matching funds as a collateral. Thus, he managed to get a large loan from his Worthen Bank (Arkansas) line of credit to keep his campaign afloat and outspend his opponents.
Tsongas was the overall winner of the March 3 Supertuesday, although Jerry Brown emerged as an unlikely third contender. Colorado went to Brown (29%), while Tsongas placed second (27%) and Clinton third (24%). Clinton won Georgia (41%), but Tsongas managed to win 35% of the vote with minimum campaigning. Tsongas also narrowly won Idaho Caucus, tying neck to neck with Harkin at 30%. Maryland went to Tsongas who won 49% and Clinton winning 29%. Harkin won Minnesota Caucus (26%), Utah Caucus went to Tsongas (36%) and Brown (32%) while Clinton barely placed third with 12%, just ahead of Kerrey (11%). Finally, Tsongas won Washington Caucus with 34% with Brown taking the second (21%) and Clinton third place (15%).
Clinton hoped to rebound in southern states, especially Florida, but primarily outlast his opponents, facing deep funding issues. The main concern of the Clinton campaign was the establishment running over to Bob Kerrey who nearly dropped out of the race but was now receiving increased interest as the possible new party favorite. On March 7th Clinton won South Carolina with 56% but shockingly lost Wyoming Caucus to Brown who won it (27%) by two points. Clinton also finished third in Arizona Caucus, just behind Brown who took the second place 28% and Tsongas naturally winning 36%.
For a time it seemed that the Brown insurgent candidacy might enable Clinton to jump ahead to the first place ahead of Brown and Tsongas. Despite that, Clinton narrowly managed to lose Florida to Tsongas, although he outspent him $500 000 to $300 000 in expenses on television commercials.
Tsongas won Florida winning 41% of the vote while Clinton won 39%. Clinton won Hawaii Caucus (47%), Louisiana (62%), Oklahoma (59%), Missouri (37%) while Tsongas won his home state of Massachusetts (78%) and nearly won Texas which went to Clinton by two points (37%).
However, Michigan surprisingly went to Brown (32%) who placed just ahead of Tsongas (31%) and Clinton (29%) and Illinois went to Tsongas (40%) while Clinton managed to take the second place with 31%.
Despite everything, Clinton campaign still hoped they will rebound as Tsongas was uncharismatic and heavily in debt while Brown was seen as a fad. By the end of March Clinton managed to win North Dakota Caucus but troublingly enough Connecticut and Vermont Caucus went to Brown.
April 7th was rebound or die for the Clinton campaign. Unfortunately, Clinton won only Kansas (31%) while Minnesota went to Brown (34%) and Tsongas (26%), New York to Tsongas (44%) and Brown (27%), Minnesota to Brown (33%) and Tsongas (29%) and Wisconsin to Brown (36%) and Tsongas (28%). Clinton suspended his campaign the day after, thanking everyone for their support. Despite multiple damaging scandals, Clinton performed admirably, mostly due to his touch with the people and charisma.
Clinton would continue to receive support in primaries, notably winning states like North Carolina and West Virginia. Some even speculated that Clinton may hope for a contested convention and get elected as a compromise candidate although polling now showed his image was too tarnished for a national race. The situation was furthermore complicated by Perot entering the campaign. The best Clinton could hope for now is to play kingmaker on the convention.
--Fear, Loathing and Change in the Democratic Primary of 1992, 1995
______________________________
______________________________
For every dollar that Michael [Dukakis] got, I get 10 cents.
--Paul Tsongas, 1991 [31]
______________________________
'Sing me a Song of Tsongas'
Paul Tsongas was a former senator and congressman from Massachusetts who emerged as the most serious alternative to Bill Clinton. Tsongas was an oddity, having announced his candidacy on April 30th, 1991 after leaving politics to battle lymphatic cancer. Tsongas had previously served two terms in the House and one term as a senator from Massachusetts. He was forced to leave the Senate in 1984 due to cancer of the lymphatic system. The cancer went into remission but Tsongas was out of the public news for more than five years.
Within a week from starting the campaign, Tsongas raised $350 000 dollars and formed a campaign team with fourteen paid members. Due to his early candidacy Tsongas had the comparative advantage of public spotlight, but his unusual politics and lack of personal charm did not serve him. Many donors waited for a more serious Democratic alternative. In comparison, Dukakis, a fellow Greek-American Democrat from Massachusetts raised $4,6 million by the start of July but Tsongas had raised only $500 000. By September of 1991 the gap grew, with Tsongas having raised only $800 000 compared to $8,1 million raised by Dukakis.
Tsongas ran as an anti-politician, emphasizing nation's economic woes. He advocated atypical or even anti-liberal solutions like opposing Clinton's proposed middle-class tax cut, favored cutting the capital-gains tax rate (a Republican goal) and emphasized the need to reduce the budget deficit. According to him, Democratic Party and the nation should dramatically change their thinking regarding economic policy to be more business friendly. Tsongas outlined his proposals in a lengthy campaign manifesto "A Call to Economic Arms." Among proposals were increased gasoline taxes, restoration of the country's manufacturing base and support for free trade, including NAFTA.
Unusual for politicians, Tsongas eschewed sound bites early on, believing that the American people were tired of slick candidates that spoke in zingers. He stated on multiple occasions that he relied on people to make an informed, well-thought-out decision.
Tsongas was also weary of special interests, turning against the influence of PAC money despite his record of accepting contributions for his previous campaigns. Tsongas called PAC money a "destructive stench" in June of 1991 surprising even his fund raiser Nick Rizzo who had already raised $70 000 dollars in PAC money that had to be returned.
Tsongas main issue early on was lack of a capacity for nationwide infrastructure. His efforts focused on New Hampshire and lacked offices outside New England. His campaign heavily relied on the Greek-American network that Dukakis built in the previous elections but the network was barely supportive now. Low name recognition translated into a lot of unwillingness from donors but great interest in his campaign themes.
The greatest advantage Tsongas had was the lack of entry of serious Democratic contenders, with most of them being afraid of Bush's invincible standings or governor Cuomo entering the race. By the end of 1991 Tsongas managed to visit thirty states and focus on New Hampshire, Maryland, Florida, Washington and other state holding early primaries or caucuses. His campaign adapted by holding numerous low ticket fund raising events. His campaign had only one office in Manchester, New Hampshire and staff assistants operated from the homes of campaign supporters around the state. A Boston-based firm, Goldman Associates ran the direct mail approach to targeted base members (Greek-Americans, former Peace Corps volunteers) with encouraging results and response rate between 2 to 7%.
Although by January of 1992 Tsongas' campaign chest was well behind Clinton, Harkin, Kerrey and even the NAP candidate Fulani, he planned his strategy carefully, focusing on making him seem electable by a series of early wins that would make him seem a viable candidate. He saved his money for TV ads to be ran in New Hampshire, making him competitive to better-financed candidates. One of those was a thirty-second ad showing him swimming the butterfly stroke with commentators deliberately discussed how he could beat the odds like he did with cancer.
The strategy worked, as his New Hampshire victory gave a significant boost to his fund-raising effort. But Clinton had a nationwide campaign while Tsongas did not. For Tsongas Florida was the state that would decide his faith. Prior to that, he tried to get the Democratic chairman Ronald Brown to offer a "non-aggression pact" for all the Democratic candidates that would mean a moratorium on negative campaigning. This hope was dashed as other candidates sought to dislodge him, especially Clinton. Tsongas authorized counter-punch commercials refuting claims by other candidates very reluctantly. [32]
During that time, with the nationwide increased scrutiny into funds after Savagate affair kept getting more complicated, Tsongas campaign authorized an internal probe into determining if all of its money was accounted for. In a shocking turn of events, Tsongas's fund-raising chairman Rizzo was found to be embezzling funds, obtaining fraudulent loans from supporters, faking bills and expenses and diverting funds into his own bank account to pay for gambling debts. [33] Although Tsongas had some trouble believing the extent of it, the issue was up and potentially damaging for the campaign. Tsongas with great reluctance decided to force Rizzo to come clean and turn himself in a public conference that made Tsongas's honesty and campaign the news.
Suddenly the campaign had a new spin - Tsongas lack of funds was largely due to embezzlement, not his lack of appeal (which was more false than true). Tsongas win in Florida, that was mostly due to Clinton's campaign collapsing, portrayed Tsongas as a candidate that came out cleaner and stronger out of scandals while the Clinton became more and more tainted. [33] Tsongas was also successful in Michigan and Illinois where he spent over a million dollars explaining his manufacturing-based economy.
And so it came to be that the more charismatic and better financed Clinton had to suspend his campaign. Polls showed that Tsongas was now the main contender for the nomination solely due to lack of serious competitors (outside Brown) despite his campaign being in debt and reorganizing itself. If Clinton had not suspended his campaign, Tsongas would have done the same feeling that he would be forced to play the spoiler. Instead, he used a good part of his personal net worth (between $ 1.2 and $ 1.4 million) to loan to his campaign while the donors turned to him. This kept him afloat.
But the campaign was far from over. Clinton still received votes in primaries and Jerry Brown proved to be surprisingly resilient. Worse of all, there were rumours that the Democratic leadership was trying to get Cuomo, Gore or some other more electable candidate to jump in late in the campaign (or in the case of Kerrey reenter the race) seeing that polling showed Bush to be surprisingly vulnerable.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
"The fuel of my campaign is based on very solid ground, more solid than in any campaign I have ever run. It's based on the truth of what is happening in this country. And it's not compromised by the contradictions of the rhetoric and the money paying for the rhetoric...."
--Jerry Brown, 1992 [34]
______________________________
Jerry Brown announces his campaign
______________________________
"Money is the problem, not the answer."
--Jerry Brown [35]
______________________________
"Governor Brown is America's ultimate teenager."
--Dennis Miller [36]
______________________________
Another Wrench in the Works
Former California Governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. announced on September 3rd, 1991 he was launching an exploratory campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and formally announced his campaign on October 21st, 1991. Brown had previously tried to run for president twice, in 1976 and 1980, but found his political future at the crossroads.
In a ten-page letter to his supporters, during the exploratory phase, Brown said that American politics had been taken over by "corruption, careerism and campaign consulting." Brown recast himself as the populist defender against special interests, promising he will not run a campaign "but a cause." According to him, there were no longer two political parties but one, "A Washington's Incumbent party," result of "an unholy alliance of private greed and corrupt politics."
