BY STEVEN THOMMA
Knight Ridder News Service
WASHINGTON - In poll after poll, the American people have said for months that they don't want President Clinton impeached. Yet the Republicans who control the U.S. House apparently aren't listening. Is it simple arrogance? Are they blinded by hatred of Mr. Clinton? Could they be bent on political suicide?
That's what Clinton aides and congressional Democrats argue - that the will of the people has been expressed in national polls and again in November's congressional elections, and that the message is clear: Don't impeach him.
But the polls and the politics aren't that simple.
First, national polls mean little to members of the House, who answer only to the people who vote in their own districts. Second, Democrats may have been ecstatic that they did much better than expected in the latest election, but in the end, Republicans still won more seats - and many who won were vocally pro-impeachment. And third, even if there is a backlash against Republicans, they think they will still have plenty of time to recover before the 2000 elections.
Public opposition to impeachment still could make some difference. Clinton aides are trying to win over some undecided moderate Republicans by pointing out that the voters in their districts supported Mr. Clinton's 1996 re-election.
"Members of Congress hear from the more politicized elements of their parties, and there you find much stronger support among Republican activists for impeachment," said Andrew Kohut, a pollster and director of the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press. "That's why you have this difference."
Indeed, there can be a sizable gap between what the Republicans in Congress hear and what the rest of the country is saying.
From the first news of scandal in January, through the admission of an extramarital relationship in August, to the conclusions in December that he did lie under oath and abuse his power, about two out of three Americans have said they do not want Mr. Clinton impeached and removed from office.
As late as Friday, Mr. Clinton looked to the public to save him, making an appeal on national television and putting his fate "in the hands of the American people and their representatives in the Congress." Democratic allies in the House Judiciary Committee as well have invoked the will of the people in opposing impeachment. But they misread the effect of public opinion as measured by national polls. As political scientist George C. Edwards III put it: "You don't fear the popularity of Bill Clinton in California if you're representing a district in North Carolina."
Democrats argue that public opinion is critical in impeachment because the process undoes the will of the people as expressed in the presidential election.
Republicans say they are basing their decisions on the facts of the case against Mr. Clinton, and argue that they cannot and should not be swayed by public opinion or polls.
"A thousand historians and a swarm of public opinion polls and a gaggle of media programs and talk shows, nothing, none of these things can change the vital facts in this case," said Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa.
If Mr. Clinton and the Democrats misread how national public opinion would affect the impeachment effort, they also misunderstood the effects of the November elections.
When Democrats did better than expected in the congressional elections, gaining five House seats, Democrats pronounced it a victory. Through this week, they said the election was a mandate against impeachment.
But Republicans still won a majority of House races in that election. And, while the party was shaken by its loss of five seats, most members were re-elected by voters who knew the members probably would vote for impeachment, said Steven Smith, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota.
So far, Americans really haven't tuned in. Democrats predict that Americans will rise in anger once it sinks in that Mr. Clinton is about to be impeached or after he is impeached and faces a trial in the Senate.
Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster in Atlanta, said he expects some backlash against Republicans in Congress and predicts that overall approval of Congress will continue to drop. He is among those in the party who warn that "there is a limit to how far you can drive an issue that is supported by only a third of the populace."
On the other hand, said Mr. Ayres: "It's impossible to know if the effects would last until the next election. Two years is a long time, an eternity in politics."
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