The Pendulum of American Constitutionalism

Discussing whether a U.S. president has done anything "unconstitutional" usually requires looking at two levels: rulings by the Supreme Court (judicial review) and impeachment proceedings by Congress (political and constitutional oversight).

During Bill Clinton's two terms (1993-2001), there were indeed instances where his executive actions or signed laws were ruled unconstitutional, and he also faced an impeachment trial involving core constitutional disputes.

Here are the most critical events:

1. Executive Action Ruled Unconstitutional by the Supreme Court: Line-Item Veto

This is the most direct case of a presidential act being ruled unconstitutional during Clinton's tenure.

• Background: In 1996, Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act, granting the president the power to cancel specific spending items in a bill without vetoing the entire bill. Clinton used this power multiple times.

• Unconstitutional Ruling: In the 1998 case Clinton v. City of New York, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Clinton's use of the line-item veto was unconstitutional.

• Reason: The Court held that it violated the Presentment Clause of Article I of the Constitution. The Constitution requires the president to either sign or veto a bill in its entirety; he cannot unilaterally modify it (striking out parts effectively amends the law), as this infringes on Congress's legislative power.

2. Signed Federal Laws Later Ruled Unconstitutional

Like many presidents, Clinton signed laws that were later struck down by the Supreme Court:

• Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA, 1996): Clinton signed this law defining marriage at the federal level as between one man and one woman. In 2013 (United States v. Windsor) and 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges), the Supreme Court ruled its core provisions violated the equal protection principles of the Fifth Amendment, ultimately establishing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

• Parts of the Communications Decency Act (CDA, 1996): Clinton signed a law aimed at restricting indecent content on the internet. In 1997 (Reno v. ACLU), the Supreme Court ruled that the provisions restricting "indecent" content violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech.

3. Impeachment and the Constitutional Debate over "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"

Clinton became the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House, sparking major constitutional controversy.

• Charges: In 1998, the House impeached Clinton on two articles: perjury (lying under oath) and obstruction of justice (attempting to cover up his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky).

• Constitutional Debate: The Constitution states that the standard for impeachment is "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." The debate centered on whether perjury in a civil lawsuit about personal sexual conduct met the constitutional standard of a "high Crime or Misdemeanor" warranting removal from office.

• Outcome: In the subsequent Senate trial, neither charge reached the two-thirds majority needed for conviction. Clinton was acquitted and completed his term. Thus, from the final constitutional process, the Senate did not determine that his actions constituted an impeachable high crime.

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In summary: Clinton did exercise a power (the line-item veto) that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional, and he signed laws that were later found unconstitutional. As for the behavior that led to his impeachment, while morally and legally condemned, the Senate ultimately decided it did not meet the constitutional threshold for removal.

That's a very insightful question. Moving from strict legal text to "norms and spirit of constitutional governance" (Constitutional Norms), political scientists and historians generally agree that Clinton's presidency was a major watershed in modern American political history.

Many scholars and observers believe that while Clinton didn't single-handedly "destroy" the Constitution, his tenure (and the Republican response to him) significantly damaged the unwritten norms that sustain healthy constitutional governance and ushered in the severe partisan polarization (Polarization) of modern America.

Here are the core reasons why people think he (and his era) exacerbated the destruction of constitutional governance and two-party opposition:

1. The "Weaponization" of Impeachment and Lowering of the Bar

This is the most profound impact on the constitutional system.

• Change in Constitutional Intent: The Founders designed "impeachment" to guard against presidents committing "treason or high crimes" that harm the nation. But during Clinton's era, Republicans launched impeachment because he tried to cover up a sex scandal (perjury).

• Clinton's Counterattack: Facing impeachment, Clinton did not choose to compromise or resign (as Nixon did). Instead, he mobilized the White House's vast political machine, framing it as a "right-wing political persecution," and fought hard through public opinion and partisan solidarity.

• Aftermath: This battle turned "impeachment," originally a solemn constitutional nuclear option, into a routine tool of partisan warfare. Critics argue this broke the constitutional norm of "institutional forbearance." Since then, whenever one party controls the House, calls to impeach the president are constant.

