Since the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, only three Democrats have captured the White House -- all of them natives of southern states. The ascendancy and reelection of Bill Clinton to the presidency is a prime example of this phenomenon, and although books have been published on the "native son" psychological variable in electoral contests, no work to date has investigated this aspect of Clinton's political career.Covering all of Clinton's twenty-one elections to state and national offices, Hanes Walton Jr. explores one of the political success stories of our century, showing how Clinton's popularity in his southern home has had a profound influence on his national electoral dominance. Walton combines the native-son theory with the issue of race to describe how the Democrats have built a vital power base in the South, in large measure because of their popularity among African-American voters.With an epilogue on the Monica Lewinsky scandal and its effect on the Democratic Party, Reelectionis a major contribution to the literature on the psychology of national elections at a time when its insight into the possibility of Democratic leadership into the next century is most critical.

Hanes Walton Jr. is professor of political science at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.