(5 of 7)
Clinton's general strategy has been four-part: 1) in effect, admit to adultery without actually using the words by repeatedly conceding that his marriage to Hillary has gone through periods of severe strain; 2) insist that they have patched things up and their marriage is now solid; 3) deny the specific allegations by Gennifer Flowers of a 12-year affair with him; and 4) refuse to answer any questions about other women on the grounds, essentially, that if Hillary is satisfied, it is no one else's business.
There are some indications that this line is succeeding in convincing voters, whether or not they believe his denials of involvement with Flowers, that the matter is a closed book, with nothing more to be said, and not terribly important anyway. When Phil Donahue persisted in grilling him about adultery, Clinton won vociferous applause from the studio audience by informing the TV host that they would all "sit for a long time in silence" if Donahue did not get onto something else. But there are also hints that the issue is helping open a gender gap against Clinton. Illinois pollster J. Michael McKeon reports that dissatisfaction with Clinton is highest among women ages 18 to 44, and Sue Purrington, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women, says "about 80%" of the women who talk politics with her have expressed serious reservations about the Arkansas Governor. Though she attributes these to the character issue generally rather than allegations of adultery specifically, she goes on to talk about "a gut-level feeling of distaste for his life-style, which is perceived as morally not upstanding. Women tend to feel that one's moral character is a whole element, that if somebody is doing something morally unacceptable, it affects that person's judgment on other issues."
MARIJUANA
A truly trivial issue, revealing only because it illustrates Clinton's penchant for legalistic evasiveness. Questioned about pot smoking, Clinton first said he had never broken U.S. or state laws -- an answer clearly designed to convey the impression that he had never tried the weed, without his actually saying so. When someone finally asked the obvious question -- what about while he was abroad? -- Clinton confessed that he had smoked marijuana as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford in the late '60s but felt compelled to add that not only had he not liked it, he had not even inhaled -- an assertion that many others who had smoked marijuana, then and later, found hilariously unbelievable. Clinton could have avoided the whole brouhaha, and what is threatening to become grist for a million late-night-TV jokes, by just saying "Yes, and so what?" the first time he was asked.
THE DRAFT