2. Politics as "Zero-Sum Game" and the Rise of Newt Gingrich

The intensification of two-party opposition was not just due to Clinton but also his interaction with the Republican leader of the time.

• Era of Total Confrontation: In 1994, Newt Gingrich led Republicans to retake the House. Gingrich changed the tradition of bipartisan cooperation in Congress, turning politics into a moral war of "us vs. them."

• Clinton's "Triangulation": To cope with this polarization, Clinton adopted the famous "triangulation" strategy—he co-opted many conservative Republican issues (like welfare reform, tough-on-crime bills, balanced budget) and turned them into his own achievements.

• Intensified Opposition: While this helped Clinton win elections, it infuriated Republicans (who felt Clinton "stole" their ideas and lacked principles) and also betrayed the Democratic left. The two parties no longer engaged in gentlemanly policy debates but fell into pure power calculations and personal attacks.

3. "Word Games" and the Loss of Presidential Moral Authority

Constitutional governance relies not only on law but also heavily on credibility.

• Relativization of Truth: Facing investigation by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, Clinton used his legal skills to play word games in national TV addresses and before the grand jury (e.g., his famous line: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is").

• Damage to Constitutional Governance: Critics argue that Clinton's approach—"as long as it's not technically illegal, it's okay to lie openly"—severely undermined the moral authority of the presidency. It sent a signal to society that politicians don't need high morals; they just need a strong legal team and PR machine to evade responsibility. This eroded public trust in the highest office of the government, a fundamental element of constitutional governance.

4. Expansion of Executive Power and Bypassing Congress

When Clinton faced a Republican blockade in Congress, leading to legislative gridlock (even causing the 1995-1996 government shutdown), he increasingly resorted to executive actions.

• "Stroke of the Pen, Law of the Land": Clinton's aide Paul Begala famously said, "Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kind of cool." (referring to signing executive orders).

• Breaking Checks and Balances: Clinton frequently used executive orders, memoranda, and agency regulations to advance his policies (e.g., environmental rules, labor standards), bypassing Congress's legislative power. While all presidents do this, Clinton systematized and normalized it, which critics saw as an acceleration of executive overreach undermining the separation of powers.

5. The Permanent Campaign and Media Fragmentation

Clinton's team brought the campaign "War Room" model directly into daily governance.

• Governing as PR: Every government decision and crisis was prioritized through polling and PR packaging. The government was no longer solving long-term problems but catering to the daily news cycle.

• Breeding Ground for Media Polarization: It was during the 1990s, under Clinton, that right-wing Fox News and conservative talk radio (like Rush Limbaugh) surged, countering the mainstream media perceived as biased toward Clinton. This led Americans to live in different "information cocoons," and the two parties' voters began to diverge in their perception of basic facts.

Summary:

Saying Clinton "destroyed constitutional governance" does not mean he tore up the Constitution like a dictator. Rather, during his tenure, the soft guardrails of American constitutional governance were severely bent.

He and his Republican opponents together turned Washington into a brutal arena. To win immediate political victories, both sides were willing to use extreme constitutional tools (government shutdowns, impeachment, abuse of executive orders). It can be said that the polarization of 21st-century American politics—viewing political opponents as enemies and using any means to achieve ends—was a bitter fruit planted in the Clinton era.

When people look back at American politics before the Clinton-Gingrich era (roughly the late 1940s to the late 1980s, post-WWII to the end of the Cold War), political scientists often refer to it as the "Textbook Congress Era" or the "Bipartisan Consensus Era."

Washington back then was fundamentally different from today's zero-sum, "us vs. them" game. To understand "what it was like before," we can look at several key aspects:

1. Viewing Political Opponents as "Rivals" Not "Enemies" (The Tradition of Dining Together)

Before the polarization era of the 1990s, members of both parties might fiercely debate policy on Capitol Hill during the day, but at night they would go for drinks, have dinner together, and even spend weekends with each other's families.

• Classic Example: In the 1980s, conservative Republican President Ronald Reagan and liberal Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill. They were ideologically opposed but were friends who drank whiskey together after work. When the nation faced major crises (like the Social Security funding crisis), they could sit down and reach great compromises with mutual concessions.