Unlike any other presidential candidate in history, Brown made campaign reform the main issue of his campaign, noting that he will only accept donations up to $100. This message was registered by the many but they preferred their own economic problems to be in the spotlight. Jerry Brown was also a poor choice of a populist to act on this issue, given that in 1990 he raised thousands of dollars from lobbyists to wage a legal challenge to overturn the Proposition 73 ballot initiative that imposed a $1000 contribution limit.
Among other issues Brown raised was greater energy conservation and the need for new fuel-efficient automobiles and a drastic reworking of the tax system to that of a flat tax with exemptions for only charitable contributions, rent and home mortgage payments.
Brown's campaign was even more surprisingly successful than Tsongas. His staff were mostly volunteers, chaired by a Brown aide from the time of his governorship (Jodie Evans). Brown used the radio as his main outlet, mostly because of the low cost of being on the radio and the television becoming the site of infomercials. Brown stayed at the homes of supporters and paid only seven staff members.
Brown appeared on many radio and cable interview shows that other national candidates ignored and promoted his famous 800 donation number. An example was his interview with shock-radio disc jockey Howard Stern. Another famous staple of the Brown campaign was him insisting on giving out his number over rules and protestations during the debates.
In January 1992, Brown raised $159 713 dollars (all of which qualified for federal matching funds) and by early February held a fund raiser in Los Angeles with 15000 supporters. A multi-racial church choir opened the program, and the event was attended by actor Martin Sheen and actress Talia Shire and Bonnie Bedelia. The even raised $40 000 dollars and was Brown's largest, but paled in comparison to the other contenders.
Brown's greatest strength was his stereotypical image as a crazy hippie as it reinforced his support from radical liberals, consumer activists, LGB activists and students. Brown praised his "Rainbow Coalition." Although this gave him a small but fiercely loyal cadre of supporters in most states, Brown performed poorly in polls and even worse in donations which relied on contributions from the many.
Brown's most important early effort was a thirty-minute 'infomercial' entitled "Take Back America" that portrayed Brown as political outsides whose ridiculed policies were sound and anti-establishment. Brown failed to win 10% vote in the first two consecutive primaries, New Hampshire and South Dakota, making him ineligible for matching federal funds if he did not win 20 % of the vote in an upcoming primary within a month. Although many believed that Brown is over, he rebounded in Colorado and was saved by Clinton's campaign imploding.
By early March, Brown had raised more than a million dollars from nearly 20 000 small contributors, which was not even one fifth of what Clinton had raised. But his surprising results became a story themselves. If not money, Brown now had the national coverage. Brown managed to deflect attacks that he is a hypocrite for his past connections to big money by claiming that is "cynical opposition to reforming the system" as he tried to reform the system within and failed.
It turned out that Brown only had to survive to become somewhat viable, operating on a shoestring budget. The 1992 primaries were a confused field of candidates where the Clinton campaign managed to eliminate off most of candidates before destroying itself. The aftermath was far less than clear as there was some speculation candidates might enter or reenter the race and Tsongas campaign was also lacking money. Many speculated Brown wanted to play the kingmaker at the convention by playing spoiler to Clinton and Tsongas. His campaign focused whatever resources they had to Florida and Texas to pull off admirable results but relied on the rust belt primaries in April and May to knock out Tsongas and establish Brown as a legitimate candidate by June and his home primaries of California.
The Brown campaign conducted no polling, had no political consultants and still had only ten paid staff members. He rejected Secret Service assistance as an unnecessary perk. Despite the chaos in the primaries, Brown could still not run television ads, relying on local press coverage, satellite television interviews, radio talk shows, personal appearances, radio spots and three thirty-minute infomercials.
No one knew what Brown really wanted. Would he really try to go for the nomination or would he be content with playing kingmaker? More speculation abounded after an independent survey conducted in the aftermath of the Clinton withdrawal showed that Brown would do nearly as well as an independent candidate. Many suspected that pro-Bush supporters were trying to spin off an already three-way race into a four-way race.
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
"Jerry Brown's campaign got a fresh infusion of funds this week when his flight was overbooked."
--Johnny Carson, 1992 [37]
______________________________
"If you call Brown's "800" number, they'll ask you to donate a hundred dollars. If you call Perot's "800" number he'll give you a hundred dollars."
--a running joke in 1992
______________________________
"Jerry Brown's campaign for the Democratic candidacy looks promising. The media is paying attention, the unions are supporting him and Mars is in the seventh house."
--Jay Leno, 1992 [38]
______________________________
An Election turned on its Head
As May of 1992 approached, no one could predict what would be the outcome of the elections. Less than six months ago it seemed Bush would coast to an easy reelection. Now, not only was a three way race plausible, but so could a four-way race be if Brown decided to run as an independent (a rumor allegedly spread by the Bush campaign).
Despite Bush's overwhelming Foreign Policy credit, it was not issue the public was concerned about. Tsongas and Perot warned against the danger of ever-increasing debt, an issue that surprisingly resonated with the public. Brown and Perot criticized the establishment and wanted to reform the political system. Recession coupled with savings and loan crisis made people convinced that domestic problems have been set aside to make place for grandiose visions of the New World Order.
Bush could not deal with this issue effectively as he was already under fire for reneging on his "no new taxes" pledge which his campaign tried to present as a measure to address the growing deficit. Nor he could call Tsongas or Brown typical "tax and spend" Democrat.
Democrats also faced a difficult prospect as its two forerunners each went against typical Democratic policies. "Tsongas is more like a liberal republican while Brown is more like a liberal Martian", one pundit quipped. Tsongas became the frontrunner despite being outside of public life for years, having little name recognition and being described as a 'moralizing wooden plank.' Despite Brown running a shoestring budget he continued to score votes, threatening to cause a contested convention.
The best hope for Democrats was for Clinton to endorse Tsongas and settle the nomination but that did not happen. Some believed that the Clinton people wanted to get concessions from Tsongas, perhaps even a spot in the administration, while others believed that Tsongas and Clinton could not stand each other. Others hoped Brown and Tsongas would eventually settle for a unity ticket, capitalizing on their appeal as anti-politicians.
Even strange speculation floated around - a Tsongas-Perot ticket? Brown-Perot ticket? Cuomo or Gore entering the race or being chosen as the compromise candidates on the convention?
--Two Wooden Planks and a Sharpshooter: the Story of the 1992 Election, New York, 1993
______________________________
Political scientists recently coined the '92 rule - predictability of the elections is inversely proportional to the presumptive eligibility of the frontrunners.
--Washington Post headline, November, 1992
______________________________
[024.01] OTL quote.
[024.02] OTl disapproval is 76%, slightly higher OTL.
[024.03] Willie Horton is an American convicted criminal who was beneficiary of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program despite serving a life sentence for murder. He abused the furlough to escape, commit rape, assault and armed robbery. Members of the Bush team, Roger Ailes and Lee Atwater used this to mastermind an attack campaign against Dukakis which was falsely attributed to his defeat.
[024.04-24; 26-32; 35-38] OTL statement.
[024.25] OTL was 54%, Clinton makes a slightly stronger showing.
[024.33] OTL the case became known much later and Rizzo was charged in 1993 with embezzlement in the so called 'largest campaign fraud case in American history.'
[024.34] OTL Tsongas considered reentering the race after he did well in New York despite lack of active campaigning.
Last edited:
Great Update! I really like how this TL is shaping up. One question: did Hillary Clinton have part of her foot amputated in OTL?
Bookmark1995
Banned
Paul Tsongas was probably more neoliberal than Bill Clinton, and Jerry Brown was more eccentric than Clinton. Both of them could create a very unique 90s indeed.
No, butterflies from S01 E19. Actually, her performance in the 60 Minutes interview was praised for supporting her husband.
If any of them gets elected as president or even wins the nomination
As the teaser video and certain foreshadows suggest Western support of Yeltsin goes horribly wrong, I wonder what regime replaces him. Limonov's Neo-Bolsheviks perhaps?
I wonder if Rep. Sanders will have a role in the TTL 1992 election given its themes of populism and the threat of return to isolationism. Paul Wellstone was also quite new in the Senate at this time.
I wonder if Rep. Sanders will have a role in the TTL 1992 election given its themes of populism and the threat of return to isolationism. Paul Wellstone was also quite new in the Senate at this time.
Last edited:
Interesting ideas - thank you for reminding me of certain actors in the nineties (everyone is welcome to do that).
All I can say is that one of the future heads of Russia has been revealed in a previous update.
All I can say is that one of the future heads of Russia has been revealed in a previous update.
Somewhat relevant thing I found:
SNL's versions of Buchanan, Trump and Perot outline their plans for the presidency (1999)
I forgot that NBC region blocks videos, including old Saturday Night Live skits. No worries, the word "tube" with "pak" in the URL and it should work fine.
Thank you for everyone who voted for the timeline in Turtledoves.
We'll return in 2018 in greater numbers.
Also:
Warning: Incoming Update
We'll return in 2018 in greater numbers.
Also:
Warning: Incoming Update
S02 EP03 Meanwhile, in Independent Russia
______________________________
______________________________
Meanwhile, in Independent Russia
______________________________
______________________________
For Grim Soviet Consumers, The New Year of Discontent
MOSCOW, Dec. 31— The Soviet Union is facing the brightest holiday on its calendar in the grimmest mood anyone can remember, primarily because of food and consumer-goods shortages that seem to grow more acute by the day. Chocolate and chickens, coffee and tea, sugar and yeast, salami and cheese, cakes and candy, all ingredients of the annual feast with which Russians celebrate the arrival of a new year, have virtually disappeared from grocery-store shelves. Bath soap and laundry powder are in such short supply that they are being rationed in many cities, along with meat, butter and sugar. Children's clothing, winter boots, perfume and toys are scarce this gift-giving season.
The Soviet press, ignoring admonitions from some senior party officials to lighten the relentless gloom by accentuating the positive, is filled with articles and letters complaining that shortages are worse than ever.
