WHAT CLINTON IS DOING RIGHT

By Richard Stengel

ON THE AFTERNOON OF the day of the State of the Union address, Bill Clinton held two rehearsals of his speech in the White House family theater. He was relaxed, in a plaid shirt, drinking tea, cracking wise. Present were a sprinkling of advisers and speechwriters and Vice President Al Gore. "Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of the 104th Congress," the President intoned, then smiled. "Thank you and good night." Laughter.

Historians, take note: that would have been the briefest State of the Union on record. The presidential joke had a certain self-deprecating quality, as Clinton's infamously long 1995 address lasted 81 minutes. Just a year ago, pundits and politicos were saying "Thank you and good night" to the Clinton presidency, but after the President's trim, one-hour speech last week, it was morning in Bill Clinton's America. The man written off after the 1994 elections was suddenly looking like the man to beat--especially when compared with Bob Dole and his not-ready-for-prime-time response. Ladies and gentlemen, the Comeback Kid is in the theater.

One instant poll showed that 69% of viewers liked what they heard, while another suggested that voters preferred Clinton's vision of America to that of the Republicans by a wide margin. If it weren't for Mrs. Clinton's increasing immersion in Whitewater, which included an appearance before a grand jury last Friday, the week would have been one of Clinton's best. Only last July, pollster Stan Greenberg wrote a memo saying the President was "fundamentally mispositioned for 1996." Now Clinton's position is on the inside track with the competition in disarray. How did the President manage it?

Slouching to the Sensible Center. The message of the 1994 elections was to move to the middle; that's where presidencies are won. And that was the place Stealth adviser Dick Morris wanted Clinton to be. Morris counseled Clinton that he could neutralize the ascendant Republican message by co-opting it.

Last week's State of the Union message was pieced together by Don Baer, Bruce Reed and Michael Waldman, senior aides ideologically in synch with Morris. The speech tapped into the less-from-Washington and more-from-ourselves rhetoric heard on the Republican campaign trail. Clinton declared that "the era of Big Government is over" and talked about family values, personal responsibility and neighborhood charity. "We're the ones who are pro-family, pro-community, pro-spirituality," wails G.O.P. pollster Frank Luntz, "and yet Bill Clinton is using the language and we're not." House Republicans are muttering that Clinton hijacked their agenda. But to paraphrase T.S. Eliot's line about poets, good politicians borrow, great politicians steal. Now Republicans are finally learning what Bill Clinton means by common ground: your land is my land.

Clinton and his advisers have been able to make the campaign about the future, and not a referendum on the Clinton record. Morris' well-known policy of "triangulation"--steering between the extremes of the House Republicans and the liberals in Clinton's own party--has had the counterintuitive effect of making Clinton seem like a "conviction politician." In the face of the Republican tirade, Clinton looked strong simply by not backing down. Notes Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos: "He has managed to speak to the country's desire for coming together, and to stand firm on his principles at the same time."

Letting Newt Be Newt. After the 1994 election, Clinton figured that no matter who gets the Republican nomination in 1996, his real opponent until then will be Newt. "There was a personification of the negative side of the G.O.P. revolution," says Senator Chris Dodd, co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, "and it was the Speaker."

At the same time, Newt and his allies made a number of miscalculations. They not only thought Clinton would cave in on the budget, they boasted that he would do so--thereby ensuring that he didn't. They misjudged the public's reaction to the shutdown: it redounded against the recalcitrant Republicans, not the reasonable-sounding fellow in the White House. After a while, Newt's tantrums became so unappetizing to the public that Clinton scored points simply by being the un-Newt. And the Republicans never imagined that the man they deride as the Last Liberal would shanghai their less-government agenda.

Mending Fences in the Family. Only a couple of years ago, Clinton's rhetoric would have been anathema to the liberal core of the Democratic caucus. But the world has changed since then. No one is against a balanced budget anymore; everyone is a fiscal conservative. Like a political Gulliver, Clinton has been able to straddle the differences in his own party. As the popularity of his position on the budget has risen, Democrats figure, we'd better go along for the ride.

Another consequence was that as Clinton anchored himself in the middle, he was able to score points on the left by making the G.O.P. appear Scroogelike on Medicare, school lunches, the environment and education spending. It's a politician's dream: he's having it both ways.