• Change in Lifestyle: At that time, most lawmakers' families lived in Washington, and their children attended the same schools. After the Gingrich era, lawmakers were required to fly back to their districts every weekend for fundraising, completely severing the cross-party social networks in Washington.

2. High Degree of "Institutional Forbearance"

"Institutional forbearance" means: Even though the Constitution or rules allow me to do something, I refrain from doing it to preserve the dignity of the institution. In the past, such forbearance was widespread:

• Filibuster: In the past, the Senate filibuster was an extremely rare nuclear option, used only on matters of national destiny (like civil rights bills). Now it's routine; any slightly controversial bill is routinely filibustered.

• Supreme Court Confirmations: Previously, as long as a president's nominee was legally qualified, even if ideologically different, the opposition party would vote in large numbers to confirm. For example, conservative Justice Scalia was confirmed in 1986 by a vote of 98-0. Today, such bipartisan consensus is unimaginable.

• Impeachment: Everyone tacitly agreed that impeachment was an extremely serious last resort, only to be used for actions that truly violated constitutional boundaries and sparked bipartisan outrage, like Nixon's Watergate.

3. Extensive "Ideological Overlap" Within Both Parties

Today's parties are highly homogeneous (Republicans all conservative, Democrats all liberal). But it wasn't always so:

• Conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans: At that time, there were many very conservative Democrats in the South (Southern Democrats), and many moderate Republicans in the Northeast who supported environmentalism and abortion rights (Rockefeller Republicans).

• Room for Compromise: Because both parties had internal diversity, the ideological spectra overlapped significantly in the middle. This meant that to pass any bill, the president had to court moderates from the other party, forcing politics toward compromise and the center.

4. Shared Facts and a "National Town Hall" Media Environment

Before cable news (CNN, Fox News) and internet algorithms dominated, Americans lived in an era of "shared information."

• Three-Network Era: Every night, the whole country watched the evening news on CBS, NBC, or ABC. Anchors like CBS's Walter Cronkite were called "the most trusted man in America."

• Baseline Consensus: While Americans disagreed on how to solve problems (e.g., whether to raise taxes), there was consensus on "what the facts are." After the Clinton era, with media fragmentation, not only did voters' opinions diverge, but their perception of "basic facts" also split (living in different parallel universes).

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⚠️ Important Note: Don't Over-Romanticize the Past

While the political atmosphere then seems more civil and rational than today, historians also point out that this "bipartisan harmony and consensus" was built on certain historical limitations:

1. Exclusive Club: At that time, those who could drink and compromise in Congress were overwhelmingly white men. This surface-level political harmony often came at the expense of minorities (e.g., Black civil rights), women, and marginalized groups.

2. Cracks in Consensus: In fact, it was the civil rights movement of the 1960s (granting equal rights to Black people) that caused many Southern whites who had supported Democrats to defect to the Republicans, beginning a major party realignment. This realignment fermented through the 1970s and 1980s and eventually, in the collision of Clinton and Gingrich in the 1990s, evolved into today's polarization.

In summary: Before the Clinton-Gingrich era, American politics was more like a "gentleman's sports match"—players competed fiercely on the field but recognized the referee, followed unwritten rules, and shook hands after the game. Starting in the 1990s, the game gradually turned into "total war without limits"—not only were the unwritten rules abandoned, but even the legitimacy of the game itself was often questioned.

This feeling of "it's only going to get worse" is very real and completely understandable. When people live in an era of increasing political polarization and the constant breaking of institutional norms, it's easy to feel that the system is heading toward irreversible collapse.

But from a broader historical perspective, constitutional governance does not have only one outcome: "one-way decay."

In fact, American political and constitutional history is a series of "crisis—decay—repair and reconstruction" cycles. Historically, when the constitutional system was on the verge of collapse or severely dysfunctional due to internal and external pressures, it often gave rise to powerful reform forces that "repaired" or even "upgraded" the system.

Here are three of the most famous periods of "constitutional decay and repair" in American history:

1. Total System Collapse and the "Second Founding" (1860s)

This was the most fatal crisis American constitutionalism ever faced.

