Backdraft The pro-Clinton backlash is a no-show.

WASHINGTON is in thrall at the moment to two competing conventional wisdoms. Wisdom #1: A backlash is brewing across the nation against the GOP's supposed anti-Clinton crusade, threatening to limit Republican gains in November to the slim-to-none range. Wisdom #2: Republicans will have a good election, then return to the merry business of impeaching the President, whose only hope of survival is forestalling conviction in the Senate. As it happens, both of these are wrong: there is no backlash, but neither is there any certainty that President Clinton will be impeached in the House after the elections. Republicans have returned home to campaign bolstered by recent party polls that give the GOP a seven-point advantage in a generic ballot matchup, a historically high number that suggests the impeachment "backlash" is a figment of the media's imagination. On the other hand, don't expect Republicans to campaign on their investigation of Ken Starr's allegations, because those same polls clearly warn politicians that voters don't want to hear about the Lewinsky scandal. Republicans will crow about last year's tax cuts and this year's surplus, but there won't be a peep about a possible impeachment. Republicans are banking on modest gains, with most analysts predicting a pickup of 8 to 12 House seats and 3 or 4 Senate seats thanks to heavy GOP turnout. Although there is some evidence that Democrats' interest in voting increased in the past weeks, Republicans still have a motivation edge. According to party polls, 69 per cent of Republicans intend to vote, compared to 58 per cent of Democrats-with the latter number expected to sink as impeachment talk declines. And the President's still-high job approval rating won't help Democrats much, because those who disapprove of his job performance are more likely to vote, by a margin of 16 points. One GOP strategist cites the higher propensity of Republican women to vote (74 per cent of GOP women v. 59 per cent of Democratic women) and proclaims, "Say good-bye to the gender gap." And conservative voters are among the most motivated: 80 per cent of "very conservative" voters plan to cast ballots, compared with only 53 per cent of "liberal" voters. Pollster John Zogby's surveys confirm that Republicans' conservative base is energized. "Conservative Christians will vote in monsoon weather," he predicts. Republican leaders are nervous that their disappointing budget negotiations with Bill Clinton could depress their conservative base (the deal is indeed depressing). But they expect that GOP voters will appreciate that concessions on funding for the International Monetary Fund, billions in "emergency spending," and insurance coverage of contraceptives for federal employees were necessary to avoid a government shutdown engineered by the man who is the only real issue this year for the GOP grassroots: Bill Clinton. They also anticipate getting the credit for boosting defense spending while trashing the President's tobacco legislation and his proposed new tax increases, child-care spending, and HMO regulations. Republicans are just happy to have made it out of the budget negotiations alive. Says one House leadership aide: "It could have been much worse. Thank God the Democrats decided to leave town; they were holding all the cards." Ironically, it's the femme fatale, j.g., Monica Lewinsky, who helped give tax cuts the kiss of death. Senate Republicans figured that the $80-billion tax cut passed by the House wasn't large enough to justify a fight with the President who charged that the cut would "jeopardize Social Security." And who needs a tax cut when the GOP base is already motivated to vote by its disgust with the Big Creep? Again, polls indicate that a Republican message emphasizing last year's tax cut and the balanced budget, the strong economy, and Internal Revenue Service reform appeals to a majority of voters. But these encouraging poll results come with a stern warning from party strategists. Media polls and party polls alike consistently indicate that a majority of voters believe the President should be punished, but don't want him removed from office. And because the public has settled on the appropriate punishment, it doesn't want to hear about the allegations. So much for the "I word." By a margin of 2 to 1, voters favor candidates who talk about policy over those who either criticize or defend the President's behavior. So GOP candidates have been told that when it comes to impeachment, the less said the better. Only Republican voters, by a margin of 2 to 1, favor impeachment, and that's not enough to keep the process moving forward in the House. Although many observers just assume that Republican lawmakers will support impeachment, it's doubtful that a majority will vote to impeach if the current situation persists. As long as the public in general, and Democrats unanimously, oppose impeachment it is unlikely that Republicans will attempt to send the matter on to the Senate. A successful partisan vote to impeach might not even be possible with so many Republicans queasy about removing the President "for sex and lying about sex." At present it's not even clear that a majority of Judiciary Committee members has concluded that Bill Clinton's behavior amounts to an impeachable offense. If only three Republicans agree with Committee Democrats that the President's conduct does not constitute the kind of public corruption that warrants impeachment, no resolution will be forwarded to the full House. November's elections will change this dynamic only if the results convince Democrats that their party has suffered enough at the hands of Bill Clinton. Should Democrats lose House seats in the double digits, and five seats in the Senate, Bill Clinton is bound to be blamed. As Democrats look toward 2000, they could conclude that as long as Bill Clinton remains in the White House their party will be unable to put the Lewinsky matter behind them. Barring that, Bill Clinton's long-overdue day of reckoning just gets more overdue.