Mr Bill Clinton has been re-elected to a second term as President of the United States. The margin is decisive, but appears not sufficient to carry his Democratic Party to victory in the congressional elections to the House of Representatives and the Senate. It looks like 1996 is a year for incumbents, in which the US electorate has demonstrated ifs preference for split-ticket federal representation in keeping with a long political tradition of checks and balances.
Mrs Clinton deserves congratulations for his performance. It has maximised the advantages he brought to this campaign and the unrivalled political skills with which he fought it. He made the best of a dull contest, coming across as the younger, the more capable, the more typical and the more relevant candidate to an electorate which was more reluctant than usual to engage with the political process.
Mr Bob Dole failed to break through any of these barriers to victory. He was left as a rather pathetic figure at the end of the contest, despite his honourable but ineffective effort to make an issue of the scandals involving campaign financing and Mr Clinton's conduct of political office in successive roles from Governor of Arkansas to President.
Mr Dole was up against a confident incumbent defending the high ground of a buoyant economy. His Republican Party appeared to be more divided than Mr Clinton's Democrats on most of the salient issues confronting the electorate, including those that had been stolen, with masterly plagiarism, by a President who has never been worried by any confusion between political tactics and opportunism. The conclusive demonstration of Mr Clinton's will and ability to triumph over political adversity came with his outflanking of the neo-conservative Republicans who were swept to congressional majority in 1994 on a wave of popular enthusiasm for their `Contract with America'. It backfired as they sought to implement their policy in clumsy confrontation with the White House over last year's budget.
Assuming that the Democrats fail to win back the Senate, and possibly the House of Representatives, on this occasion, it can be seen that the strong tide of Republican sentiment has by no means run its political course. Republican control of either or both houses of Congress would ensure that the scandals which have dogged Mr Clinton would continue to do so until the last drop of political advantage had been squeezed from them. It would remain to be seen how damaging this would prove to be for President Clinton as he attempts to fashion a coherent leadership and vision for the United States looking towards the next century. Much would depend simply on the evidence turned up; so far it has not been sufficient to turn the electorate decisively against him. But there is the disquieting precedent of Richard Nixon's victory in 1972 to remind all concerned of potential pitfalls ahead.
Assuming Mr Clinton can see off such a challenge he has a genuine opportunity to determine priorities for his country and to assert international leadership over the next four years. His rhetoric about a bridge to the twenty first century has worn thin on the hustings; but if it is translated into concrete policies at home and abroad he could turn out to be one of the most interesting and innovative presidents of this one.