So this is what it comes down to on Nov. 5 Half the country believes anything President Clinton says; the other half believes anything said about him. The first group thinks he can do anything if elected; the second thinks he will do anything to get elected.
Sometimes I feel like the last guy in America who still thinks Bob Dole has a chance - including Jack Kemp. Maybe that's because I want to believe that most Americans will realize in the voting booth that President Clinton can't pass the gag test, that even a likeable hypocrite is still dishonest, that even someone described by Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey as ''an unusually good liar'' is still a liar.
Lately, it's discouraging.
The networks and most of the media are popping champagne for the Clinton campaign, pouring cold water on Bob Dole, reminding us daily that the election is over, that our votes don't matter because nobody cares anymore about having a president who can be trusted to tell the truth about anything, from land swindles to his fantasy golf scores.
Republicans are no help. Mr. Dole campaigns like he's waltzing to the Macarena. He speaks like a scratched record. His 15 percent tax cut looks good, but it reeks of mothballs like a suit he hasn't worn in years. Voters worry that he would stuff it back in a trunk in the attic as soon as the election is over. Like Bill Clinton did. And George Bush.
What irony. Our presidency has been so depleted by years of political witch hunts and puerile mendacity that America now looks in the mirror and asks with a straight face, ''Does character count?'' After four years of counterfeit Clinton currency, the truth is as strange and suspicious as an $8 bill.
Our national wiring is so disconnected that local candidates for county recorder could get the death penalty for ethical felonies that don't even put a parking ticket on Mr. Clinton's windshield. He couldn't win a race for drain commissioner - but for president, no problem.
If Nixon made our generation cynical enough to stomach Clinton, what kind of amoral moron will our kids settle for?
No wonder voters are dazed and confused. Our national debate can't even agree on a common alphabet.
Bring up a cabinet riddled with scandals, resignations and incompetence, and Clinton supporters say, ''Other administrations have had problems too.''
Point out that this crew holds the record for words ending in ''gate,'' and they say, ''That's all just politics.''
Lies and coverups about the mysterious death of Vince Foster? ''How dare you exploit that tragedy?''
Using kidnap-murder victim Polly Klaas in Clinton TV ads? ''That's just effective campaigning.''
Snooping through the secret files of more than 900 Americans? ''A completely honest mistake.''
The president's most trusted adviser caught with a hooker? ''It wasn't Clinton this time.''
Coke snufflers in the White House, surrender in the war on drugs? ''So what? Lots of baby boomers tried pot.''
Troops killed by blunders, mired in Haiti and Bosnia? ''His foreign policy has not been as disastrous as critics predicted.''
The first president to pass the hat for a legal defense fund to delay a sexual harassment lawsuit in the Supreme Court? ''The bimbo made it all up.''
Bring up the Travelgate firings, cattle futures, tax cheating or Hillary's socialist health-care poison, and Clinton supporters insist, ''But he's changed so much in the last 100 days!''
So focus on the last 100 days. What about broad hints about pardoning his convicted Whitewater partners, to keep Susan McDougal from answering if the president lied in his videotaped testimony? ''Too complicated to follow.''
How about Indogate reports that the president personally panhandled illegal contributions from foreign influence-shoppers? ''Nothing has been proved.''
If it's proved, it doesn't matter; if it matters, it hasn't been proved. Besides, ''They all do it.'' Polls say most voters love Clinton. I say ''most voters'' must have inhaled Sears varnish.
Some people don't care. But some deliberately won't care because style, ''charisma'' or ideology trumps ideals such as honesty and character.
True, Bob Dole is no Jay Leno. But he has something Bill Clinton lacks integrity. Mr. Dole has changed positions at times, but he hasn't tried to change the truth about who and what he is.
I don't believe everything I've read about the Clintons. (Hypocrites, S&L crooks, FBI-file snoops and tax cheats? Yeah. Serial-killing drug dealers? Nah.)
But books, newspapers and Senate hearings have revealed enough to make me believe this After the election dust settles, when liberals can't yell foul for influencing the election, Whitewater Prosecutor Kenneth Starr will indict Hillary Clinton and others for obstructing justice and lying under oath. To wriggle free from his tangled web of deceit, President Clinton will pardon her and his Arkansas cronies.
Then he will use the same excuse he has used before All that stuff came up in the election. Nobody cared about it then and they don't care about it now.
So this is what it comes down to on Nov. 5 He could be right.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. Call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
