TV the Great Communicator for a Skillful President : Clinton uses the medium more determinedly than most of his predecessors. But he could get too much visibility.

Bill Clinton, at 47 the nation’s first TV-generation President, has used the home medium more determinedly and relentlessly than most of his predecessors in the electronic era.

Late this week, as the Whitewater case remained unresolved and the polls showed his job-approval rating declining, he held a televised evening news conference. Whatever the outcome of the case, the Thursday news gathering, which naturally was dominated by Whitewater questions, displayed his TV skills as he remained unflappable, even drawing several laughs.

Whether his TV gifts benefit him in more than a public-relations sense in the Whitewater affair remains to be seen. Still, television is a major weapon in his personal campaign to retain public confidence.

In a different setting, Clinton also turned up in an interview Tuesday and Wednesday on television’s top-rated evening news broadcast, ABC’s “World News Tonight,” in a lengthy, two-part piece focusing on his religious and spiritual values.

ABC News spokesman Arnot Walker said that the interview, conducted by the network’s religion correspondent, Peggy Wehmeyer, was suggested by anchor and senior editor Peter Jennings and conducted March 2 at the White House.

As it happens, the Tuesday newscast began with a story about the latest Whitewater developments. The Clinton interview ran toward the end. During the piece, which included pro and con opinions by evangelicals, centering on such matters as his views on abortion and gay rights, the President said: “Only God knows the truth of a person’s heart.”

After little more than a year as President, Clinton appears as comfortable on the home screen as he was during the election campaign, in which it was such a vital tool for him.

“It’s my guess,” says Jack Hilton, a veteran TV consultant based in New York, “that he would be less popular in the polls if he wasn’t so good on television.” He ranked Clinton as “our third television President” behind John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, “which isn’t to say that I agree with him politically.”

“If he has a weakness as a (TV) President,” says Stuart Spencer, who advises Republicans and is headquartered in Orange County, “it’s because he doesn’t focus on a few things. He talks about the whole thing at once, all the ramifications of government--foreign trade, Bosnia, deficits. He’s putting all kinds of issues on the table all the time. People can’t handle all of that.”

Nonetheless, adds Spencer, “In certain formats, he’s outstanding. He changed American politics to a degree by the way he campaigned--Larry King, the forum, the panel, Donahue, all the things where questions are asked and they’re not structured television appearances. That’s where most people said they got their information from. Maybe I don’t like him, but he handles those media very well.”

Clinton has a tendency in speeches to run on too long. And Spencer doesn’t think he’s very good with “a speech and a TelePrompTer.”

But Jody Powell, onetime press secretary to former President Jimmy Carter and now in public relations in Washington, where he says he has periodic contact with the White House, disagrees.

Clinton, in Powell’s view, “is able to handle a text with a degree of personality that makes you forget that he’s coming off a text. From what I hear, he moves in and out of the text, which is a tricky thing to do, to sort of ad-lib through a text.”

In a phone interview last week, Powell said that what Clinton hasn’t done “is come across as frustrated and down and not know which way to turn, because people don’t want to see a President looking like he doesn’t know what to do next. He’s always had that sort of sense of a fellow that’s an optimist. That was a strength for Reagan too.”

Before Clinton’s Thursday news conference, Jennings, anchoring the event for ABC, noted the President’s slip in the polls. Clearly, it was an important TV outing for Clinton, who knew that Whitewater would be the focal point and that, while it might not influence the outcome of the case, was a key moment in his relationship with the public.

Hilton and Spencer, also interviewed by phone last week, spoke of the President’s chief weapons on TV. Said Hilton: “He is a first-class retail politician (and) salesman. The word for it in Hollywood is performance.”

Added Spencer: “Stylistically, he’s good. No matter what the question, he doesn’t seem to get antagonistic about it, which is comfortable for people who are watching.”

Clinton recently showed a flash of anger in a speech excerpt that was shown widely on television, repeating the words “No, no, no, no, no.” But he was on his best behavior at Thursday’s news conference.

A key question, according to Hilton and Spencer, is whether Clinton will wear well over the long run with his heavy exposure on TV that began with the campaign.

“We have a short attention span and get tired of our stars in a hurry,” says Hilton. “It’s whether he has the legs for us to accept him with this frequency before we collectively say, ‘Enough already.’ ”

“He’s got to be careful with that,” says Spencer. “He’s got to have something to say or they’re going to start tuning him out. The first year is the honeymoon year, but the second and third get tougher. The amount of exposure he’s been getting, he could get overexposed. He should structure it so there’s down time and not talk every time he sees a camera. They should pick their spots a little more.”

Despite the President’s use of the major networks, Hilton thinks that Clinton has an affinity for alternative media because “the old-line press is probably more aggressive and astute. He has more of an opportunity on some of the alternative media to wax eloquently and set the agenda.”

A politician’s dream.