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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Kenneth T. Walsh
Youth has always been a double-edged sword for America'spresidents. It tends to inject the
Bill Clinton, at 46, was the third-youngest president. He had been governor of Arkansas for 12 years, so he did have executive experience, but he lacked savvy in Washington, and it showed.
Shortly after Clinton took office in January 1993, he ran into the capital's head winds. His
But his biggest problem was in attempting to overhaul the healthcare system. He named his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton (now the secretary of state), to take charge of the initiative, an unusual policymaking job for a first lady. Many members of
Reflecting on his early setbacks, Clinton said his lack of Washington experience kept him from fully understanding "the interplay of the power centers around town and how to get started a little smoother. And I think not having had that, I should have started a little more slowly and spent more time just in kind of interpersonal relationships with people than I did. But I was in a hurry to get started." He added: "Nothing, no job in the world, can prepare a president for the fact that all of a sudden you're presiding over some vast government where every day there are all these stories attributed anonymously to some
As his presidency wore on, many voters considered Clinton too immature, too liberal, too much in league with establishment Democrats who controlled
Clinton eventually righted his presidency, toning down his liberalism and serving as a centrist counterbalance to the conservative Republican majorities in the House and
AMERICAN POLITICS
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