-Shortages attack us literally from all sides,-' lamented an evening newspaper, Vechernyaya Moskva. -It seems that soon it will be difficult to name an item that doesn't fall into a shortage category.'-
Izvestia chimed in: -'By turns or in combinations, towels, toothpaste, toilet paper, lotion, sugar and electric bulbs have disappeared from the shelves. Now, you cannot buy detergent and cheap soap. What will it be tomorrow?'-
At times the wails from the provinces are Dostoyevskian in their torment. -There is no purpose in life,- mourned a girl from Ulyanovsk in her letter to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. In his dejected letter to Vechernyaya Moskva, a pensioner cried: -How can we go on living?-
Implicit and often explicit in the complaints from readers is bitter discontent with the attempts at economic revival that Mikhail S. Gorbachev calls perestroika.
-Recently, all you hear is perestroika, glasnost,-' wrote a man from a village in the Ural Mountains, whose contribution was included in a full page of dreary letters published by Komsomolskaya Pravda. -'But what has changed? Why is sugar rationed? Why are school uniforms rationed, shoes expensive and wages low?'-
Letters to the newspapers complain that industrial enterprises are using the new independence given them under a partial deregulation called khozrashot - financial accountability - to raise prices without improving supplies or quality. Although the price of almost everything is still regulated, factory managers can now evade the limits by altering a product and calling it new.
-'Financial accountability has not worked in consumer trade, or at least it has not worked so far,-' Vechernyaya Moskva said.
Seeking to assuage popular fears of rising prices, a Soviet official this week announced plans to increase subsidies for various consumer goods next year by 100 million rubles ($165 million at the official rate of exchange), cutting prices on fabric, appliances and some other goods. Some of the money will apparently be used as an incentive to factories to keep producing cheap products that have all but disappeared.
One severe indictment of the Soviet standard of living was published this month in the journal of the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada. An economist, Aleksandr S. Zaychenko, debunks official claims about the high-protein Soviet diet. In fact, he wrote, if lard and barely digestible ''meat products'' were deducted from the figures, Soviet citizens eat a third as much meat as Americans.
He went on to show that the Soviet diet, housing, health care and consumer goods are not just poor in quality, but are also among the most expensive in the world when their value is calculated in terms of the hours of labor needed to produce them. To drive his point home, he cited figures showing that Russians today eat worse than did Russians in 1913 under the czars. [1]
And it all promises to get worse. Yegor K. Ligachev, the Politburo member in charge of agriculture, reported in a speech this week that last summer's drought in the wheat fields caused a dire shortage of feed grain, setting the stage for further declines in the quantities of meat and milk available in the markets.
Boris N. Yeltsin, the demoted Politburo member who still commands a wide popular following, said in an interview today in Komsomolskaya Pravda that the Government should consider postponing the Soviet space program and cutting the military to finance better housing and greater supplies of consumer goods and generate public faith in perestroika.
One third of the Russian Republic, where half the nation's population lives, buys its meat with ration coupons. In Tadzhikistan, there is no gasoline. In Nakhodka, south of Vladivostok on the Pacific coast, fistfights broke out as consumers lined up for a shipment of Japanese-made jackets. In Donetsk and Ufa, indignant shoppers told the newspaper Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya that inept transportation had left them short of the one great Soviet given: cabbage.
Shortages are as traditional in this country as the cheery figure of Grandfather Frost, the Soviet version of Santa Claus who makes his rounds at the New Year. For housewives, the annual New Year's feast usually entails weeks of hunting and hoarding and bribing and buttering up, so that a tangerine or a can of crabmeat can be presented with a flourish.
In part, the shortages are symptoms of a country stranded halfway between its old, centrally planned economy and its goal of an economy driven by the laws of the market.
Factory managers are told to take charge and turn a profit. But they are also still bound by a cumbersome system where raw materials are priced and allocated by government agencies, where most producers are monopolies, and where the habits of a lifetime tell workers to produce their annual quotas and no more. The shortages have cast a pall over new year, which is supposed to be the merriest of occasions, combining the gluttony of an American thanksgiving, the revelry of New Year's, and an exchange of gifts. There is one consolation: a relaxation of the anti-liquor campaign has made champagne somewhat easier to come by than a year ago - assuring holiday revelers something to toast with, even if there is not much to toast.
--Bill Keller, The New York Times, January 1st, 1989 [2]
______________________________
Opening of the first McDonald’s restaurant on the central Pushkin Square in Moscow, 31st January, 1990
______________________________
What Life Was on Moscow's Streets After the USSR Collapsed
As we all know, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is no more. It has ceased to be. It has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. It is a late Union. Bereft of life, it is pushing up the daisies. It is an ex-Union. (It's not just "resting," either.) The landmass it formerly occupied is now taken up by new countries with old names, such as Russia, Ukraine (out, damned the!), Kazakhstan, and Byelorussia, which I half expect, once capitalism takes hold, to rename itself Sellhighrussia. Yet even though the corporeal and temporal actuality of the Soviet Union has ended, the Soviet Union is not nowhere. It has simply moved to a different plane of existence. It has fled to the realm of myth and mystery, of fright and fable, where it abides with other empires that must be imagined to he believed (whether or not they were ever real)—empires good and empires evil, empires like Atlantis, Ancient Rome, the Middle Kingdom, Oz, and the Third Reich.
Of course, even when it was alive the Soviet Union was a fabulous kingdom, a place of the blackest black magic. How could it have been otherwise? After all, here was a country founded upon a vast and elaborate fantasy, the fantasy of the Workers' Suite, a fantasy sustained not only by the cruel and bloodsoaked apparatus of fear but also, and above all during its wickedest decades, by the blind goodwill of millions of believers within and without its borders. The literature of and about the Soviet Union was steeped in weird phantasmagoria. Almost every word of Soviet journalism was fiction disguised as fact; by the same token, any Soviet writer wishing to publish a bit of honest social analysis had to disguise his facts as fiction. Many of the books written in praise of the Soviet Union described an imaginary place. Some of the most eloquent attacks on it did likewise, albeit in a more conscious way—Zamyatin's We, Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. The most spookily on-target visual portrait of the pre-collapse USSR is Terry Gilliam's great cult film Brazil. The movie has nothing directly to do with the Soviet Union (or with Brazil either), and I doubt that Gilliam had the Soviet Union in mind when he made it. He captured its essence all the same. It you want to know what the texture of this very odd country was like before the fall, see Brazil.
I've been here three times now. The first time, Moscow seemed to me less like a foreign city than an alien planet—a planet that had developed along amazingly similar lines to earth. This faraway planet, like our own, is populated by bilaterally symmetrical bipeds who, like us, garb themselves in clothing differentiated by gender, use four-wheel motorized vehicles for transport, live in boxlike structures, and consume grain-based products for both nourishment and recreation. They have equivalents of almost everything we have—shoes, newspapers, traffic lights—yet there is always something about these everyday items that makes them seem utterly strange. It's hard to say which is more eerie, the resemblances or the differences. They have shops, for example, but the signs on the outside say harsh generic things—PRODUCTS, REPAIRS, MILK, PHOTO—and inside there are only drab, empty display cases and coiled lines of shuffling people. That was three years ago. It's still basically the same, only now this exotically gray planet has begun to be colonized by earthlings.
Three years ago, there were still a few big signs of the COMRADES! WE ARE BUILDING COMMUNISM variety to be seen. On my second visit, a year and a half ago, I saw only one sign of this type—red background, block letters—but when I asked someone to translate it for me it turned out to say YOUNG PEOPLE! INVEST IN HIGH-YIELD SECURITIES! This time, the signs are advertising Mars candy bars, Hyundai cars, Panasonic electronics. The consistent thread is that all the signs, whether communist, perestroika-ist, or post-communist, advertise things that are either nonexistent or unavailable.
Some other changes. The lines at the state stores are longer than they were eighteen months ago, but elsewhere there is much more evidence of non-state commerce. The Metro corridors and the passageways under the broad Moscow avenues are lined with card tables where people sell books, magazines, scarves, flowers, chewing gum. cans of German beer. There are musicians on the subway, too—another absolutely new development. Homeless people, too—ditto. Three years ago the hot newspaper was Moscow News, which had emerged from decades as a weekly for tourists published by the Novosti Press Agency to become the voice of glasnost. A year and a half ago it was Commersant, a business weekly. Now it's Moscow's Nezavisimaya Gazeta (The Independent), a sober thrice-weekly broadsheet, and St. Petersburg's Chas Pik (Rush Hour), a spunky afternoon daily. Three years ago, an American in Moscow felt utterly invulnerable. Now every foreigner knows someone who's been mugged or burgled. But Moscow still feels a lot safer than New York.
If you have dollars and a few Russian-speaking friends to guide you, the Commonwealth of Independent States is, for the moment, a vacationer's and shopper's paradise. I traveled here on frequent flyer miles courtesy of Pan Am (another institution that has gone the way of the USSR) and stayed in the apartment of a friend of a friend. A couchette on the night train to St. Petersburg set me back about 26 cents' worth of rubles; on the return trip I bought a whole four-passenger compartment. Lunch for three at a "cooperative" restaurant (pickled veggies, not-bad pizza, cognac), about 38 cents. Reverse-chic Soviet neckties at TSUM (Central Universal Stores), the Gimbel's to Moscow's Macy's, the more famous GUM (Government Universal Stores), a nickel each. Subway rides, about two-tenths of a cent each. The whole nine-day trip has cost me about $200, mostly for gifts and meals for Russian friends and souvenirs to take home.
I've been asking people if Communism left anything worthwhile behind. Everyone gives the same answer: the Metro, the legendary Moscow subway that served as an argument-clincher for a generation of American communists. True enough: the Moscow subway is the only Soviet institution that is indisputably the best of its kind in the world. Like the pyramids of Egypt, the temples of the Incas, and the Roman colosseum, it has a brutal splendor that transcends the moral squalor of its origins. A Russian friend adds something else to the list: the "Seven Stalinist Sisters." the mock-gothic, wedding-cake skyscrapers that dot the cityscape. "I hate them, myself," the friend says, "but my eight-year-old daughter loves them. She says they're magic castles. She says gremlins and goblins must live there." A wise little girl.
--Hendrik Hertznerg, New Republic, January 20th 1992 [3]
______________________________
"A man must live like a great brilliant flame and burn as brightly as he can. In the end he burns out. But this is far better than a mean little flame."