• Decay and Collapse: The Constitution drafted by the Founders in 1787 left a huge poison pill due to compromises on slavery. By the mid-19th century, the Supreme Court's "Dred Scott" decision (ruling that black people were not U.S. citizens) not only failed to resolve the dispute but triggered a complete constitutional collapse—the Civil War.

• Constitutional Repair: After the war, the U.S. passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments (abolishing slavery, establishing birthright citizenship and equal protection, and granting black men the right to vote). Historians call this America's "Second Founding." It not only repaired the original Constitution's major anti-human-rights flaws but also fundamentally reshaped the relationship between the federal government and the states, becoming the cornerstone of modern American civil rights jurisprudence.

2. Gilded Age Oligopoly and "Progressive Era Reforms" (Late 19th to Early 20th Century)

The crisis America faced then bears striking similarities to today: extreme wealth inequality, corporate monopolies, and deep political corruption.

• Decay: During the "Gilded Age," the Senate was called the "Millionaires' Club," with senators often appointed by local elites and railroad tycoons; large trusts (monopolies) effectively controlled the nation's legislation, and the working class had no political voice.

• Constitutional Repair: This sparked a nationwide "Progressive Movement." Social forces forced a major overhaul of the political system, leading to the Seventeenth Amendment (direct election of senators, breaking the plutocracy's grip) and the Nineteenth Amendment (women's suffrage), along with the establishment of antitrust laws and a modern civil service system. This series of actions pulled the country back from the brink of oligarchy onto the track of democratic constitutionalism.

3. The "Imperial Presidency" and Post-Watergate Institutional Reinforcement (1970s)

• Decay: During the Cold War, presidential executive power expanded dramatically. By the time of Nixon, he not only secretly expanded the Vietnam War but also used the FBI and CIA to spy on domestic political opponents, culminating in the Watergate scandal. This was seen as the most serious executive branch violation of constitutional checks and balances.

• Constitutional Repair: After Nixon's resignation, Congress acted swiftly, passing a series of laws aimed at "putting the president in an institutional cage." These included the Ethics in Government Act (regulating financial disclosures), the War Powers Resolution (limiting the president's power to commit troops abroad), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA, constraining domestic surveillance by intelligence agencies), and establishing congressional intelligence oversight committees. For decades, these mechanisms served as important guardrails against executive abuse.

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Where Are We in the Cycle Today?

Honestly, we are currently in a long-term "decline phase."

The polarization that began in the Clinton and Gingrich era, after being amplified by economic shocks, the rise of social media, and populist backlash in the new century, has evolved into today's situation. Many of the unwritten norms established after Watergate (e.g., that parties would abandon their own president when he threatened the constitutional bottom line) have proven ineffective in recent impeachment trials and election disputes.

What history teaches us is: Constitutional governance can indeed be repaired; the system has the capacity for self-correction. But this is by no means automatic, nor is it without cost. Every successful constitutional repair has been achieved only after deep national crisis, painful social division, and a generation's strong political awakening and push.

This is a very cutting-edge and widely discussed question. Legal scholars, historians, and political scientists are all closely watching how the "post-Trump era" (whether after his first term or after a potential second term ends) will digest the political shocks of recent years.

Trump's governing style and political movement subjected the U.S. constitutional system to an unprecedented "extreme stress test." He broke countless unwritten political norms and exposed many vulnerabilities in the U.S. constitutional design that had relied on "gentlemen's agreements."

Regarding whether a "constitutional repair" will start after he leaves office, the general consensus in academia and politics is: Repair will inevitably be put on the agenda, but its form and difficulty will be vastly different from historical precedents (like after Watergate).

Here are the core directions for potential future corrections and the real challenges they face:

1. What Kind of "Corrections" Might Happen?

If repair begins, it will likely not involve directly amending the Constitution (too high a bar) but rather statutory reforms to reinforce institutional guardrails. Currently discussed correction directions include:

• Limiting Abuse of Executive Power: The Trump era sparked major controversy over the boundaries of presidential authority. Future corrections might focus on clarifying the limits of the president's "pardoning power" (e.g., can a president pardon himself or family?), restricting the president's ability to arbitrarily invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy troops domestically, and legislating to ensure the independence of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prevent the justice system from being weaponized against political opponents.

