He's the most popular Democratic president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, presiding over the best economy in decades.
He's the master mason who built the modern Democratic plurality, a nonpareil as strategist and tactician, as skilled a national communicator as Ronald Reagan ever was.
But for months, William Jefferson Clinton has been a political prisoner, effectively placed under White House arrest in the closest presidential campaign since 1960.
Rather than helping lead the Democratic drive for four more years, Clinton has been consigned to the role the Rev. Jesse Jackson usually plays - some radio ads here, some taped phone calls there, a limited get-out-the-vote tour in the final days.
Although he will have a closing campaign cameo, a trip the White House stresses will focus ''on some key congressional and Senate races,'' the Democrats' best performer has been barred from center stage. Certainly you won't see him standing on the same platform with Al Gore, helping his vice president to frame the national choice. Too likely he'll remind voters of Oval Office scandal, the Gore campaign is said to fear.
But not all Democrats agree with the Clinton imprisonment.
Eyeing an Electoral College where the Democrats' parlous path to victory now resembles a series of slippery steppingstones across a raging torrent, they say it's time for Clinton to wade into the fray.
''There are precious few days left, and Gore needs every bit of help he can get,'' declares Robert Reich, Clinton's first secretary of labor. ''And Bill Clinton is the world's preeminent campaigner.''
Gore's campaign is his to run, says Steven Grossman, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, but, ''If it were up to me, I would have used the president to a significantly greater degree than he has been used.''
''He is the most effective campaigner in the country right now,'' says US Representative Martin Meehan, who marvels at the compelling way Clinton defined the election differences during his Oct. 20 appearance for Meehan in Lowell.
And what does the Gore campaign say to the simmering free-the-president movement?
''Al Gore is campaigning on his own and that is the way it should be and that is the way it is going to be to the very end,'' declares Gore spokesman Douglas Hattaway, who adds: ''The president is going to be helpful to the entire ticket to turn out the vote.''
Is there a reason - beyond fears that he rekindles the ''character question'' - for keeping Clinton at such a distance? Some observers believe the two men's strained personal relationship plays a part.
''Gore believed he was on a glide path to the presidency and that Clinton literally screwed it up,'' says one former administration official. ''He has been deeply angry and resentful of Clinton'' because of that.
Meanwhile, several sources portray Clinton as frustrated by what he views as an ineffectual campaign by Gore against a personable but lightly experienced Republican. He clearly would like to do more.
''I don't think the president has any doubt that his ability to frame the issues in clear, direct, succinct, and credible fashion would be an asset,'' says Grossman, who speaks with Clinton regularly. ''I think the overarching attitude at the White House is, let me at it. ... But it is Gore's campaign to run and Clinton knows that, as frustrated as he might be at not being given as significant a role as he would like.''
Others say Clinton is puzzled that Gore hasn't consulted him more, privately at least, about how to wage the campaign.
''I think the president is bewildered as to why the Gore campaign doesn't seek his counsel,'' said one friend of both men.
The former administration member says that, among Clinton's inner circle, Gore's reluctance is seen as counterproductive.
''They are waiting for the telephone calls and wondering why it hasn't come,'' this person said. ''Their feeling is, this is winnable by Gore, but in order to win, he probably needs to do a number of things, including using Clinton. They stand ready to help ... but the decision to use him is out of their hands.''
Still, if resentment and strained relations play some role - and Reich, for one, doubts that, noting that both men are political pros - political considerations are certainly foremost in Gore's calculations.
Officially, the campaign's not talking, but knowledgeable sources say that Harrison Hickman, one of Gore's pollsters, has persuaded the high command that Clinton would be a liability with the undecided voters Gore needs to win.
Hickman did not return Globe phone calls, but certainly his isn't the only polling that suggests Clinton could hurt.
Peter Hart, who polls for the Wall Street Journal and NBC News, puts it this way: Voters who approve of Clinton's job performance and feel positive about him personally are already strongly for Gore; those who disapprove on both counts are strongly for the Republican candidate, Texas Governor George W. Bush.
Those who say Clinton has done a good job but have serious qualms about him personally seem to weigh character more heavily; they are breaking 55 to 24 percent for Bush, says Hart.
Given that reality, ''Do you want to end up in the last days revolving your election around Bill Clinton?'' Hart asks. ''In the end, I would say it is more a risk than a reward.''
The Gallup tracking poll, done for CNN/USA Today, suggests the same problem. Only 17 percent of voters say they would be more likely to vote for Gore if Clinton were to campaign for him, while 40 percent say they would be less inclined to pull the lever for Gore if the president takes to the hustings on his behalf. Among crucial independents, 10 percent rated Clinton's active support a positive, compared with 45 percent who said it would make them less inclined to support Gore.
Dick Morris, the consultant who helped craft Clinton's reelection strategy after the Republicans scored a takeover of Congress in 1994, shares the view that making Clinton more visible would hamper Gore's efforts.
''His presence undermines Gore's capacity to stand on his own; it belies his statement that I am my own man and trivializes his candidacy,'' says Morris. ''It also rubs Gore with the bad karma of Clinton's character problems at a time when Bush's lead is caused by perceptions that he has a better overall character and personality.''
And yet, even though Gallup's own numbers suggest Clinton might hurt Gore, David Moore, senior editor of the Gallup Poll, cautions that polls predicting reaction are suspect. Moore says that during the Clinton impeachment, the public's reaction was more supportive of the president than polls had prophesied.
''One has to be very careful about any poll that measures public reaction to hypothetical events because typically people themselves do not know how they are going to react until those events occur,'' said Moore.
Which buttresses Reich's view that overall, Clinton would end up an asset for an understudy who, despite the robust economy, has not been able to close the deal on his own.
''Although Americans may harbor some doubts about his personal morality, his job rating is still soaring,'' Reich says. ''For all his faults, Clinton has been an enormously successful president and one of the most remarkable campaigners in recent American history.''
Meehan says, ''Everyone knows the president is no saint, but most people think he has done a good job, and this campaign needs to be on performance. I think he can effectively make the case that this election is serious business.''
At the end of the day, Clinton may do that despite Gore's reluctance. After all, in the last two weeks, Clinton has used a speech to congressional Democrats and a campaign appearance for Hillary Rodham Clinton to thrust himself into the fray.
Clinton's preelection tour for the ticket - which White House aides say will include appearances in Kentucky and California, and which others say will probably also target Arkansas and possibly other Southern states that Clinton won in 1992 but where Gore is in trouble - is sure to attract widespread media coverage. And, authorized or not, his every word will command headlines.
US Senator John F. Kerry, stressing he is not second-guessing the Gore campaign, nevertheless believes that in these final 10 days, Clinton will have his say regardless.
''Bill Clinton is not at a loss for how to convey to the country what his record is and what this race is all about,'' said Kerry. ''He will find a way to do that.''
If and when he does, Gore will find out whether the president is an asset or an albatross.