--Boris Yeltsin, statement to a Times reporter, 1990 [4]
______________________________
The Man who would be President of Russia
As the new year began so did the new time for Russia. Yeltsin, Russia's new leader was forced with an impossible task: transition the Russia into a new socio-economic model while still retaining many of the institutions of the Soviet era including the communist filled Supreme Soviet elected in 1990. [5] In fact, the newly independent Russia was still mostly communist - it still retained the communist constitution, communist parliament and most of the nomenklatura.
New Russia was woefully inadequately prepared for transition. Only Yeltsin was a leader with considerable experience while most of his team were people in thirties and forties with mediocre or unremarkable careers. Most of prominent dissenters were dead (Sakharov), satisfied in the emigration (Solzhenitsyn), discredited (Roy Medvedev by his role as adviser to one of August 1991 putschist collaborators) or better suited to criticizing institutions. Others, like chariman of the KGB Bakatin resigned or sought new careers (foreign minister Shevardnadze went to Georgia). Vice-President Rutskoi and Speaker in the Russian Supreme Soviet Khasbulatov had distinguished careers before and Rutskoi was outright contemptuous of Yeltsin's team of 'young boys in pink shorts and yellow boots.' [6]
While Yeltsin wielded authority, the real power was technically in the Congress of People's Deputies of Russia. It officially consisted of 1068 deputies, most of them elected in the general elections in March 1990. Twenty two percent of the Russian Congress of People's Deputies had come from the highest echelons of party and governmental agencies of the USSR; a further 36% were officials of a middling level; and 21% were drawn from local political and economic management. It would be a massive understatement to say that Yeltsin and the Congress did not get along.
The Congress elected the Supreme Soviet, a legislative body divided in two councils (Council of the Republic and the Council of Nationalities) which was the main legislative body. Yeltsin avoided the sanction of the Supreme Soviet, not even bothering to visit it, and planned Russian policy with a small circle of associates which included his bodyguard chief Alexandrov Korzhakov, his favorite drinking buddy. Distrustful of the Congress and Soviet, Yeltsin used most of his political capital to wrest out the power to assign cabinet members by himself and get a delaying veto in 1991, along with a special provision of additional powers for one year.
Politicians and bureaucrats alike agreed that Yeltsin was a hypocrite. After making his career on criticizing excesses made communist elites, Yeltsin abused his position. He was driven around in a limousine, founded his own tennis club and secluded himself from the people. Yeltsin justified his authority by claiming to above party politics. Yeltsin was tolerated only because he was too popular. But how would he fare without an enemy in Gorbachev and the CPSU to blame for everything?
Even before 1992 began, many of the reformists felt betrayed by Yeltsin. The reformist newspaper Nezavismaya gazeta [Independent Gazette] called Yeltsin's team 'a conspiracy of nonprofessionals.' Many of Yeltsin's allies took their policy differences to the media since they could not argue them in front of the president. Yeltsin's allies attacked the president, warning that he had no idea how to build a state, especially not a western one.
Faced with communist and local elites, Yeltsin was imperious, sacking whomever he could and replacing it with his own appointees. Some observers noticed that Yeltsin intended to rule as a General Secretary but without any collective leadership. The Supreme Soviet was also far from united. In 1991 thirteen anti-reformist caucuses in the Russian Supreme Soviet formed and it took six election rounds to elect a new Chairman of the Presidium which turned out to be Ruslan Khasbulatov.
As the end of 1991 approached, Yeltsin and his circle of allies were faced with a choice - what would be their priority? During 1991 GDP of Russia dropped by 17% without any significant reforms in place and inflation was rampant due to Gorbachev's government resorting to printing money.
Although calling for a new election to obtain a political mandate for reform has been proposed, Yeltsin decided to pursue rapid economic reform and be vindicated later. Unlike Gorbachev, who preferred incremental reforms and often procrastinated when it came to fulfill his objectives, Yeltsin was impulsive and authoritative, aware of the soviet political, military and economic elites still in place. In his own view, it was now or never for reforms.
--Yeltsin: the Forgotten Russian Hero or Villain?, 1995
______________________________
'As a result of the activity of our "giant of thought" and fathers of Russian "democracy" we may actually get more than one hundred [Russian] banana republics.'
--vice-president Alexander Rutskoy, Novosti, 26th November 1990 [7]
______________________________
The Miserable Independent Russia
On January 2nd 1992 his First Deputy Prime Minister Gaidar [8] lifted price control for most goods in the shops of the Russian Federation. The day after, Yeltsin wrote to IMF's Managing Director, Michel Camdessus, asking for IMF membership. Gaidar and Yeltsin intended to introduce reforms using presidential decrees, a power that Yeltsin had only for a year before they would have to be renewed. Believing that ordinary citizens were fed up or uninterested with details of economy they did not outline any programmes or details of the intended goals of the reforms. This was a catastrophic decision as prices rose by 245% in January alone and quickly gave way to suspicion that turned into outright fear. By early February the inflation reached 350%. [9]
Gaidar appeared on television to quell fears but his abstract jargon and lecturely style only made things worse - viewers felt he is either obfuscating things or lecturing them, probably both. Gaidar was only thirty five years old and a member of the old central nomenklatura - a half-despised elite. He could not understand the plight of the people, having always been the part of the establishment.
Russian situation was terrible - the country was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Early estimates by the IMF, even without actual data from Russian officials, estimated that by 1995 Russia will lose half its GDP in a best case scenario. Although food production fell only 9% compared to previous year, early in 1991 government found itself depleted of funds so that most kolhozes were unpaid for their deliveries. [10] Industrial production in 1992 would collapse to only 18% of that in 1991. [11]
Surprisingly enough, poor state of Soviet economy meant Russia was technically prepared for shock therapy. People had savings in banks due to lack of goods to buy. Many members of the elites, politicians, bureaucrats, directors and others saw opportunities in the new market economy where they could make themselves rich by seizing early business opportunities. Workers were afraid of their managers and trade unions passive, coopted or corrupt. Miners were the only rebellious ones.
Kolkhozniki survived by living of their private plots but many workers and office employees depended on their savings or growing vegetables. They used plots of land near their houses or simply cut patches of land on the outskirts. Industries fell into a downward spiral - not being able to pay workers or input goods they did not maintain regular production and workers were no longer needed to be on site.
Pensioners queued for hours to buy basic products only to resell them at twice the price on the pavement to citizens who did not have time to queue. Tin kiosks erupted all over towns, selling western goods - alcohol, soft-drinks, dirty magazines, Bibles, watches, pens, clothes and so on. They were the only reliable source of goods like razors, apples or flowers. Russian goods had to be cloaked in fictitious foreign packaging. Tent-settlements of the homeless sprang up in all towns, even in Moscow. Streets were crowded with beggars, military invalids, pensioners, orphans and disabled.
Brand new entrepreneurs were little better than. Peddles sold cures for AIDS. Journalists and rivals were intimidates if lucky or assassinated outright. Pensioners would be beaten up if the would give up their apartments to property companies. Whatever capital was gained was stored in foreign banks or invested in foreign ventures. Profits were bleeding out of its own country at incredible speed, worsening the situation. Spent nuclear fuel was casually emitted into the White Sea for a time.
The new private media were a cacophonic mess. Mexican soap operas and American evangelists filled programme. Long running American soap opera Santa Barbara opened on television along with Gaidar's reforms on January 2nd 1992.
Most of the people kept their jobs even if they were not paid for it. One large exception to this were soldiers of the Soviet Army. Army was massively defunded, state construction and support of housing blocks had mostly ceased. It was not uncommon to turn public lavatories as military residences. Former soldiers found that no one can offer them a job as industry that has not imploded couldn't pay their current employees. Many generals started to sell army stockpiles and they would end up in hands of Chechens and terrorists, sometimes even directly. Estonia and its seaports became a central transition point for illegal sale of precious metals and even nuclear fuels.
The shock of the sudden end of Soviet Union did not confuse only the West. Ordinary citizens were also confused if Russia was a successor or a left over from the Soviet Union. Were Soviet accomplishments their own or foreign? Yeltsin was aware of this and carefully approached the subject. Communist experiment was criticized, by not Lenin, USSR or even Marxism-Leninism by name. The world 'capitalism' was avoided in favor of 'market economy.' The word 'West' was avoided in favor of opportunities to join 'the civilized world.' But other politicians were not as tactful.
Crowds regularly gathered outside the Lenin Museum to protest USSR's dismemberment. Many longed for Stalin or even Tsardom. Contradictory flags were waved together. Fears about fate of friends and relatives in newly independent republics abounded. It was a time of confusion, of uncertainty and of outright fear.
[...]
Chechnya declared its independence in November 1991, and there were signs other regions might follow its example. Tatarstan had such a project in works. North Osetiya wanted to reunify with South Osetiya in Georgia. Republics of Bashkortostan, Buryatiya, Karelia, Komi, Sakha (Yakutia) and Tuva declared that local legislation is superior over Yeltsin's state level laws. Tajiks in Tajikistan participated in clan violence which forced all Russians to flee back to Russia. Russians were target of vengeful Uzbeks, losing their jobs and being frequent targets of thefts. Estonia wanted to introduce a law which would deprive resident Russians of political rights.
[...]
Russia had many parties and many voting blocs which had not yet coalesced. There were several competing factions to become the successor communist party. The first officially registered non-communist political party under Gorbachev, Liberal-Democratic Party was described in its handout as the Party of Zhirinovsky, having no actual programme except bombastic proclamations. Many suspected the party was supported by the KGB and later FSB as a decoy opposition party. Yeltsin's vice-president Rutskoi tried to form his own party, its direction and programme to be decided later. Communist for Russia became Free Russia People's Party (NPSR) The only common denominator to parties was to save the ordinary man and preserve Russia.
--The Democracy Strangled in the Crib: Russia in 1992, 1997
______________________________
______________________________
Russia could have never reformed
Many Western observers failed to correctly evaluate the state of Russian economy and expected a transformation akin to Chinese. But China never employed more than 20% of the labor force in state enterprises while Russia employed over 90%. It was literally the way of life, closely intertwined with the social and political structure.
Former communist ministries evolved not into competitive market economies but into trade associations and financial-industrial groups as to continue forcing subsidies from the central bank. Some of the firms started to consolidate instead of break apart, contrary to the logic of the upcoming privatization attempt. Existing supply chains were untouched so the companies depended on purchasing goods from specific suppliers and selling them to specific customers.
