MISSOURI COMMENTARY: NEGATIVE PRESS HAS BIG IMPACT

Now it's the new book by Bob Woodward with Hillary Rodham Clinton having imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt. No big deal here, but just another tiny drop in the drip, drip, drip of negative publicity for the Clintons in the past month.

First, there was the legal brief with the notion of the Soldiers and Sailors Act applying to the President. Then came the jury verdict in Little Rock, the report of the Senate Whitewater Committee and the mishandling of the FBI files. Finally, Clinton's close adviser is named as "unindicted co-conspirator" in the new trial involving campaign fund-raising in Arkansas.

The amazing thing is that none of this has put a significant dent in Clinton's lead over Senator Bob Dole. Last week's New York Times/CBS poll had Clinton leading Dole by 20 points. In the ABC-Washington Post poll, Clinton leads Dole by 20 points. In the USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey, Clinton leads Dole by 19 points.

Clinton is leading Dole in the South, especially in Florida, and has an overwhelming lead in California. Clinton's approval rating in the current Gallup poll is 58 percent. Since World War II, every president with better than a 54 percent Gallup approval rating in Mid-June of the election year has won re-election.

Of course, the race will tighten in September and October, but why hasn't there been some narrowing of the gap based on the drum-beat level of recent negative publicity? Frankly, I can't figure it out, but here are some reasons offered by some political observers.

-- Americans don't focus on presidential campaigns until Labor Day.

-- The character issue was ventilated in the 1992 campaign and, thus, there is really nothing to change attitudes from what they have been right along.

-- Whitewater is simply too complicated for general comprehension.

-- Public cynicism about politics and politicians causes people to say "So what else is new?" Today's politics, most people think, is all partisan mud-slinging. People tune it out.

-- Voters care mostly about economy, jobs, education, environment, crime, peace -- especially the economy. Clinton is benefiting directly from good economic news.

-- Clinton has a couple of Ronald Reagan qualities: charm and persuasiveness. He may have even acquired some of Reagan's teflon quality to him. The country is now comfortable with him as president.

-- Dole can't get started. He is viewed as an aged, Capitol Hill practitioner with no message and no zip. He is stuck with Speaker Newt Gingrich and the perceived excesses of Congress in areas dear to voters hereto: Medicare, Medicaid, education, environment.

-- There may be no negative impact of the bad publicity for the moment. However, over time, many believe there will be a cumulative impact that could take its toll.

The Republicans are betting that Clinton will self-destruct and that Dole will win simply because he is standing there. This is a gamble. Everything in a presidential election year is a gamble.

Clinton knows his lead will narrow, but has to worry that further adverse publicity will put him in some part of a political free-fall. There are other tension points out there. The Special Counsel, Kenneth Starr, is still in pursuit of the Whitewater matter and hopes to "flip" any secondary defendants into testifying against higher-ups.

Starr now has the FBI file matter under his wing. The House of Representatives has its own investigation of the handling of the FBI files. The FBI file story is at the beginning, not the end.

Dole desperately needs a theme. He meanders from tinkering with the abortion plank to saying that smoking isn't addictive. Next it's don't teach the children of illegal aliens in our public schools. Dole has not offered the people a positive reason to vote for him.

Dole seems to be gambling that Clinton's self-destruction and a bloody attack campaign in September and October will do the job. It's a risky crap shoot to get to the White House.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.