Some Tell Clinton to Keep His Personal Details Brief : The analysts say he may have succeeded too well in humanizing himself, perhaps forfeiting respect.

In an age when politicians can’t afford to appear to be remote authority figures, President Clinton has humanized his image by sharing details of his compulsive eating and his less-than-perfect golf, his early family troubles and past marital problems.

This week, Americans heard him joke about his chubby legs and confide that he prefers briefs to boxer shorts.

Clinton’s human side is part of his charm, polls show. But some analysts believe that Americans’ familiarity with their camera-friendly President could be breeding, if not contempt, at least a shortage of the awe that presidents need to summon their countrymen to sacrifice. Some warn that the average-man image that allows him to connect with Americans could be too convincing.

“At some point, you know so much about the trivial details of his life that you have trouble seeing him as the leader of the country,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communications.

Although all presidents wrestle with how close to allow the public, Clinton and his campaign team decided that he would break new ground with his accessibility and informality. One early signal came when he donned dark glasses and played the saxophone on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”

Since the election, Clinton has reached out further by playing talk-show host on TV “town hall” meetings with such skill that Marlin Fitzwater, press secretary to President George Bush, calls him “the greatest TV President in history.”

But this heavy exposure has produced an outpouring of personal details that some analysts see as unflattering to the office.

At a truck plant in Shreveport, La., in February, Clinton joked about how as a young man he had carpeted the bed of his old El Camino with Astroturf--not for romancing dates, he insisted later, but to protect his luggage.

Jamieson suggested that Clinton should try to establish the kind of “zone of privacy” spoken of so longingly by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. When asked about his underwear preferences on an MTV town hall, Jamieson said, “he should have deflected the question.”

Other presidents, including Ronald Reagan, have been better at balancing public intimacy and privacy. Reagan, Jamieson recalled, once gave a national radio audience such a feeling by telling his wife, Nancy, “I love you” as millions listened. Yet Reagan, Jamieson said, never seemed to get asked the personal questions that have come Clinton’s way.

One sign of the public’s familiarity with Clinton came this week, when an official of the Ameritech telecommunications company--a complete stranger--offered Clinton a pair of nylon running pants after a health care rally in Milwaukee. According to Clinton’s later account, the official, Bronson Haase, said: “I want you to have this jogging suit because I keep seeing you in running shorts and I think it would be better if you had long pants.”

Fitzwater said: “I don’t think any former President in memory would get a comment like that.”

President Jimmy Carter came to Washington after the tribulations of Watergate, vowing that he would dispense with the trappings of an imperial presidency. But two years into his term, the embattled Carter decided that the presidential aura might help restore lost respect.

The band resumed playing “Hail to the Chief” when he entered the room. He traded his populist beige sedan for the traditional black Cadillac limousine.

Carter “said he was just an average guy, but when he got into trouble people started to say, ‘Maybe he is,’ ” said Bert Rockman, presidential scholar at the University of Pittsburgh.

White House political consultant Paul Begala says the current President has less need of the trappings of power because of Clinton’s remarkable personal skills. When Clinton’s TelePrompTer failed during an address to Congress last year, Clinton was able to begin the speech without the text.

“It’s his ability that makes him larger than life,” Begala says.

But Alan Secrest, a Democratic pollster, said Clinton needs to protect the presidential aura so it can help shield him from two vulnerabilities: Charges that the Administration is weak on foreign policy and that he is weak in character.

“This is an Administration that needs to be especially attentive to these perceptions,” Secrest said. “They can take a toll.”

William Kristol, former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, said: “If we have a serious foreign policy crisis, his lack of gravitas will hit home. Americans will look at this national talk-show host . . . they’ll wish he was more than one of the guys.”