BY CHUCK RAASCH
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON -- Lionnell Covert votes and keeps up on issues. He was involved in the Vietnam peace movement. But his views of leadership in the United States today have as much to do with greed and power and diversion as with statesmanship and service.
Like many surveyed in a new Gannett News Service (GNS) "Mood of America" poll, Mr. Covert, 57, a Crestone, Colo., practitioner of Chinese medicine, views the country's leaders through a human prism.
The poll of 950 adults was taken Jan. 6-11 by Opinion Research Corp. The poll has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.
Americans still put leaders on a pedestal, the GNS poll shows, but the pedestal exists partly because the country is strong and prosperous. The poll shows Americans still expect honesty and character from leaders but factor in failure and shortcomings when they judge them.
"I don't think there are any leaders any more," said Mr. Covert, who was a salesmen and ran small businesses on both coasts for 30 years before seeking a slower pace in rural Colorado. "People do what is going to get them ahead. Their self-interest is too much. . . . Bill (Clinton) should have said,
'Maybe I screwed up,' and left office. But his self-interest is too strong."
Some leadership scholars think that modest, realistic expectations of leadership are a reflection of the times.
Absent a national crisis such as war or economic calamity, heroic leadership is not required. Some scholars think the Wall Street boom, which has boosted the net worth of many in the middle class, has further diminished the summons for leadership.
But some also think there is a shaky floor beneath this optimism, and it could crash around leaders if Wall Street or the economy ever falters in a significant way.
"I think historians will reflect negatively on support for substancelessness, which is what we're really supporting right now," said Joan Hoff, a history professor at Ohio University, and an expert on President Nixon. "It's a kind of soap-opera mentality." Mr. Clinton is "an entertainer. We want to be entertained, we want to be titillated. It is a soap opera mentality as far as our politics go, which is completely short-sighted."
But in a significant way, the economy also is a reason why Americans are not marching in the streets during the impeachment process. It also is why Mr. Clinton's job approval soars even as his personal approval ratings fall. Only 34 percent said they approve of Mr. Clinton personally.
Measurements of leadership have become tied to the economy, and a boom economy sets up a boom presidency.
"I really ain't into the president, but I just think he is doing a good enough job," said Jim Combs, 27, a construction worker from Camden, Ohio. "I just got into (the construction business), but my uncle has been in for a while. He said when Reagan was in, it was real slow. Since Clinton has gotten in there, everything is picking up."
Carolyn Sturgill, 47, Harrison, Ohio, recently finished
paying off a $30,000 medical bill for her husband, Bruce, in remission from leukemia.
She paid for it by cleaning other people's homes. She is proud she did not ask for help.
More than anything, she is amused at the allegations about the private sex lives of Mr. Clinton and his critics that saturate the airwaves.
In the end, her judgment of leadership comes down to a very personal level.
"What he does on his own time, that is his own business, not the journalists'," she said. "As long as he runs the country, that is fine."
But later Ms. Sturgill said she sometimes thinks Mr. Clinton should resign.
She has two sons in the Navy, including one who just left the Persian Gulf. And she worries that no matter who was responsible for the impeachment, the president's problems could spill over into U.S. actions there.
"This is a distraction over what is going on in the Persian Gulf," she said.
