o one is big enough to be president of this country right off the bat. It's all about growing. Time, experience, and scars are essential ingredients. And the president who traveled to Worcester yesterday to honor six fallen firefighters grew into the job these past seven years, crafting a persona and record that his enemies cannot diminish no matter how much they denounce and deny.
The televised news conference Clinton unrolled the day before, his summing-up of his seventh year in office, was indisputable evidence of Clinton's skills, unrivaled on the contemporary political scene. Put that Clinton into the mix of the six Republican presidential candidates whose debate was televised from Arizona this week and it's no contest.
Nor do Vice President Gore or Bill Bradley, the two Democrats out for the job, match Clinton's ability to deliver a flawless speech, fence with reporters for an hour of live televised repartee, and connect with the public.
The incumbent's well-advertised moral flaws notwithstanding, his leadership skills are apparent to all but the most obtuse critics. A president with what appears to be an inordinate desire to be loved flashes his talents before an audience often dulled to his brilliance. But there remains that huge chasm between Clinton's performance and the skill level of those who would replace him. Able men in their different ways, they have yet to commandeer the public's interest or the critics' esteem the way Clinton did before he crashed into disgrace.
Running the gauntlet of a presidential campaign is the way we test the mettle of those who would lead. Every campaign cycle offers a different combination of quirky coincidences and developments that cannot be anticipated. Events rush at a candidate with accelerating speed. The morning after Paul Tsongas won the New Hampshire primary over Clinton in 1992, I told Tsongas that he would feel like an Olympic skier, hurtling down a sheer slope on the slickest ice, gates slapping him in the face, aware that any second could bring calamity. No one knows what it's like till he gets there.
Sizing up his audience and tailoring his remarks, decisions, and body language to the group is what made Clinton president and made him the president he became. He learned. Like Bill Bradley, he's a Rhodes scholar. No one ever said he wasn't smart. A voracious reader, still, no one doubts he's devouring all those books on race relations he's scanning as he writes his own.
Put that up against George W. Bush's clumsy defense of his own reading habits and it's no contest. Forging bonds of empathy with mass audiences is what sustains presidential leadership. Even before Clinton landed in Worcester yesterday I had no doubt he would connect with the audience and the families left with 17 fatherless children in a way that would be appropriate to the occasion and memorable.
Queen Elizabeth II told of her ''annus horribilis'' in 1992, a particularly grim year for the Windsor clan. Clinton just survived his Year of Kenneth Starr. But he keeps on, talking up his achievements, wooing public opinion with artful asides and sly strategems. On health insurance, Social Security, economic policy, Clinton knows what to say and what not to say.
He is the sole colossus on the world stage, the man who strong-arms Israel and Syria into renewed peace talks, who brokers Northern Ireland's grudging, ripening resolution, who tiptoes nimbly between the two Chinas, who alternately cajoles and ignores the bumbling Boris Yeltsin, managing the diffcult relationship with Russia like a worldly-wise uncle handling an unruly drunk at the family gathering. Clinton wins more respect abroad than at home, where his enemies are dug into impregnable positions in the media and political office.
''Clinton fatigue'' is the popular label. ''Clinton exasperation'' is what his critics suffer. Which is why they give him zero credit for anything that was done right in the last seven years, the greatest economic boom ever.
Talk of his ''legacy'' preoccupies those in the Republican Party and news media - it is often hard to distinguish between them - who deem it their role to call Clinton perpetually to account. They have dogged him and denigrated him to the point of diminishing returns. If Clinton could run for a third term, there are millions who would vote for him.
His rivals talk of him as though he was already comatose, a big mistake when the most skillful pol in the land has almost 14 more months in office. Say what you will about his priapic propensities, his hairsplitting or his truthfulness; he has demonstrated the capacity to grow in office.
Can you say the same of the man most likely, in the polls, to succeed him? Is Bush growing in his capacity to lead? John McCain gets bigger before our eyes, but Bush seems to be shrinking under the relentless spotlight. All to date is mere fund-raising, polling, and a couple of patty-cake debates. It gets tougher every day, and there are 11 long months to the verdict. Despite the worst hammering any politician has endured since Nixon, Clinton did not shrink. Let us see which of his would-be successors grows.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