Lobbies of directors of energy, manufacturing and agricultural companies pressured Yeltsin, afraid of ending state subsidies. The most famous of them were Arkadi Volsky, head of Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Vasili Starodubtsev, new leader of the Agrarian Union (and former member of the State Committee of the Emergency Situation in August 1991) and Viktor Chernomyrdin, chairman of the Gazprom.
With no elections, enterprise managers from the Soviet era remained in place. It was a situation hardly comparable to anywhere else in Eastern Europe where elections eliminated political and economical class. Russia remained saddled with some reformers at the top and old elites everywhere - administration, economy, local and national politics. Nearly all of them were statists, seeking to preserve as much of the old status quo unless they saw an opportunity to enrich themselves.
Yeltsin and Gaidar were desperate for IMF help, but its multiple missions in January actually spent most of their time just trying to get basic data from Russian officials still unwilling to make them public. [12] Gaidar and John Odling-Smee (IMF Director, EU2 Department) managed to achieve understanding that Russia has no choice but to unlock access to possibly large-scale financial assistance from the G7 and other donors.
Unfortunately, only a small circle of Yeltsin's advisors understood both economy and how bad Russian economy was.
--Was Democratic Russia Doomed to Fail?, The Atlantic, August 1993
______________________________
Internal police during protests, late February 1992
______________________________
The Fatal Running Mate
Marx once said that history repeats itself first as tragedy, than as farce. Yeltsin made many mistakes, but perhaps his most impactful one was made in spring 1991 when he balanced out his ticket by picking a decorated war hero as his running mate.
Yeltsin was worried over his opponent, former Soviet former minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, who chose general Boris Gromov (last commander of Soviet troops in Afghanistan) as his running mate. This meant that Ryzhkov had a chance to defeat him in the elections. Yeltsin sought to neutralize him by choosing colonel Alexander Rutskoy, a decorated war hero, as his running mate. [13]
Rutskoy seemed to be the safe choice. Rutskoy joined Yeltsin in January of 1991 in assailing the bloody crackdown in the Baltic. Actually Rutskoy's words were more sobering since he spoke as a Hero of the Soviet Union than Yeltsin who spoke as a populist politician. Rutskoy also founded a pro-reform faction in the RSFSR - Communist for Democracy weakening Polozkov's conservative Communist party. Although Yeltsin won popular acclaim for standing up to soldiers during the failed coup in August of 1991, Rutskoy was very important behind the scenes, calling upon his personal ties with air force chieftain general Shaposhnikov and head of paratroopers general Grachev to win their support.
Rutskoy however had a very different vision for Russia, disagreed on the necessity and scope of the economic reforms and was ambitious on his own. Rutskoi started to criticize Yeltsin while the Soviet Union still existed, attacking him for encouraging various republics to take as much autonomy as possible, pursing a free market reform and so on. To neutralise him, Yeltsin assigned Rutskoi agriculture as a task (a political version of reassignment to Alaska) and ignored his outspoken public criticism.
In October and November of 1991 rumours circulated that Rutskoy was involved in a military conspiracy to take over the country. [14] This was due to Rutskoy's calls to protect the Russian military industries, introduce free market prices as the last, not first of the economic reforms and even public calls for Yeltsin to name him prime minister.
As 1992 dawned, Rutskoy, Yeltsin and Khabulatsov were the only three national figures with authority and legitimacy and two of them were strong nationalists and statists. Even worse, the same two were first and third (actually second, taking into account that Yeltsin assumed the post of prime minister) in line of succession.
Yeltsin's health was both good and bad. Yeltsin survived car crashes, drunken binges, falling into river from a bridge and severe problems with hearth, liver, kidneys and spine (from a hard landing in 1991). Already in September 1991 he withdrew for two weeks completely from political life, in the aftermath of the First August Coup and was present in a reduced role in political life until October.
The health problems would rear back their head in January 1992. On January 27th Yeltsin suddenly disappeared from public life to 'deal with domestic problems.' While some sought this as a delaying tactic against Japanese foreign minister Michio Watanabe that had just arrived in Moscow to discuss Kurils and other border issues, others were concerned that Yeltsin is ill again. Yeltsin also cancelled his appearance at the Middle East peace talks being held in Moscow on January 29th. Yeltsin would appear a day later, on Tuesday and announce that his planned trips to London and the U.N. Security Council summit in USA were still going to happen. [15]
However, in early January 31st, Russian plane landing in New York warned the airport control to prepare a 'medical team.' It appeared that Yeltsin had collapsed during flight, either suffering a cardiac arrest while on flight or falling and hitting his head on a seat (accounts vary). Yeltsin was immediately rushed to the best New York hospital where he was confirmed to be in a state of coma due to a clot in his brain that had formed. This prompted only mild interest in the USA as the nation was occupied with Bill Clinton's scandals. In Russia, it was as game changing as the abdication of Nikolai II.
Although there was some dispute if the emergency powers granted in 1991 to Yeltsin as the president of the RSFSR were granted to the person or the position, let alone acting president, Rutskoy quickly moved declaring that he 'wields all the powers of the presidency.' Rustkoy had only days before denounced the economic reforms of Yeltsin as 'economic genocide.' [16] It is worth noting that Rutskoy waited a few days before making any moves, only after CNN reported that Yeltsin is not expected to wake soon.
Rutskoy ignored the UN Security summit, noting publicy that 'Russian problems come first.' Before Yeltsin's supporters could mount an effective opposition, Rutskoy moved quickly, sacking Gaidar and many of Yeltsin's cadre and rolling back most of the reforms. He also publicly announced that price control will be back 'soon.' The move was initially applauded by the Supreme Soviet and many of the people (prompting spontaneous celebrations in the streets), although it did nothing to change the situation - indeed it provoked chaos and panic as many store owners hiked their prices expecting them to be forcefully brought down below profit level.
In reality, Rutskoy had no available plan to do so, only the intention. For now, he intended to propose to Khabulatsov to roll back the situation to January 1st 1992, but Khabulatsov, despite wanting the same, wanted concessions in return especially as Gaidar and others claimed that Rutskoy has no authority to roll back the reforms.
Rutskoy did manage to completely wreck the relationship with the IMF within a week. The nearly complete agreement with the IMF was abruptly ended and Rutskoy even called the director of the IMF Michel Camdessus 'an enemy of the common Russian man.' In mid-February, several of the IMF mission members were even arrested for espionage under vague direct orders from Rutskoy. The former deputy minister Gaidar publicly stated that Rutskoy is plunging the entire country into bankruptcy by preventing access to sorely needed loans. But the worst was yet to come.
Convinced that economic reforms could be rolled back without much problems due to a nationwide consensus, Rutskoy was more interested in preserving Russian sovereignity which in his view was fataly compromised with the formation of the CIS.
--The Road to the Red Resurgence, 1994
______________________________
Alexander Rutskoy meeting soldiers at Tiraspol, 1992
______________________________
No one will give up a single patch of sacred Russian soil.
--vice-president Alexander Rutskoy in reference to the issue of Crimea, Novosti, 26th November 1990 [17]
______________________________
[025.01] Technically, they ate less meat, but more vegetables and produce.
[025.02] Actual OTL article: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/01/world/for-grim-soviet-consumers-the-new-year-of-discontent.html
[025.03] Actual essay, can be also read here: https://newrepublic.com/article/120503/what-moscow-was-after-dissolution-ussr-1992
[025.04, 06, 07, 16, 17] Actual OTL quotes.
[025.08] Yegor Timurovich Gaidar was one of the leading advocates of economic and political reform in Russia throughout the first two decades of the transition, intermittently in the 1990s part of the government as deputy prime minister and minister. Gaidar continued to influence the reform process as a politician, as the founder and director of the Moscow-based Institute for the Economy in Transition, and as a prolific writer who authored several best-selling books. Gaidar was one of the most frequent and helpful contacts for senior IMF officials throughout the 1990s. He died in 2009, at age 53.
[025.09-11] OTL numbers.
[025.05] Yep, early democratic Russia was very weird.
[025.12] This happened OTL. Russian economy had a real problem that no one actually knew the real problems.
[025.13] Alexander Vladimirovich Rutskoy was born in 1947 in Proskuriv in Ukraine. He became an air force officer and fought in Afghanistan as the commander of a Soviet air assault regiment. Rutskoy was shot down twice during the war, once over Pakistan as he entered their airspace and was subsequently attacked. Rutskoy spent some time as prisoner of war in Pakistan before he was returned to the Soviet Union. For his bravery he was declared the Hero of the Soviet Union in 1988 and was popular among the people. Yeltsin subsequently chose him as his running mate, after Rutskoy pledged to support his reforms. But the two did not see eye to eye. Rutskoy quickly became Yeltsin's critic and Yeltsin assigned him agriculture to sideline him. The conflict came to a head in 1993 when Rutskoy assumed presidential powers and Yeltsin subsequently sacked and imprisoned him along with other opponents after the crisis ended. Rutskoy was released in 1994 after amnesty and remains active in politics despite waning influence.
[025.14]Forgotten, but totally OTL.
[025.15] This happened OTL.
______________________________
Meanwhile, in Independent Russia
______________________________
______________________________
For Grim Soviet Consumers, The New Year of Discontent
MOSCOW, Dec. 31— The Soviet Union is facing the brightest holiday on its calendar in the grimmest mood anyone can remember, primarily because of food and consumer-goods shortages that seem to grow more acute by the day. Chocolate and chickens, coffee and tea, sugar and yeast, salami and cheese, cakes and candy, all ingredients of the annual feast with which Russians celebrate the arrival of a new year, have virtually disappeared from grocery-store shelves. Bath soap and laundry powder are in such short supply that they are being rationed in many cities, along with meat, butter and sugar. Children's clothing, winter boots, perfume and toys are scarce this gift-giving season.
The Soviet press, ignoring admonitions from some senior party officials to lighten the relentless gloom by accentuating the positive, is filled with articles and letters complaining that shortages are worse than ever.
-Shortages attack us literally from all sides,-' lamented an evening newspaper, Vechernyaya Moskva. -It seems that soon it will be difficult to name an item that doesn't fall into a shortage category.'-
Izvestia chimed in: -'By turns or in combinations, towels, toothpaste, toilet paper, lotion, sugar and electric bulbs have disappeared from the shelves. Now, you cannot buy detergent and cheap soap. What will it be tomorrow?'-
At times the wails from the provinces are Dostoyevskian in their torment. -There is no purpose in life,- mourned a girl from Ulyanovsk in her letter to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. In his dejected letter to Vechernyaya Moskva, a pensioner cried: -How can we go on living?-
Implicit and often explicit in the complaints from readers is bitter discontent with the attempts at economic revival that Mikhail S. Gorbachev calls perestroika.
