Public buying the spin on Clinton

By MORTON KONDRACKE

Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

How come scandals haven't hurt President Clinton? Two explanations come to mind: (1) The public doesn't trust the press or Republicans, and (2) at least so far, no one has produced solid evidence of serious presidential wrongdoing.

The White House and the Democratic National Committee have put in place a counter-scandal PR strategy claiming Clinton didn't do anything to raise funds in 1996 that Republicans haven't done, too, while arguing Clinton is serious about campaign reform and the GOP isn't.

So far, polls indicate the public is buying the spin, although I can't believe this will continue as new evidence emerges on foreign involvement with the Democratic Party.

For the moment, though, the White House is riding high, claiming Whitewater independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr has discredited himself and that blame for 1996 campaign funding excesses ultimately will fall outside the Oval Office.

Moreover, the White House is bent on demonstrating Clinton is pushing for action on the budget, education and health care, while congressional Republicans scrap among themselves and move nowhere.

The White House line is that Clinton is not "consumed" or even "preoccupied" with scandal-fighting and neither is the top White House staff.

This spring, the president will make more foreign trips, unveil a children's health initiative and anti-crime measures, and continue making education speeches like a recent one in which he ordered elementary and secondary schools run by the Defense Department to adhere to his proposed national achievement standards.

Moreover, Clinton will keep plugging away on a balanced budget deal, which aides say will be seen as such a significant accomplishment it will make the public forget scandal-mongering by the press and Republicans.

No deal is in sight, but Clinton is keeping the initiative by calling for talks with GOP leaders to resume when Congress gets back from recess in April.

Meanwhile, Democrats incessantly jibe Republicans for being unable to agree amongst themselves on budget policy.

The White House does not seem to have a strategy for actually arriving at a balanced budget agreement with Congress this year except to signal Clinton is willing to make compromises to win support from a centrist plurality of both Republicans and Democrats.

As a sign of that, the White House has furnished Republicans with a new proposal $6 billion closer to the GOP position on Medicare.

Even though Clinton rejected the idea of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott for a commission to provide "cover" for an adjustment in the Consumer Price Index as part of a budget deal, the White House does not rule out some CPI fix in the budget endgame.

Right now, Clinton aides comfort themselves with the fact that when Clinton rejected the Lott commission, Republican leaders came forward with two new ideas for budget balance: Lott's suggestion that the parties could come to some compromise on the economic assumptions that hinder a budget agreement, and the controversial proposal by House Speaker Newt Gingrich to postpone tax cuts.

Overall, the White House thinks Lott provides Republican leadership, but on the House side, a vacuum exists so, effectively, there is no unified Republican Congress.

As a vivid example, Clinton, Lott and Gingrich agreed to form task forces to work on education, welfare and taxes, but nothing has happened because House Republicans have failed to name their appointees.

At the moment, White House aides think Republicans are relying almost exclusively on their scandal investigations as the route to winning the 1998 elections - a strategy they think will fail because it has no appeal beyond the GOP base.

All this may be whistling past the graveyard for Clinton, but polls indicate it's working. All opinion surveys agree post-election scandals have reduced Clinton's overall approval rating by only a few points, leaving him in the high 50s.

Congress is in the mid-30s, and a new Pew Research Center poll indicates 65 percent of the public thinks press coverage of political leaders' personal and ethical behavior is "excessive."

The Yankelovich poll showed 51 percent of voters think Clinton acted "irresponsibly" in dealing with Chinese influence on the 1996 campaign, but only 16 percent believe he did anything illegal.

When Wall Street Journal/NBC pollsters asked whether Clinton did anything different in 1996 fund raising than what other politicians do, 66 percent said no. Voters favor appointment of an independent counsel, but only by 51 to 45 percent.

Will this lack of interest persist? It depends on the evidence. If it's proved, for instance, the White House arranged for the Lippo Bank to hire Webster Hubbell, there will be hell to pay and the public will understand why.

Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.