Scaring Off the Competition. On the campaign front, Clinton is the colossus of the Democratic Party. The White House frightened off any potential rivals with a scorched-earth fund-raising policy. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton-Gore campaign finance chairman, has broken all records, collecting $26.8 million in eight months last year. Throw in an additional $11 million in matching funds, and McAuliffe's job was virtually done before 1996 even began.

The campaign's biggest expense so far was a Dick Morris-inspired $2.4 million ad campaign last summer featuring three slick commercials on the President's crime-fighting record. This was meant to inoculate Clinton against any G.O.P. soft-on-crime attacks and also warn off any other Democrats with big dreams.

So, with Clinton riding high, what happens from here on out? Discipline, Discipline, Discipline. The Clintonites have been studying Ronald Reagan's successful 1984 re-election effort. One lesson: Keep command and control in the White House the way chief of staff Jim Baker did it (deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes is overseeing things from the West Wing). Another lesson: Croon along with Ronnie's song of optimism (the effectiveness of that approach is underscored by candidate Steve Forbes' success). Every week for the next few months, Clinton plans to reprise themes from the State of the Union. This is the Reagan model for staying on message. Says Stephanopoulos: "The President set the tone for the year Tuesday night. Now we have to reinforce, reinforce." Clinton must also avoid lapsing into self-pity, an occupational hazard for late 20th century Presidents, and making gaffes like the one in Texas, when he told a gang of corporate honchos that those tricky Republicans made him raise their taxes.

In the meantime, the President intends to be presidential--another way of saying, Don't let them see you sweat. Clinton won't even try to dominate his Republican rivals. "Whatever's going to be written about the President in the next eight weeks," says Clinton adviser James Carville, "four times that is going to be written about the Republicans. You ain't gonna compete with Iowa and New Hampshire, so you shouldn't even try." As far as a formal announcement of Clinton's re-election bid is concerned, don't expect anything fancy. No red-white-and-blue campaign coming-out party is planned. Being presidential meansbeing above it all; only challengers have to create a splash.

Coloring In the Electoral Map. Clinton's choice last week for his first post--State of the Union jaunt, Kentucky, is a sign of his renewed electoral viability. A year ago, Kentucky's eight electoral votes seemed to go up in smoke after Clinton's proposal to restrict tobacco advertising. But a recent poll shows that Clinton now holds a 6-point lead over Dole in that tobacco-rich state.

Ickes and Doug Sosnik, the White House political director, are already gaming out electoral strategies. The Clinton re-election team expects the critical states to be Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Missouri, Connecticut and Maine, with the real crunch states being Illinois, Ohio and New Jersey.

O.K., What Could Go Wrong? For one thing, scandal. The drip-drip-drip of revelations about Hillary and Whitewater could undermine Clinton's new era of good feeling. Senator Al D'Amato would like to keep his hearings rumbling through the fall. "I was glad to have the opportunity to tell the grand jury what I have been telling you," Mrs. Clinton said wearily, after testifying for more than four hours before a grand jury last week. It's still an eternity before next November.

The Republicans will regroup. They are already doing so. The Speaker's capitulation this week--his deal on a continuing resolution and hints that he will help raise the debt limit--may mark the end of the G.O.P.'s self-righteous, hard-ball strategy. Even the freshmen know they have been outflanked. Admits first-year Kansas Congressman Sam Brownback: "We probably should have done a better job studying the lessons of history."

One other potential problem is in-fighting at the White House. Ickes and Morris, the twin planets of the Clinton re-election team, barely tolerate each other. They are the poster boys of the opposing White House camps: liberals vs. moderate New Democrats. Morris has solidified his role as Clinton's guru of choice. One night a week, usually Wednesday, he leads a campaign meeting at the residence that includes the President, Vice President, Sosnik, Bob Squier (the campaign media adviser brought in by Morris and Gore), Stephanopoulos and other senior aides. Ickes apparently bridles at Morris' highbrow musing about the Hegelian dialectics of campaigns.

So far, nobody is gloating yet in the White House. "It's not too early to be encouraged," says Sosnik. "But it's too early to be complacent." Clinton's numbers are nothing to crow about: a 50% approval rate does not a landslide make. "Of course, right now," says Carville, "you'd rather be us than them."

--Reported by James Carney and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington

With reporting by JAMES CARNEY AND J.F.O. MCALLISTER/WASHINGTON