-Recently, all you hear is perestroika, glasnost,-' wrote a man from a village in the Ural Mountains, whose contribution was included in a full page of dreary letters published by Komsomolskaya Pravda. -'But what has changed? Why is sugar rationed? Why are school uniforms rationed, shoes expensive and wages low?'-
Letters to the newspapers complain that industrial enterprises are using the new independence given them under a partial deregulation called khozrashot - financial accountability - to raise prices without improving supplies or quality. Although the price of almost everything is still regulated, factory managers can now evade the limits by altering a product and calling it new.
-'Financial accountability has not worked in consumer trade, or at least it has not worked so far,-' Vechernyaya Moskva said.
Seeking to assuage popular fears of rising prices, a Soviet official this week announced plans to increase subsidies for various consumer goods next year by 100 million rubles ($165 million at the official rate of exchange), cutting prices on fabric, appliances and some other goods. Some of the money will apparently be used as an incentive to factories to keep producing cheap products that have all but disappeared.
One severe indictment of the Soviet standard of living was published this month in the journal of the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada. An economist, Aleksandr S. Zaychenko, debunks official claims about the high-protein Soviet diet. In fact, he wrote, if lard and barely digestible ''meat products'' were deducted from the figures, Soviet citizens eat a third as much meat as Americans.
He went on to show that the Soviet diet, housing, health care and consumer goods are not just poor in quality, but are also among the most expensive in the world when their value is calculated in terms of the hours of labor needed to produce them. To drive his point home, he cited figures showing that Russians today eat worse than did Russians in 1913 under the czars. [1]
And it all promises to get worse. Yegor K. Ligachev, the Politburo member in charge of agriculture, reported in a speech this week that last summer's drought in the wheat fields caused a dire shortage of feed grain, setting the stage for further declines in the quantities of meat and milk available in the markets.
Boris N. Yeltsin, the demoted Politburo member who still commands a wide popular following, said in an interview today in Komsomolskaya Pravda that the Government should consider postponing the Soviet space program and cutting the military to finance better housing and greater supplies of consumer goods and generate public faith in perestroika.
One third of the Russian Republic, where half the nation's population lives, buys its meat with ration coupons. In Tadzhikistan, there is no gasoline. In Nakhodka, south of Vladivostok on the Pacific coast, fistfights broke out as consumers lined up for a shipment of Japanese-made jackets. In Donetsk and Ufa, indignant shoppers told the newspaper Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya that inept transportation had left them short of the one great Soviet given: cabbage.
Shortages are as traditional in this country as the cheery figure of Grandfather Frost, the Soviet version of Santa Claus who makes his rounds at the New Year. For housewives, the annual New Year's feast usually entails weeks of hunting and hoarding and bribing and buttering up, so that a tangerine or a can of crabmeat can be presented with a flourish.
In part, the shortages are symptoms of a country stranded halfway between its old, centrally planned economy and its goal of an economy driven by the laws of the market.
Factory managers are told to take charge and turn a profit. But they are also still bound by a cumbersome system where raw materials are priced and allocated by government agencies, where most producers are monopolies, and where the habits of a lifetime tell workers to produce their annual quotas and no more. The shortages have cast a pall over new year, which is supposed to be the merriest of occasions, combining the gluttony of an American thanksgiving, the revelry of New Year's, and an exchange of gifts. There is one consolation: a relaxation of the anti-liquor campaign has made champagne somewhat easier to come by than a year ago - assuring holiday revelers something to toast with, even if there is not much to toast.
--Bill Keller, The New York Times, January 1st, 1989 [2]
______________________________
Opening of the first McDonald’s restaurant on the central Pushkin Square in Moscow, 31st January, 1990
______________________________
What Life Was on Moscow's Streets After the USSR Collapsed
As we all know, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is no more. It has ceased to be. It has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. It is a late Union. Bereft of life, it is pushing up the daisies. It is an ex-Union. (It's not just "resting," either.) The landmass it formerly occupied is now taken up by new countries with old names, such as Russia, Ukraine (out, damned the!), Kazakhstan, and Byelorussia, which I half expect, once capitalism takes hold, to rename itself Sellhighrussia. Yet even though the corporeal and temporal actuality of the Soviet Union has ended, the Soviet Union is not nowhere. It has simply moved to a different plane of existence. It has fled to the realm of myth and mystery, of fright and fable, where it abides with other empires that must be imagined to he believed (whether or not they were ever real)—empires good and empires evil, empires like Atlantis, Ancient Rome, the Middle Kingdom, Oz, and the Third Reich.
Of course, even when it was alive the Soviet Union was a fabulous kingdom, a place of the blackest black magic. How could it have been otherwise? After all, here was a country founded upon a vast and elaborate fantasy, the fantasy of the Workers' Suite, a fantasy sustained not only by the cruel and bloodsoaked apparatus of fear but also, and above all during its wickedest decades, by the blind goodwill of millions of believers within and without its borders. The literature of and about the Soviet Union was steeped in weird phantasmagoria. Almost every word of Soviet journalism was fiction disguised as fact; by the same token, any Soviet writer wishing to publish a bit of honest social analysis had to disguise his facts as fiction. Many of the books written in praise of the Soviet Union described an imaginary place. Some of the most eloquent attacks on it did likewise, albeit in a more conscious way—Zamyatin's We, Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. The most spookily on-target visual portrait of the pre-collapse USSR is Terry Gilliam's great cult film Brazil. The movie has nothing directly to do with the Soviet Union (or with Brazil either), and I doubt that Gilliam had the Soviet Union in mind when he made it. He captured its essence all the same. It you want to know what the texture of this very odd country was like before the fall, see Brazil.
I've been here three times now. The first time, Moscow seemed to me less like a foreign city than an alien planet—a planet that had developed along amazingly similar lines to earth. This faraway planet, like our own, is populated by bilaterally symmetrical bipeds who, like us, garb themselves in clothing differentiated by gender, use four-wheel motorized vehicles for transport, live in boxlike structures, and consume grain-based products for both nourishment and recreation. They have equivalents of almost everything we have—shoes, newspapers, traffic lights—yet there is always something about these everyday items that makes them seem utterly strange. It's hard to say which is more eerie, the resemblances or the differences. They have shops, for example, but the signs on the outside say harsh generic things—PRODUCTS, REPAIRS, MILK, PHOTO—and inside there are only drab, empty display cases and coiled lines of shuffling people. That was three years ago. It's still basically the same, only now this exotically gray planet has begun to be colonized by earthlings.
Three years ago, there were still a few big signs of the COMRADES! WE ARE BUILDING COMMUNISM variety to be seen. On my second visit, a year and a half ago, I saw only one sign of this type—red background, block letters—but when I asked someone to translate it for me it turned out to say YOUNG PEOPLE! INVEST IN HIGH-YIELD SECURITIES! This time, the signs are advertising Mars candy bars, Hyundai cars, Panasonic electronics. The consistent thread is that all the signs, whether communist, perestroika-ist, or post-communist, advertise things that are either nonexistent or unavailable.
Some other changes. The lines at the state stores are longer than they were eighteen months ago, but elsewhere there is much more evidence of non-state commerce. The Metro corridors and the passageways under the broad Moscow avenues are lined with card tables where people sell books, magazines, scarves, flowers, chewing gum. cans of German beer. There are musicians on the subway, too—another absolutely new development. Homeless people, too—ditto. Three years ago the hot newspaper was Moscow News, which had emerged from decades as a weekly for tourists published by the Novosti Press Agency to become the voice of glasnost. A year and a half ago it was Commersant, a business weekly. Now it's Moscow's Nezavisimaya Gazeta (The Independent), a sober thrice-weekly broadsheet, and St. Petersburg's Chas Pik (Rush Hour), a spunky afternoon daily. Three years ago, an American in Moscow felt utterly invulnerable. Now every foreigner knows someone who's been mugged or burgled. But Moscow still feels a lot safer than New York.
If you have dollars and a few Russian-speaking friends to guide you, the Commonwealth of Independent States is, for the moment, a vacationer's and shopper's paradise. I traveled here on frequent flyer miles courtesy of Pan Am (another institution that has gone the way of the USSR) and stayed in the apartment of a friend of a friend. A couchette on the night train to St. Petersburg set me back about 26 cents' worth of rubles; on the return trip I bought a whole four-passenger compartment. Lunch for three at a "cooperative" restaurant (pickled veggies, not-bad pizza, cognac), about 38 cents. Reverse-chic Soviet neckties at TSUM (Central Universal Stores), the Gimbel's to Moscow's Macy's, the more famous GUM (Government Universal Stores), a nickel each. Subway rides, about two-tenths of a cent each. The whole nine-day trip has cost me about $200, mostly for gifts and meals for Russian friends and souvenirs to take home.
I've been asking people if Communism left anything worthwhile behind. Everyone gives the same answer: the Metro, the legendary Moscow subway that served as an argument-clincher for a generation of American communists. True enough: the Moscow subway is the only Soviet institution that is indisputably the best of its kind in the world. Like the pyramids of Egypt, the temples of the Incas, and the Roman colosseum, it has a brutal splendor that transcends the moral squalor of its origins. A Russian friend adds something else to the list: the "Seven Stalinist Sisters." the mock-gothic, wedding-cake skyscrapers that dot the cityscape. "I hate them, myself," the friend says, "but my eight-year-old daughter loves them. She says they're magic castles. She says gremlins and goblins must live there." A wise little girl.
--Hendrik Hertznerg, New Republic, January 20th 1992 [3]
______________________________
"A man must live like a great brilliant flame and burn as brightly as he can. In the end he burns out. But this is far better than a mean little flame."
--Boris Yeltsin, statement to a Times reporter, 1990 [4]
______________________________
The Man who would be President of Russia
As the new year began so did the new time for Russia. Yeltsin, Russia's new leader was forced with an impossible task: transition the Russia into a new socio-economic model while still retaining many of the institutions of the Soviet era including the communist filled Supreme Soviet elected in 1990. [5] In fact, the newly independent Russia was still mostly communist - it still retained the communist constitution, communist parliament and most of the nomenklatura.
New Russia was woefully inadequately prepared for transition. Only Yeltsin was a leader with considerable experience while most of his team were people in thirties and forties with mediocre or unremarkable careers. Most of prominent dissenters were dead (Sakharov), satisfied in the emigration (Solzhenitsyn), discredited (Roy Medvedev by his role as adviser to one of August 1991 putschist collaborators) or better suited to criticizing institutions. Others, like chariman of the KGB Bakatin resigned or sought new careers (foreign minister Shevardnadze went to Georgia). Vice-President Rutskoi and Speaker in the Russian Supreme Soviet Khasbulatov had distinguished careers before and Rutskoi was outright contemptuous of Yeltsin's team of 'young boys in pink shorts and yellow boots.' [6]
While Yeltsin wielded authority, the real power was technically in the Congress of People's Deputies of Russia. It officially consisted of 1068 deputies, most of them elected in the general elections in March 1990. Twenty two percent of the Russian Congress of People's Deputies had come from the highest echelons of party and governmental agencies of the USSR; a further 36% were officials of a middling level; and 21% were drawn from local political and economic management. It would be a massive understatement to say that Yeltsin and the Congress did not get along.
The Congress elected the Supreme Soviet, a legislative body divided in two councils (Council of the Republic and the Council of Nationalities) which was the main legislative body. Yeltsin avoided the sanction of the Supreme Soviet, not even bothering to visit it, and planned Russian policy with a small circle of associates which included his bodyguard chief Alexandrov Korzhakov, his favorite drinking buddy. Distrustful of the Congress and Soviet, Yeltsin used most of his political capital to wrest out the power to assign cabinet members by himself and get a delaying veto in 1991, along with a special provision of additional powers for one year.
Politicians and bureaucrats alike agreed that Yeltsin was a hypocrite. After making his career on criticizing excesses made communist elites, Yeltsin abused his position. He was driven around in a limousine, founded his own tennis club and secluded himself from the people. Yeltsin justified his authority by claiming to above party politics. Yeltsin was tolerated only because he was too popular. But how would he fare without an enemy in Gorbachev and the CPSU to blame for everything?
Even before 1992 began, many of the reformists felt betrayed by Yeltsin. The reformist newspaper Nezavismaya gazeta [Independent Gazette] called Yeltsin's team 'a conspiracy of nonprofessionals.' Many of Yeltsin's allies took their policy differences to the media since they could not argue them in front of the president. Yeltsin's allies attacked the president, warning that he had no idea how to build a state, especially not a western one.
Faced with communist and local elites, Yeltsin was imperious, sacking whomever he could and replacing it with his own appointees. Some observers noticed that Yeltsin intended to rule as a General Secretary but without any collective leadership. The Supreme Soviet was also far from united. In 1991 thirteen anti-reformist caucuses in the Russian Supreme Soviet formed and it took six election rounds to elect a new Chairman of the Presidium which turned out to be Ruslan Khasbulatov.
As the end of 1991 approached, Yeltsin and his circle of allies were faced with a choice - what would be their priority? During 1991 GDP of Russia dropped by 17% without any significant reforms in place and inflation was rampant due to Gorbachev's government resorting to printing money.
Although calling for a new election to obtain a political mandate for reform has been proposed, Yeltsin decided to pursue rapid economic reform and be vindicated later. Unlike Gorbachev, who preferred incremental reforms and often procrastinated when it came to fulfill his objectives, Yeltsin was impulsive and authoritative, aware of the soviet political, military and economic elites still in place. In his own view, it was now or never for reforms.
--Yeltsin: the Forgotten Russian Hero or Villain?, 1995
______________________________
'As a result of the activity of our "giant of thought" and fathers of Russian "democracy" we may actually get more than one hundred [Russian] banana republics.'
--vice-president Alexander Rutskoy, Novosti, 26th November 1990 [7]
______________________________
The Miserable Independent Russia
On January 2nd 1992 his First Deputy Prime Minister Gaidar [8] lifted price control for most goods in the shops of the Russian Federation. The day after, Yeltsin wrote to IMF's Managing Director, Michel Camdessus, asking for IMF membership. Gaidar and Yeltsin intended to introduce reforms using presidential decrees, a power that Yeltsin had only for a year before they would have to be renewed. Believing that ordinary citizens were fed up or uninterested with details of economy they did not outline any programmes or details of the intended goals of the reforms. This was a catastrophic decision as prices rose by 245% in January alone and quickly gave way to suspicion that turned into outright fear. By early February the inflation reached 350%. [9]
Gaidar appeared on television to quell fears but his abstract jargon and lecturely style only made things worse - viewers felt he is either obfuscating things or lecturing them, probably both. Gaidar was only thirty five years old and a member of the old central nomenklatura - a half-despised elite. He could not understand the plight of the people, having always been the part of the establishment.
Russian situation was terrible - the country was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Early estimates by the IMF, even without actual data from Russian officials, estimated that by 1995 Russia will lose half its GDP in a best case scenario. Although food production fell only 9% compared to previous year, early in 1991 government found itself depleted of funds so that most kolhozes were unpaid for their deliveries. [10] Industrial production in 1992 would collapse to only 18% of that in 1991. [11]
Surprisingly enough, poor state of Soviet economy meant Russia was technically prepared for shock therapy. People had savings in banks due to lack of goods to buy. Many members of the elites, politicians, bureaucrats, directors and others saw opportunities in the new market economy where they could make themselves rich by seizing early business opportunities. Workers were afraid of their managers and trade unions passive, coopted or corrupt. Miners were the only rebellious ones.
Kolkhozniki survived by living of their private plots but many workers and office employees depended on their savings or growing vegetables. They used plots of land near their houses or simply cut patches of land on the outskirts. Industries fell into a downward spiral - not being able to pay workers or input goods they did not maintain regular production and workers were no longer needed to be on site.
Pensioners queued for hours to buy basic products only to resell them at twice the price on the pavement to citizens who did not have time to queue. Tin kiosks erupted all over towns, selling western goods - alcohol, soft-drinks, dirty magazines, Bibles, watches, pens, clothes and so on. They were the only reliable source of goods like razors, apples or flowers. Russian goods had to be cloaked in fictitious foreign packaging. Tent-settlements of the homeless sprang up in all towns, even in Moscow. Streets were crowded with beggars, military invalids, pensioners, orphans and disabled.
Brand new entrepreneurs were little better than. Peddles sold cures for AIDS. Journalists and rivals were intimidates if lucky or assassinated outright. Pensioners would be beaten up if the would give up their apartments to property companies. Whatever capital was gained was stored in foreign banks or invested in foreign ventures. Profits were bleeding out of its own country at incredible speed, worsening the situation. Spent nuclear fuel was casually emitted into the White Sea for a time.
The new private media were a cacophonic mess. Mexican soap operas and American evangelists filled programme. Long running American soap opera Santa Barbara opened on television along with Gaidar's reforms on January 2nd 1992.
Most of the people kept their jobs even if they were not paid for it. One large exception to this were soldiers of the Soviet Army. Army was massively defunded, state construction and support of housing blocks had mostly ceased. It was not uncommon to turn public lavatories as military residences. Former soldiers found that no one can offer them a job as industry that has not imploded couldn't pay their current employees. Many generals started to sell army stockpiles and they would end up in hands of Chechens and terrorists, sometimes even directly. Estonia and its seaports became a central transition point for illegal sale of precious metals and even nuclear fuels.
The shock of the sudden end of Soviet Union did not confuse only the West. Ordinary citizens were also confused if Russia was a successor or a left over from the Soviet Union. Were Soviet accomplishments their own or foreign? Yeltsin was aware of this and carefully approached the subject. Communist experiment was criticized, by not Lenin, USSR or even Marxism-Leninism by name. The world 'capitalism' was avoided in favor of 'market economy.' The word 'West' was avoided in favor of opportunities to join 'the civilized world.' But other politicians were not as tactful.
Crowds regularly gathered outside the Lenin Museum to protest USSR's dismemberment. Many longed for Stalin or even Tsardom. Contradictory flags were waved together. Fears about fate of friends and relatives in newly independent republics abounded. It was a time of confusion, of uncertainty and of outright fear.
[...]
Chechnya declared its independence in November 1991, and there were signs other regions might follow its example. Tatarstan had such a project in works. North Osetiya wanted to reunify with South Osetiya in Georgia. Republics of Bashkortostan, Buryatiya, Karelia, Komi, Sakha (Yakutia) and Tuva declared that local legislation is superior over Yeltsin's state level laws. Tajiks in Tajikistan participated in clan violence which forced all Russians to flee back to Russia. Russians were target of vengeful Uzbeks, losing their jobs and being frequent targets of thefts. Estonia wanted to introduce a law which would deprive resident Russians of political rights.
[...]
Russia had many parties and many voting blocs which had not yet coalesced. There were several competing factions to become the successor communist party. The first officially registered non-communist political party under Gorbachev, Liberal-Democratic Party was described in its handout as the Party of Zhirinovsky, having no actual programme except bombastic proclamations. Many suspected the party was supported by the KGB and later FSB as a decoy opposition party. Yeltsin's vice-president Rutskoi tried to form his own party, its direction and programme to be decided later. Communist for Russia became Free Russia People's Party (NPSR) The only common denominator to parties was to save the ordinary man and preserve Russia.
--The Democracy Strangled in the Crib: Russia in 1992, 1997
______________________________
______________________________
Russia could have never reformed
Many Western observers failed to correctly evaluate the state of Russian economy and expected a transformation akin to Chinese. But China never employed more than 20% of the labor force in state enterprises while Russia employed over 90%. It was literally the way of life, closely intertwined with the social and political structure.
Former communist ministries evolved not into competitive market economies but into trade associations and financial-industrial groups as to continue forcing subsidies from the central bank. Some of the firms started to consolidate instead of break apart, contrary to the logic of the upcoming privatization attempt. Existing supply chains were untouched so the companies depended on purchasing goods from specific suppliers and selling them to specific customers.
Lobbies of directors of energy, manufacturing and agricultural companies pressured Yeltsin, afraid of ending state subsidies. The most famous of them were Arkadi Volsky, head of Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Vasili Starodubtsev, new leader of the Agrarian Union (and former member of the State Committee of the Emergency Situation in August 1991) and Viktor Chernomyrdin, chairman of the Gazprom.
