Political Revenge

"And here we must observe that men must either be flattered or crushed; for they will revenge themselves for slight wrongs; whilst for grave ones they cannot. The injury, therefore, that you do a man should be such that you need not fear for revenge."   -   Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 3.

In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli warned that if you are going to kill the king   -   kill the king, with the corollary admonishment to never do an enemy a small harm. Failure to dethrone a king leaves a powerful enemy in place.

While successful at impeachment, the attempt to convict President Clinton of "high crimes and misdemeanors" left Republicans in a precarious and unpopular position. Whether the Republicans acted from conviction or malice, they had poked an angry bear in the eye with a stick and apprehensively anticipated a harsh response from the President and his supporters.

As Billy Dale, unfairly dismissed from the White House Travel Office, and a long line of women, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, and Linda Tripp can attest to, the Clintonistas are unafraid to assault the public images of opponents. They are far more likely to extract Old Testament eye-for-an-eye retribution, then they are to turn the other cheek.

In particular, Democratic political operatives hoped to achieve conspicuous revenge by converting the unpopularity of Presidential impeachment into control of the House of Representatives and a Democratic president to follow Clinton.

Polls at the time of the impeachment and failed conviction strongly supported this strategy. Angry at Republicans, people told pollsters that they were more inclined to vote for Democrats. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives toppled to a slender six seats. Indeed, Democratic House leader Richard Gephardt's chances of ascending to Speaker of the House looked so promising it extinguished his smoldering desire to challenge Vice-President Al Gore for the nomination.

It seems that political time is even faster than Internet time. In an article in the Weekly Standard entitled ``Impeachment Hasn't Hurt,'' Tod Lindberg argues that the 2000 Congressional elections are not likely to be a referendum on impeachment. The issue has lost its saliency.

Generic polls show that Republicans are running even or slightly ahead of Democrats. The Polling Report Web Site reports that in the ABC News and Washington Post poll a generic Democrat defeated the generic Republican 49% to 39% in January 1999. In February of this year, Republicans slightly led Democrats 46% to 45%. The CBS poll had Democrats leading Republicans 40% to 31% in September of 1999, while in May 2000, the same poll shows Democrats ahead only 42% to 39%. Interesting the Zogby International Poll has shown Democrats and Republicans evenly split for the last year and a half.

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