• Election System Vulnerability Patches: In fact, one such "correction" has already occurred. After the 2020 election disputes, Congress passed the bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Act in 2022, closing the legal loophole that allowed the Vice President to unilaterally overturn election results. Future clarifications may further specify the mechanism for selecting presidential electors in states.

• Supreme Court and Judicial System Reform: Trust in the Supreme Court has hit historic lows in recent years. Future corrections might focus on requiring justices to adhere to a binding ethics code, or even exploring the possibility of term limits for justices (e.g., 18-year staggered terms) to reduce the Court's politicization.

2. Why Is This "Constitutional Repair" Exceptionally Difficult?

Although historically crises have led to repairs (e.g., after the Civil War, after Watergate), experts point out that the current repair is far more difficult than before:

• Lack of "Bipartisan Consensus": During Watergate, once Nixon's wrongdoing was confirmed, Republican leaders themselves went to the White House to urge him to resign, and subsequent institutional fixes were bipartisan. But in today's hyper-polarized environment, the two parties have completely opposite definitions of "what the crisis is." Democrats think the crisis is "executive overreach and democratic backsliding," while many Republican voters think it's "the deep state and election fraud." Without consensus, systemic repair is impossible.

• Statutory Law Cannot Bind "Unwritten Norms": The healthy functioning of constitutional governance relies heavily on politicians' "restraint" and respect for "shame." You can pass a law saying the president cannot do A or B, but you cannot legislate that politicians must be decent, respect opponents, or accept defeat. If politicians and their voters no longer value these norms, no amount of legal text is worth the paper it's written on.

• High Bar for Constitutional Amendments: The threshold for amending the U.S. Constitution (two-thirds of both houses of Congress plus three-fourths of states) is nearly impossible to achieve in today's political landscape. This means many fundamental structural issues (like the Electoral College allowing a candidate to win the presidency with fewer popular votes) are unlikely to be resolved in the short term.

3. Two Possible Future Paths

Based on the current political ecosystem, political scientists have projected two possible paths for the future of U.S. constitutional governance:

• Path One: "Slow Quagmire" and Piecemeal Patching. The U.S. will not experience a dramatic constitutional collapse, but partisan opposition will persist. Congress will only reach compromises on marginal, technical loopholes (like the 2022 Electoral Count Reform Act), making "patchwork" repairs. The constitutional system will remain in a state of "functioning while sick, with low efficiency" for a long time.

• Path Two: Generational Change Leading to Paradigm Shift. Historically, major repairs have often accompanied the rise of a new generation of voters. As Millennials and Generation Z gradually become the political majority, if they reach a consensus on certain core values that transcends party lines, they might use their votes to break the current deadlock within the next ten to twenty years, pushing for a systemic overhaul similar to the Progressive Era.

In summary: The Trump era exposed many cracks in the load-bearing walls of the U.S. constitutional edifice. After he leaves office, there will certainly be strong calls and concrete actions to "reinforce the cracks." But this will be a long and painful political struggle, because Americans today no longer share a common "political reality" as they did half a century ago.

Which of these potential reform directions interests you most? For example, would you like to learn about the current debate on limiting the president's pardon power, or the specific proposals for Supreme Court reform?

Clinton really was a highly colorful, deeply contradictory, and extremely fascinating subject in modern American political history. He combined extraordinary political talent with fatal character weaknesses. And to fully understand Clinton, Newt Gingrich is an indispensable other half of the puzzle—the two of them were like opposite sides of a coin, jointly shaping the underlying logic of American politics today.

Below is a detailed breakdown of how Clinton differed from other presidents, as well as an introduction to Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the House who changed the course of American history.

I. Bill Clinton: The Unconventional “Third Way” President

Among all American presidents, Clinton’s distinctiveness was primarily reflected in his political positioning, communication skills, and his powerful combination of “commoner and elite” qualities.

• A genuine combination of “grassroots rise” and top-tier elite status: Unlike the privileged backgrounds of the Bush or Kennedy families, Clinton was born into a broken single-parent family in Arkansas (his biological father died young in a car accident, while his stepfather was violent and an alcoholic). Yet, through his astonishing talents, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University and later graduated from Yale Law School. This experience allowed him both to converse effortlessly with Wall Street tycoons and to deeply resonate with blue-collar workers in the rural South.

