Nothing But Blue Skies a Time/Cnn Poll Shows

By Richard Lacayo

Just six months ago, midway through his bumpy and very public schooling in how to head a nation, Bill Clinton qualified as the most unpopular first-year President since polling began in the 1930s. But by last week, as he marked his first anniversary in office and got down to work on his State of the Union ; address, his approval ratings had bounced back to the healthy levels of his giddy Inaugural season. In a TIME/CNN poll conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, 54% of those surveyed said they approve of Clinton's presidential performance, while only 34% disapproved.

The approval number is all the more impressive in that it follows upon a month of stories criticizing his personal life as Arkansas Governor. Clinton's popularity looks better still after his dismal 37% approval rating of June, around the time his public image was being defined by his failed job-stimulus package, two failures to appoint an Attorney General, the fight over gays in the military, an ill-advised shakeup at the White House travel office and a haircut by Christophe. Clinton's popular rebound suggests that even if there were times last year when he made Americans wince, a majority of them remain ready to credit his progress on things that matter to them, including the deficit and health care. "People think that the President is trying," says White House chief of staff Mack McLarty. "It's like a huge battleship on a river. We're beginning to turn it around."

Clinton's recent tour of Europe also helped him gain in the public view of his ability to handle foreign policy -- 57% say he is doing a good job, while 28% disagree, a near reversal of the numbers he got after the October debacle in Somalia. But the same poll shows that the future holds some problems. The President faces lingering doubts about his trustworthiness, which is probably attributable to the Clintons' handling so far of questions about their investment in a real estate partnership, Whitewater Development Corp. In the TIME/CNN poll, just 40% of those surveyed said Clinton was a leader they could trust, vs. 56% who agreed they had "doubts and reservations." In response to such concerns, last week Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Robert Fiske, a respected former U.S. Attorney, as special counsel to investigate the case.

The President's rising approval rating is partly the reflected glow from an increasingly rosy economy. After what felt like an endless recession, Americans are gingerly re-examining the almost forgotten notion of good times ahead. Fifty-two percent of those in the TIME/CNN poll say things are going well in the U.S., up impressively from only 39% last October. Even if many Americans don't give all the credit to Clinton -- 47% say he's doing a good job of handling the economy, while 42% say no -- a rising tide, as the economists say, lifts all boats. The ship of state is one of them.

Another neat trick is that Clinton is succeeding as both an outsider and an insider in Washington. In the survey, 69% agreed that Clinton "cares about the average American," and 67% said he is "a different kind of Democrat." At the same time, 62% say he is "dealing effectively with Congress," suggesting they have confidence in his ability to play the legislative game. Asked which congressional initiative should have the top priority this year, the largest number of those surveyed, 34%, chose health care, a sentiment that could help the President push some version of his plan through Congress. (Fifty percent favor his health plan, up from 43% in October.)

Democrats ought to be pleased by the news that with congressional elections coming up in November, the Republicans don't appear to have gained much advantage from any of Clinton's earlier problems. Asked which party could do a better job of handling the nation's problems, 40% said the Democrats, 30% the Republicans. (And 14% said phooey to both.) For the Democrats that number is about the same as it was two months before the 1992 election, but for the Republicans it's 5% lower.

One certainty is that such numbers move on a daily basis. Clinton's improved grade for foreign policy rests partly upon a European trip marked by still-to- be-honored pledges by Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons and by Boris Yeltsin to continue reform. A face-off with North Korea or a crack-up in Russia could renew doubts about his capabilities abroad.

More serious still is a nagging suspicion that Whitewater might be a scandal in the making. In the TIME/CNN poll, 35% think the questions about the Clintons' connections to a failed Arkansas savings and loan are a very serious matter, vs. 53% who don't think so. And 44% think the Clintons are hiding something, in contrast to 38% who believe the public explanations so far.

The White House finally took a step toward minimizing that problem last week when Janet Reno appointed Fiske as independent counsel. A Wall Street lawyer who was a federal prosecutor in New York City under Presidents Ford and Carter, he once convicted the "untouchable" drug dealer Leroy ("Nicky") Barnes. But he quickly ran into trouble last week with conservatives who raised questions about his payment of $14,000 in back taxes as part of a dispute about the value of 3,500 acres in New York State owned by 25 people, including him, that were donated to a charitable organization. Another explanation for their unhappiness is that Fiske headed the American Bar Association screening committee for federal judges from 1984 to 1987, when it opposed some Reagan nominees.

At the Justice Department last Wednesday, one day before his appointment was made public, Fiske wrote out a personal charter on a pad of yellow legal paper. He insisted that he would investigate "any individuals or entities" who had broken federal laws relating in any way to the President's or First Lady's dealings with Whitewater or Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, the defunct S&L once headed by James McDougal, the Clintons' partner in Whitewater. Over the longer term that could mean trouble for the President, the First Lady or both. Over the shorter term Fiske can only help them by absorbing all questions about the matter into the black hole of a closed-door investigation.

What Clinton's increasing popularity says for now is that Americans have seen the President's faults, they've seen his strengths, and they have arrived at a balanced, if qualified, approval. Clinton's attitude may be part of it. "I like the job," Clinton said on Larry King Live last week. "Everybody here gets up and goes to work every day and works like crazy and, I think, in a spirit of geniuine hopefulness." For the moment at least, it's rubbing off on the rest of the country.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: From a telephone poll of 1,000 adult Americans taken for TIME/CNN on Jan. 17-18 by Yankelovich Partners Inc. Sampling error is plus or minus 3%. "Not sures" omitted.

CAPTION: Do you approve of the way President Clinton is handling his job?

Is Clinton doing a good job:

Is Clinton a leader you can trust, or do you have doubts?

Which one of the following should be Congress' highest priority in 1994: