The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

NAFTA creates new uncertainties. Lyrics from the Notorious B.I.G. speak of being ready to die contrasted with politicians’ fear of a moral decay in society. Kurt Cobain’s suicide and OJ Simpson’s Bronco chase are referenced, as is Newt Gingrich’s rise to prominence and the Republican triumph in the 1994 midterms. A teenager is quoted about spending $500 on clothes she saw on MTV. Oprah Winfrey’s weight loss is headline news.

Connaughton never left Capitol Hill, so he never saw the blighted parts of Washington. For the next twenty years, Connaughton would remain a Biden guy, but he only worked for the senator for four years. In that period, the job of Biden’s staff was to rehabilitate his image, to make him look important and powerful enough to the presidency one day. Connaughton worked right outside Biden’s office for three years before he decided he needed to go to law school so he could more easily go back and forth between politics and the private sector. He went to Stanford and clerked for D.C. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Abner Mikva.

Mikva took Connaughton with him when he accepted the job as President Clinton’s counsel in October of 1994.