With no elections, enterprise managers from the Soviet era remained in place. It was a situation hardly comparable to anywhere else in Eastern Europe where elections eliminated political and economical class. Russia remained saddled with some reformers at the top and old elites everywhere - administration, economy, local and national politics. Nearly all of them were statists, seeking to preserve as much of the old status quo unless they saw an opportunity to enrich themselves.
Yeltsin and Gaidar were desperate for IMF help, but its multiple missions in January actually spent most of their time just trying to get basic data from Russian officials still unwilling to make them public. [12] Gaidar and John Odling-Smee (IMF Director, EU2 Department) managed to achieve understanding that Russia has no choice but to unlock access to possibly large-scale financial assistance from the G7 and other donors.
Unfortunately, only a small circle of Yeltsin's advisors understood both economy and how bad Russian economy was.
--Was Democratic Russia Doomed to Fail?, The Atlantic, August 1993
______________________________
Internal police during protests, late February 1992
______________________________
The Fatal Running Mate
Marx once said that history repeats itself first as tragedy, than as farce. Yeltsin made many mistakes, but perhaps his most impactful one was made in spring 1991 when he balanced out his ticket by picking a decorated war hero as his running mate.
Yeltsin was worried over his opponent, former Soviet former minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, who chose general Boris Gromov (last commander of Soviet troops in Afghanistan) as his running mate. This meant that Ryzhkov had a chance to defeat him in the elections. Yeltsin sought to neutralize him by choosing colonel Alexander Rutskoy, a decorated war hero, as his running mate. [13]
Rutskoy seemed to be the safe choice. Rutskoy joined Yeltsin in January of 1991 in assailing the bloody crackdown in the Baltic. Actually Rutskoy's words were more sobering since he spoke as a Hero of the Soviet Union than Yeltsin who spoke as a populist politician. Rutskoy also founded a pro-reform faction in the RSFSR - Communist for Democracy weakening Polozkov's conservative Communist party. Although Yeltsin won popular acclaim for standing up to soldiers during the failed coup in August of 1991, Rutskoy was very important behind the scenes, calling upon his personal ties with air force chieftain general Shaposhnikov and head of paratroopers general Grachev to win their support.
Rutskoy however had a very different vision for Russia, disagreed on the necessity and scope of the economic reforms and was ambitious on his own. Rutskoi started to criticize Yeltsin while the Soviet Union still existed, attacking him for encouraging various republics to take as much autonomy as possible, pursing a free market reform and so on. To neutralise him, Yeltsin assigned Rutskoi agriculture as a task (a political version of reassignment to Alaska) and ignored his outspoken public criticism.
In October and November of 1991 rumours circulated that Rutskoy was involved in a military conspiracy to take over the country. [14] This was due to Rutskoy's calls to protect the Russian military industries, introduce free market prices as the last, not first of the economic reforms and even public calls for Yeltsin to name him prime minister.
As 1992 dawned, Rutskoy, Yeltsin and Khabulatsov were the only three national figures with authority and legitimacy and two of them were strong nationalists and statists. Even worse, the same two were first and third (actually second, taking into account that Yeltsin assumed the post of prime minister) in line of succession.
Yeltsin's health was both good and bad. Yeltsin survived car crashes, drunken binges, falling into river from a bridge and severe problems with hearth, liver, kidneys and spine (from a hard landing in 1991). Already in September 1991 he withdrew for two weeks completely from political life, in the aftermath of the First August Coup and was present in a reduced role in political life until October.
The health problems would rear back their head in January 1992. On January 27th Yeltsin suddenly disappeared from public life to 'deal with domestic problems.' While some sought this as a delaying tactic against Japanese foreign minister Michio Watanabe that had just arrived in Moscow to discuss Kurils and other border issues, others were concerned that Yeltsin is ill again. Yeltsin also cancelled his appearance at the Middle East peace talks being held in Moscow on January 29th. Yeltsin would appear a day later, on Tuesday and announce that his planned trips to London and the U.N. Security Council summit in USA were still going to happen. [15]
However, in early January 31st, Russian plane landing in New York warned the airport control to prepare a 'medical team.' It appeared that Yeltsin had collapsed during flight, either suffering a cardiac arrest while on flight or falling and hitting his head on a seat (accounts vary). Yeltsin was immediately rushed to the best New York hospital where he was confirmed to be in a state of coma due to a clot in his brain that had formed. This prompted only mild interest in the USA as the nation was occupied with Bill Clinton's scandals. In Russia, it was as game changing as the abdication of Nikolai II.
Although there was some dispute if the emergency powers granted in 1991 to Yeltsin as the president of the RSFSR were granted to the person or the position, let alone acting president, Rutskoy quickly moved declaring that he 'wields all the powers of the presidency.' Rustkoy had only days before denounced the economic reforms of Yeltsin as 'economic genocide.' [16] It is worth noting that Rutskoy waited a few days before making any moves, only after CNN reported that Yeltsin is not expected to wake soon.
Rutskoy ignored the UN Security summit, noting publicy that 'Russian problems come first.' Before Yeltsin's supporters could mount an effective opposition, Rutskoy moved quickly, sacking Gaidar and many of Yeltsin's cadre and rolling back most of the reforms. He also publicly announced that price control will be back 'soon.' The move was initially applauded by the Supreme Soviet and many of the people (prompting spontaneous celebrations in the streets), although it did nothing to change the situation - indeed it provoked chaos and panic as many store owners hiked their prices expecting them to be forcefully brought down below profit level.
In reality, Rutskoy had no available plan to do so, only the intention. For now, he intended to propose to Khabulatsov to roll back the situation to January 1st 1992, but Khabulatsov, despite wanting the same, wanted concessions in return especially as Gaidar and others claimed that Rutskoy has no authority to roll back the reforms.
Rutskoy did manage to completely wreck the relationship with the IMF within a week. The nearly complete agreement with the IMF was abruptly ended and Rutskoy even called the director of the IMF Michel Camdessus 'an enemy of the common Russian man.' In mid-February, several of the IMF mission members were even arrested for espionage under vague direct orders from Rutskoy. The former deputy minister Gaidar publicly stated that Rutskoy is plunging the entire country into bankruptcy by preventing access to sorely needed loans. But the worst was yet to come.
Convinced that economic reforms could be rolled back without much problems due to a nationwide consensus, Rutskoy was more interested in preserving Russian sovereignity which in his view was fataly compromised with the formation of the CIS.
--The Road to the Red Resurgence, 1994
______________________________
Alexander Rutskoy meeting soldiers at Tiraspol, 1992
______________________________
No one will give up a single patch of sacred Russian soil.
--vice-president Alexander Rutskoy in reference to the issue of Crimea, Novosti, 26th November 1990 [17]
______________________________
[025.01] Technically, they ate less meat, but more vegetables and produce.
[025.02] Actual OTL article: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/01/world/for-grim-soviet-consumers-the-new-year-of-discontent.html
[025.03] Actual essay, can be also read here: https://newrepublic.com/article/120503/what-moscow-was-after-dissolution-ussr-1992
[025.04, 06, 07, 16, 17] Actual OTL quotes.
[025.08] Yegor Timurovich Gaidar was one of the leading advocates of economic and political reform in Russia throughout the first two decades of the transition, intermittently in the 1990s part of the government as deputy prime minister and minister. Gaidar continued to influence the reform process as a politician, as the founder and director of the Moscow-based Institute for the Economy in Transition, and as a prolific writer who authored several best-selling books. Gaidar was one of the most frequent and helpful contacts for senior IMF officials throughout the 1990s. He died in 2009, at age 53.
[025.09-11] OTL numbers.
[025.05] Yep, early democratic Russia was very weird.
[025.12] This happened OTL. Russian economy had a real problem that no one actually knew the real problems.
[025.13] Alexander Vladimirovich Rutskoy was born in 1947 in Proskuriv in Ukraine. He became an air force officer and fought in Afghanistan as the commander of a Soviet air assault regiment. Rutskoy was shot down twice during the war, once over Pakistan as he entered their airspace and was subsequently attacked. Rutskoy spent some time as prisoner of war in Pakistan before he was returned to the Soviet Union. For his bravery he was declared the Hero of the Soviet Union in 1988 and was popular among the people. Yeltsin subsequently chose him as his running mate, after Rutskoy pledged to support his reforms. But the two did not see eye to eye. Rutskoy quickly became Yeltsin's critic and Yeltsin assigned him agriculture to sideline him. The conflict came to a head in 1993 when Rutskoy assumed presidential powers and Yeltsin subsequently sacked and imprisoned him along with other opponents after the crisis ended. Rutskoy was released in 1994 after amnesty and remains active in politics despite waning influence.
[025.14]Forgotten, but totally OTL.
[025.15] This happened OTL.
Last edited:
Looks like Rutskoy may be a left-wing Vladimir Putin! This will be fun...Particularly with regard to how it affects the US (and possibly British?) election.
I wonder if there will be an alternative RT to "challenge the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon media" by being the Howard Beale network
This will be fun...Particularly with regard to how it affects the US (and possibly British?) election.I wonder if there will be an alternative RT to "challenge the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon media" by being the Howard Beale network
Last edited:
Nazi Space Spy
Banned
This is a masterpiece in the making, and I'm really, really stoked to see what's next. Particularly in regards to Russia, which sounds like it's going to be considerably worse.
Excellent timeline, Jack Hawksmoor!
Looks like Yeltsin went out not with a bang, but a whimper. I expected to see a bloodier version of 3-4 October 1993 instead of a quiet behind-the-scenes coup by Rutskoy.
However, Boris was a common enemy for the hardline communists, nationalists, monarchists and other radicals. Now that he's gone, there'd be no one to keep them off each others' throats...
Looks like Yeltsin went out not with a bang, but a whimper. I expected to see a bloodier version of 3-4 October 1993 instead of a quiet behind-the-scenes coup by Rutskoy.
However, Boris was a common enemy for the hardline communists, nationalists, monarchists and other radicals. Now that he's gone, there'd be no one to keep them off each others' throats...
Hmmm, I am not familiar with the British politics, if there is a buff reading this he or she is welcome to PM me for suggestions and help.
Last edited: