BY MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS -- Pollster Paul Lavrakas has some advice for the pundits, politicians and public confounded by President Clinton's high job-approval ratings in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal:
Review the results of the last two national elections.
Voters elected Mr. Clinton twice, Mr. Lavrakas notes, despite questions about his character.
That sentiment hasn't changed much. Recent opinion polls show Americans continue to draw a distinction between the man and the leader, despite the tawdry revelations in independent counsel Kenneth Starr's report.
"There is no reason to believe the polls are miscalculating public opinion," said Mr. Lavrakas, director of the Buckeye State Poll at Ohio State University. "We've known for six years that people didn't vote for Bill Clinton because of his personal behavior." Indeed, the latest New York Times - CBS poll, conducted Saturday through Monday, showed the president's personal and professional ratings were similar to those recorded in surveys before the Starr report was released last Friday.
The poll found the public's view of the president's moral character has sunk to the lowest level of his tenure in office. However, most Americans give him high marks as a leader and don't think he should be impeached or forced to resign. Fifty-seven percent believe Congress should register an official disapproval of Mr. Clinton's behavior with a censure resolution.
Mr. Clinton's job approval rating stood at 62 percent in the Times - CBS poll, while 66 percent of those surveyed said the president didn't share their moral values.
Likewise, 61 percent approved of the way Mr. Clinton is handling his job in a survey conducted Aug. 27 through Sept. 8 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Yet 64 percent of those polled said they don't like Mr. Clinton personally.
"For years we heard that character was important," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College in New York. "Now we are finding out people think that Mr. Clinton can be flawed and still be fit to be president."
Pollsters say the differences can be attributed to an overall feeling that the economy remains sound and the country is moving in the right direction.
While hundreds of letters to The Cincinnati Enquirer -->and other newspapers have demanded Mr. Clinton's removal, the pollsters say letter writers tend to be more conservative and more angry about the revelations.
Local opinions on the scandal also can be attributed in part to the fact that a majority of voters in Southwest Ohio already opposed Mr. Clinton. Although he carried Ohio in 1992 and 1996, he lost Hamilton, Butler, Clermont and Warren counties both times.
Other Americans either are more forgiving, or fed up with the whole matter.
"People think what he did was wrong and they don't condone it," said Kim Parker, the Pew Center's research director. "If the economy took a dive or there was a looming international threat, people might feel differently about the president."
