ASHINGTON - Slowly but unmistakably, the public is beginning to succumb to Clinton Fatigue.
You can feel it moving quietly but relentlessly across the capital and the country, changing the conversation, altering the political landscape. After seven years - deep economic despair followed by infectious optimism, soaring rhetoric about high ethics followed by a tumultuous period of allegations, investigations, and recriminations - Clinton Fatigue is taking hold.
Few presidents have dominated the American scene for so long as Bill Clinton. In this century, only Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan served longer in the White House. And although the president shows few indications of tiring as he approaches his 53d birthday on Thursday, the nation he seeks to govern is showing signs of fatigue.
Three Americans of four say they are tired of all the problems associated with the Clinton administration, according to a survey taken by the Pew Research Center. Only three Americans of 10 say they'd like to see another Clinton term. And though an astonishing 78 percent of the public said in February that they believed the next president should have different personal qualities than Clinton's, that figure jumped another 5 points by summer to 83 percent.
The fatigue factor is an important consideration for contemporary politics, and already it is fashioning the political world of the future. Its prevalence in Washington is emboldening Republican congressional leaders as they gird to confront the president on issues such as a tax cut and Social Security. Its effects are giving shape to the election, making it more difficult for Vice President Al Gore to argue that the Democrats' tenure should be extended.
Toward the end of a ride
Clinton's ride on the public opinion wave is clearly coming to an end. The Pew survey shows that support for the president's impeachment, which was 35 percent in December, now has risen to 44 percent. In the month the president was impeached, 30 percent of Americans believed he should resign. Now 35 percent say they believe he should have resigned.
On the surface, it's no surprise that Americans should grow tired of any president. The nation has a short attention span, and Clinton has remained in prime time almost as long as that other cultural guidepost, ''Seinfeld.'' Besides, Clinton's run is all the more remarkable in light of the fact that he had no honeymoon and that his personal comportment led to the first impeachment of a president in 130 years.
But the onset of Clinton Fatigue is significant nonetheless, if only because the president retained remarkable public opinion ratings during the most serious challenge to a sitting president since Watergate - and because the economy continues to roar and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which sat at 3,256 the morning he was inaugurated in January 1993, now moves robustly well above 10,000.
With news that good, with the economy that sound, with aspirations that high, with the public that content, only strong sentiments of disapproval should be powerful enough to prompt the public to contemplate a change. But it is. Only 41 percent of Americans, for example, said in February that they believe the next president should have policies and programs that differ from Clinton's. By summer, that figure had climbed to 50 percent.
The danger for Gore
Those findings spell danger for Gore, who despite a career in the House and Senate is regarded primarily as Clinton's partner. Indeed, his presence at the helm of the economy is Gore's principal asset in the 2000 campaign, as Vice President George Bush's presence at Ronald Reagan's side was his in 1988.
The big difference, however, is that the public was more eager for a third Reagan term in 1988 than it is for a third Clinton term in 2000. And while Bush was not tarnished by Reagan in 1988, Gore plainly is by Clinton in 2000.
Thus Clinton, who has been at the center of American politics since the winter of 1992, clearly is not going to fade from the scene the way many of his predecessors did.
Ordinarily a president's accomplishments and failures give little shape to the next election. The great exceptions were 1968, when Lyndon B. Johnson's unpopularity hurt Hubert Humphrey's prospects, and 1908, when Theodore Roosevelt's popularity helped his handpickedsuccessor, William Howard Taft.
But Clinton also will affect the presidential election - and congressional races. Last winter the conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill was that Republicans who supported impeaching the president would be punished by the voters. Now 57 percent of voters say those lawmakers should be reelected. And one other place where the president's influence will be unmistakable, though at this time incalculable: the Senate race in New York. Clinton may be almost gone, but he will not be forgotten.
