Performance Trumps Character

Amazing but true: Americans can hold two contradictory ideas about a person at the same time. Look at President Bill Clinton. On the one hand, Americans see him as a strong and effective leader who is doing his job. On the other, they think he’s not honest and trustworthy.

How serious is Clinton’s character problem? Before the State of the Union address, the public was asked who they would be more likely to believe, Clinton or Monica S. Lewinsky? They were split: 47% said Lewinsky, 43% said Clinton. The president of the United States had less credibility than his former intern.

How much do Americans value Clinton’s leadership? Suppose the public became convinced that Clinton lied under oath about his involvement with Lewinsky, or suppose they became convinced he participated in attempts to get her to lie. Would they want to see Clinton impeached and removed from office? Not necessarily. The public is split, even then. Half say they’d favor impeachment, half say they’d oppose it. So, half the public is willing to put up with some alarming flaws of character as long as Clinton’s doing a good job running the country.

And do people think he’s doing a good job? You betcha. The day after his State of the Union speech, Clinton’s job-approval rating shot up to 68%--the highest it has ever been. Unaffected by the scandal. More than 70% approve of the way he’s handling the economy. That’s an astronomical figure. And by nearly 3 to 1, the public says Clinton’s presidency has been a success, not a failure.

Can he get things done? Does he care about the needs of people like you? Can he bring about changes the country needs? Strong majorities say yes, yes and yes. And the majorities are growing.

Now for the bad news.

His character problems are bad. And getting worse. Increasing majorities view the president as not honest and trustworthy, as someone who does not share their values and as someone who sets a poor moral example. There is no evidence the president gained in public confidence as a result of his forceful statement on Monday denying the allegations (“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie. Not a single time, never.”). The divergence between the public’s view of Clinton as a strong leader but a man of weak character is growing.

You might think, because of the sexual nature of the allegations, Clinton would be losing support among women. Not so. Last week, the number of men with a favorable opinion of Clinton dropped from 60% to 48%. The number of women with a favorable opinion of Clinton went up.

It’s something we rarely see in politics: Men and women moving in different directions. Men are abandoning Clinton. Women are sticking with him. A majority of men say they would believe Lewinsky, not Clinton, about whether or not the two had an affair. Women are more inclined to believe Clinton.

Why is the gender gap growing? Maybe women see through Lewinsky and men see through Clinton. Actually, issues of policy more than character may be driving this. Women like Clinton’s policies more than men do. Women are more concerned about the safety net. Especially working women, who feel vulnerable in the marketplace. They want government to be there to protect them, while men are more likely to want government out of the way. Look at what Clinton offered in his State of the Union address. Child-care subsidies. Measures to combat teen smoking. Stronger family-leave laws. A higher minimum wage. And--in his biggest applause line--federal regulation of managed health-care plans. All highly appealing to women.

Women simply may see larger issues at stake. A threat to Clinton is a threat to his policy agenda. Most women seem to think that what Clinton did for women is more important than what he did to women.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton helped by going on television to defend her husband. The signal to women was, “If I don’t believe any of this, there’s no reason for you to believe it, either.” When she denounced “this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband,” it was also a signal to women: “The people doing this have a political agenda. They want to destroy the president’s program. Your program.”

The president’s short-term strategy in his Tuesday speech was to refocus public attention on his job performance--his strength. “For three decades, six presidents have come before you to warn of the damage deficits pose to the nation,” Clinton said. “Tonight, I come before you to announce that the federal deficit--once so incomprehensibly large that it had 11 zeros--will be, simply, zero.”

Ironically, the scandal made the speech an even bigger success. Public interest in the scandal produced extremely high ratings for a State of the Union speech, so Clinton was able to tout his record to an unusually big audience.

The headline grabber was his dramatic proposal to devote the entire projected budget surplus over the next five years--$200 billion--to saving Social Security. It’s the most popular government program in history. Baby boomers are worried about whether Social Security will pay off when they start to retire in a few years. Republicans would look foolish if they were to argue, “Forget Social Security. Give people a tax cut.”

There was also a long-term strategy behind the speech. It goes all the way back to Clinton’s first State of the Union address in 1993. Clinton came into office talking about two deficits--the federal budget deficit and the public investment deficit. He wanted government to invest more money in infrastructure and human resources.

So five years ago, he proposed a plan to raise taxes and devote most of the money to deficit reduction and some of it to new public spending. The Republicans called him on it. If he’s serious about deficit reduction, they asked, why is he talking about spending money on an economic stimulus plan?

The Democratic Congress passed the president’s plan without a single GOP vote. And paid for it by getting thrown out of power in 1994.

Now Clinton has established his credentials on fiscal responsibility. The budget is balanced. The president couldn’t resist tweaking Republicans in his speech, when he praised “the courageous vote in 1993 that led to a cut in the deficit of 90%.” Democrats cheered lustily. Republicans sat on their hands. On Tuesday, the Democrats got their payoff. The president went back to his public investment strategy.

This time, he knows what the rules are. One: Don’t raise taxes. Two: Don’t throw the budget out of balance. Make sure every program can be paid for.

Three: Don’t talk about government spending in the abstract. Voters are still suspicious of big government. Talk about specific needs and problems. Spending that solves problems middle-class people face, like finding affordable child care.

The GOP argues it’s the return of big government. It’s social engineering. Child-care subsidies will give mothers an incentive to leave home and go to work. The problem with that argument is, most mothers already leave home and go to work. To them and their husbands, Clinton’s approach sounds practical. The Republican criticism sounds ideological.

Moreover, a program of public investment makes Democrats happy. It gives them something to run on this year. During the first week of the scandal, Democrats were conspicuously muted in their support. They were dumbfounded by the allegations. Clinton had never done much for his party, anyway. Now Clinton has given Democrats an agenda they can rally behind.

Republicans are in a bind. Not only is Clinton’s agenda popular, but the GOP is benefiting from the same thing that’s boosting Clinton--good times. Last week, House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s job rating turned positive for the first time. It would be stupid for Republicans to try to take advantage of Clinton’s problems by creating paralysis in Washington. The GOP Congress is up for reelection. They don’t need an anti-Washington backlash.

It would be also stupid for Republicans to ally with Kenneth W. Starr and his potential star witness, Lewinsky. Those two are losing credibility by the hour. When people heard Lewinsky had an affair with her former high-school teacher, her reputation plummeted. Now a solid majority say they’d believe the president’s account over hers. Starr is not going to bring down a president with nothing more than this woman’s testimony.

So far, performance trumps character. By the end of the week, most Americans endorsed the view that Clinton’s personal life doesn’t matter as long as he does a good job running the country. Only 41% said it does matter “because the moral character is important.”

This is a personality story: Bill and Hillary vs. Ken and Monica. Americans are following it with obsessive fascination. But they don’t think it matters. Amazing but true.