Clinton Sitting Pretty The Reason? It’s The Economy, Stupid

For nearly four years, many Americans barely stomached President Clinton. They kicked out his Democratic Congress and vilified his wife.

Now, as he faces his second national election, voters actually seem to be warming to the man from Hope.

It’s a conspicuous turnaround for a president who, for most of his term, has had some of the lowest approval ratings in modern history, for a president who as recently as a year ago appeared eminently beatable.

Clinton not only is clobbering Republican challenger Bob Dole in public-opinion polls, leading by double digits, he is sitting on the biggest approval ratings of his presidency.

“People are regarding his presidency as a success rather than a failure,” said Larry Hugick, head of political polling for Princeton Survey Research in New Jersey.

A booming economy has combined with the unpopularity of the Republican Congress, Clinton’s own move to the political center and his recent decision to bomb Iraq to give him a 60 percent approval rating, according to recent polls. Voters say he wants to help regular people, that he has done a good job on economic and foreign policy and that, despite early mistakes, he has learned on the job.

While the tide could turn, current polls suggest Clinton may be heading for a landslide victory, a result that could give him the kind of political clout he was denied when he won a three-way race with just 43 percent of the vote four years ago.

The outlook wasn’t always so rosy for Clinton. Just two years ago, he was so unpopular he was shunned by Democratic candidates for Congress. One incumbent, who went on to lose, said he didn’t want Clinton or Vice President Al Gore in his district unless they would endorse his opponent.

As this election draws near, the scene couldn’t be more different. So many local and federal officials clamored to be near Clinton on his recent whistlestop tour that he took several minutes out of each speech just to name them.

And as thousands of voters packed his events, as more lined the tracks just to wave at his train, it seemed apparent that something had changed. People were enthusiastic in a way they haven’t been throughout most of Clinton’s presidency.

“He brings back the Kennedy and Roosevelt spice of politics,” Barbara McAlister, a Republican from Mansfield, Ohio, said during a Clinton rally in Columbus, Ohio. “He’s taken a lot of criticism, and I’ve got to give him credit - he’s weathered it.”

Clinton’s newfound popularity is not all of his own doing. In fact, much of it has to do with the reason he was elected in the first place: the economy.

Very simply, the economy is thriving. It grew at a robust annual rate of 4.8 percent, after inflation, in the quarter ending in July - reminiscent of the Reagan 1980s - while inflation remains steady at about 3 percent. Friday’s news that the unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent in August, the lowest since March 1989, was but the latest good news for Clinton.

If the economy is any guide - and it almost always is - then Clinton should coast to victory Nov. 5, according to election predictors developed by economists.

“Clinton’s really got just about everything going for him,” said Richard Gleisner of St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.

“The economic numbers have improved and people are feeling better about the economy and better about the country, and that translates into a better feeling for the president,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman.

There’s little doubt that Clinton has benefited from Dole’s lackluster campaign. But he also owes a great deal of his popularity to another Republican, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, pollsters said.

“Newt Gingrich was the best thing that happened to Bill Clinton,” said Guy Molyneux, a Democratic pollster with Peter Hart Research.

The Republican takeover of Congress and Gingrich’s ascension “really gave him someone to fight against and play off against,” Molyneux said. “Clinton’s always at his best when he does that. By standing up to the Republican Congress, weathering the government shutdown, it told people that Clinton cared enough about something to fight for it. It showed he had some backbone.”

Now, voters don’t just tolerate Clinton or think him the lesser of two evils. No, for the first time since shortly after they put Clinton in office, a significant number say they like the president.

In June, Molyneux’s firm asked potential voters who was more likable and friendly. The results were startling: 56 percent of respondents said Clinton, 14 percent said Dole, and 26 percent said the candidates were equal.