• Pioneering the “Third Way” (the New Democrats): Before Clinton took office, the Democratic Party had suffered repeated presidential-election defeats against Reagan and George H. W. Bush because it was seen as too left-wing (high taxes and big government). Clinton completely transformed the Democratic Party. He called himself a “New Democrat” and advocated a “centrist route (the Third Way)”: economically, he leaned conservative (supporting free trade, deficit reduction, balanced budgets, and welfare reform), while maintaining a liberal position on social issues (supporting abortion rights and environmental protection). He successfully pulled the Democratic Party out of its electoral quagmire.

• Unprecedented “empathy” and mastery of retail politics: Clinton is widely regarded as one of the greatest political communicators in 20th-century America. His famous phrase, “I feel your pain,” was not empty rhetoric. In face-to-face exchanges (retail politics), he possessed an astonishing charisma that made the other person feel that “at this moment, there are only you and me in the world.”

• The first “pop-culture president”: During the 1992 election, Clinton appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show (a late-night talk show) wearing sunglasses and playing the saxophone, and answered young people’s pointed questions directly on MTV. He broke with the traditional aloof presidential style and deeply disentangled politics from popular culture—something unimaginable with earlier presidents such as Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

• A polling miracle: The more he was impeached, the higher his approval rating became. This phenomenon drove his opponents to despair. Despite being embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal and facing impeachment, Clinton left office with an approval rating as high as 65%, because the American economy was then experiencing the longest period of prosperity in its history—the golden age before the dot-com bubble. That was the highest approval rating for a departing president in the postwar era. Voters completely separated his “private morality” from his “ability to govern.”

II. Newt Gingrich: The “Political Engineer” Who Turned Congress into a Battlefield

If Clinton was the charismatic figure of that era, Newt Gingrich was its tactical mastermind. He had originally been a history professor in Georgia before becoming the true architect of American political polarization.

• The “Republican Revolution” that broke a 40-year curse: Before 1994, the Democratic Party had controlled the House of Representatives for a full 40 consecutive years, and Republicans had nearly grown accustomed to being the “permanent minority.” Through highly aggressive strategies, Gingrich drafted the famous Contract with America, transforming what had traditionally been local midterm elections into a nationwide ideological referendum. In 1994, he led the Republican Party to miraculously retake control of Congress, shocking the world.

• Changing political language: Political opponents became enemies. Gingrich’s most far-reaching influence was changing the way Washington spoke. He once distributed a memo (the GOPAC memo) to Republican candidates, teaching them to attack Democrats with specific words such as “corrupt, betray, sick, pathetic,” while describing themselves with words such as “courage, common sense, freedom.” He turned politics from a “policy debate” into a “battle between good and evil.”

• Destroying Congress’s culture of compromise: As mentioned earlier, Gingrich harshly suppressed bipartisan social interaction. He demanded that Republican lawmakers not move their families to Washington and return to their districts every weekend. This severed the ties through which legislators from both parties had privately built trust, turning Congress completely into an emotionless legislative meat grinder.

III. Clinton and Gingrich: Political Superstars Who Loved and Hated Each Other

The collision between Clinton and Gingrich was the most compelling drama in 1990s American politics. They were mortal enemies, yet fundamentally very similar: both were exceptionally intelligent, loved history, and were fiercely ambitious, while both had fatal moral flaws in their private lives (Gingrich was himself having an affair while leading the impeachment effort against Clinton for infidelity).

Although the two fought to the death in front of the cameras (even causing two federal government shutdowns in 1995), they actually reached many astonishing compromises behind the scenes in order to secure their political legacies. For example, they worked together to pass the historic welfare reform law (ending America’s tradition of “giving money to support the lazy”), and in 1997 achieved the first balanced federal budget in nearly half a century.

Would you like to learn more about how their “grand compromise of the century” on welfare reform was reached behind the scenes, or would you rather hear about how Clinton used popular culture—such as playing the saxophone on late-night shows—to completely transform the way modern presidential campaigns are conducted?