Tough Times for the President: Political Adversity and the Sour ...

an opposition Congress: Truman (1947–1948), Eisenhower (1955–1956), Clinton (1995–1996), and George W. Bush (2007–2008). (Ronald Reagan lost the Senate in the 1986 midterm elections, but 1987–1988 was also the period of the Iran-Contra affair and will be explored in chapter 3.) Among these examples, only Eisenhower maintained strong public approval ratings; the others faced weak public support or even outright unpopularity in addition to the unmandate.

Chapter 3 focuses on presidents attempting to govern in the face of scandal. Three cases deserve attention: Nixon and Watergate (1973–1974), Reagan and the Iran-Contra affair (1987–1988), and Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky affair (1998–1999). These scandals placed enormous pressure on the White House, made it difficult for the president to govern, and led to major investigations. Watergate led to Nixon’s resignation (August 1974) in the face of an impeachment threat, whereas Clinton was impeached in 1998 and tried in the Senate in 1999.

Chapter 4 examines presidents responding to circumstances of significant national political division and stress. In these cases, political and economic factors combine to place pressure on the president that makes governing more difficult, including Johnson in 1967–1968, under pressure because of the Vietnam War; Carter in 1979–1980, as the weak economy, international instability, and the Iranian Hostage Crisis weakened him; and Bush in 1992, as the recession and a backlash among conservatives within his own party undermined his leadership.

Chapter 5 examines the presidency of Gerald Ford, which in many respects constitutes a unique case of presidential adversity. Given the reasons why Ford became president and his pardon of Nixon within a few weeks of taking office, Ford faced a situation of political adversity unlike that of almost any other president. Not only had he not been elected to the presidency, but he had been appointed vice president in 1974 after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in the wake of a scandal involving his prior service as governor of Maryland. Ford faced a Congress controlled by the Democrats, and after his pardon of Nixon, his approval ratings