NOVEMBER 15, 1999
A Hinge Point in History
Examining the ingredients of a once-in-a-century election
By David Gergen

As presidential candidates squared off in a New Hampshire debate the other night, passengers sitting in front of TV monitors in New York's LaGuardia Airport flipped through magazines, swapped scores, and dozed off--anything to avoid watching another political shootout.But this one is different: America is now embarked upon the most important political campaign in a generation and, arguably, much longer. So much is at stake that we would be wise to pay attention.

Voters next November will determine which party controls all three branches of our national government. Not only is the White House up for grabs but so is Congress. Democrats need to gain only six seats to retake control of the House, and at this point, they are favored to succeed. Dick Gephardt could easily become speaker, his eye cocked on a White House run of his own, while key chairmanships would pass to liberal leaders like Charles Rangel and David Obey. That would represent a huge shift in direction.

If, however, the Republicans win the White House with a large majority--say, by more than 5 percentage points--their heavy turnout would probably keep the House and Senate in GOP hands, signaling a change even more dramatic. Consider: The GOP has controlled the presidency and the Congress simultaneously in only two of the past 67 years--and that was when Ike was in charge and didn't want to rock the boat. Conservatives have very different ideas in mind if they can grab the helm now.Reshaping the court. The next president is also likely to have a passel of appointments to the Supreme Court-- as few as three and, according to Sen. Orrin Hatch, as many as five. Of today's justices, only two were named by a Democratic president, seven by Republicans. A Democratic victory in November could allow that party to have a majority of appointees on the court for the first time since 1969.

And there's more: This election takes place in the same year as a national census, a coincidence that only occurs every 20 years. The state legislatures elected next November, along with governors, will use the census results to redraw congressional districts that could well determine who dominates the House of Representatives for at least a decade to come. Power is so evenly divided in many states now that in no fewer than 22 state legislative chambers, a loss of three seats would throw control to the other party. Just last week, Republicans in Virginia gained control of the state legislature for the first time in history.

Raw political power is thus squarely on the line in this campaign. And even that doesn't tell the full story. This election also comes at a hinge point in history--the turn of a new century. Only twice before in our history have Americans faced similar occasions, and both times the man we sent to the White House magnificently rose to the challenge, shaping the hundred years that followed.

In 1800, the nation elected Thomas Jefferson as president. Pointing to the Lewis and Clark expedition organized by the new president and then his Louisiana Purchase, historian Stephen Ambrose explains, "What Jefferson wanted was to create a nation that stretched from sea to shining sea. And this was a brand-new thought in world history. . . . No one had thought of a nation stretching across a continent until Thomas Jefferson, the most imaginative and inventive of all our presidents."

In 1900, the nation thought it had selected William McKinley as president, but fate and an assassin's bullet soon put his vice president, Teddy Roosevelt, in the chair. Just as Jefferson envisioned an "empire of liberty" at home, Roosevelt envisioned an America that would transform the world. He quite literally changed our destiny forever.

In 2000, will we elect a leader of equal vision and character? Will our grandchildren look back and say that the man we elected summoned us to shape an entirely new world--a world of revolutionary changed up by science and technology? Will they say that our next president belongs up on Mount Rushmore with Jefferson and Teddy? Ultimately, that is what counts in this campaign.