IN POLLS, IF YOU ASK A QUESTION, you almost always get an answer — though not necessarily to the question you wanted folks to answer. We see this illustrated once again in polls on Bill Clinton’s standing as president in the wake of the allegations of an affair between him and White House intern Monica Lewinsky. All of the polls show higher proportions of people now saying they approve of “the way Bill Clinton is handling his job as president” than did before the scandal broke. In fact, of course, while observers differ on what the scandal’s impact has been (and is likely to be), no one thinks it has strengthened Clinton’s standing with the American people.
We can speculate about what a majority of poll respondents mean when they say they approve of Clinton’s handling of his office. This question has always picked up assessments not just of the president but of the nation’s condition — the domestic economy and our place in world affairs. It’s also true that Americans have repeatedly expressed the view that the press is too intrusive, and people responding to recent polls may well have used the approval question not to endorse the president’s conduct but to criticize the media’s excesses.
Fortunately, on the larger issue of whether “character matters” to the contemporary public, we don’t need to speculate. Americans have repeatedly said it does matter — and they have lessened their support for Clinton’s presidency because of reservations about his character. A new poll from U.S. News found a 24-percentage-point gap between the president’s job-approval rating and his personal-approval rating, 66 percent and 42 percent respectively. His mediocre personal standing is captured by many different kinds of survey questions.
In April 1997, Gallup asked whether Clinton’s ethical standards are higher or lower than those of other recent presidents. Here’s what respondents said:
