Clintonophobia!

By NINA BURLEIGH/WASHINGTON

THE TUNE OVER THE RADIO IN CHICAgo was familiar: the Doobie Brothers' Black Water from back in 1975. The lyrics, however, were a bit more current:

Oh Whitewater,

Keep stonewallin'

Bill and Hillary

Just keep on lyin' to me

When talk-show host Don Wade played the song last week, congratulatory calls flooded the station. Self-congratulatory calls, really. The parody, a compilation of lyrics sent in by listeners from 38 states, is just the latest artifact in a "We loathe Bill and Hill" movement that spews out everything from bumper stickers to wait-till-'96 support groups. Whitewater has thrown plenty of fuel onto this low-burning but widespread fire. The White House's admission that Hillary made a profit of nearly $100,000 on a $1,000 investment only further stimulates the Clintonophobes' bile. Indeed, in Wade's compilation:

If they indict, we don't care

Don't make no difference to us,

Still got those sweet cattle futures back home.

Yeah, we can make another hundred grand,

With just a few bucks down . . .

Just how many people don't like Clinton, no matter what he does? Around 25% to 30% of the population, a range that has remained steady since the beginning of his presidency in 1993. Pollsters call those statistics "high negatives," and they appear to be impossible to overcome. (Clinton's general approval ratings have climbed recently, rising to 59%, according to the Los Angeles Times.) Republicans, as expected, make up the bulk of Clinton haters. But apart from obvious partisans, the group includes the Christian right and apolitical citizens who just don't like the cut of the President's jaw. In fact, say pollsters, some of the most intensely negative reactions to Clinton come from Americans who are his generational peers. According to Democratic pollster Michael McKeon, these are struggling and rebellious types who don't like what Clinton represents: high-achieving, highly educated fellow boomers who got ahead in life and left them behind. "They're guys who didn't like him way back when, when he was in the honor society in high school and they were working at McDonald's. He was part of everything they hated." Says conservative pollster John McLaughlin (no relation to the pundit): "He really polarizes baby boomers. If they don't like him, they see him as a peer they * never really liked. It's his own generation that feels about him in personal terms."

One of those peers is Bill Reishtein, 41, a Chicago ad executive, who says Clinton is "betraying a generation." Adds Reishtein, who opposed the Vietnam War: "I consider him a Richard Nixon without perspiration. Clinton has such strong communications skills, it's almost worse." Talk-show host Wade says he knows what makes his listeners' blood boil. "Clinton has this inability to tell the whole truth. He knows how to skate the issue -- 'I didn't break any laws, I didn't inhale' -- through rhetoric."

Meanwhile, to the religious right, Clinton is practically the Anti-Christ. During the campaign, they waved placards warning TO VOTE FOR BILL CLINTON IS TO SIN AGAINST GOD. More recently the Virginia-based Christian Action Network called on Clinton to "fire the four horsewomen of the apocalypse: Joycelyn Elders, Kristine Gebbie, Roberta Achtenberg and Jane Alexander" -- respectively, the Surgeon General, who advocates condom distribution to high school students; the National AIDS policy coordinator; the Assistant Secretary in the Housing and Urban Development Department and the first openly lesbian nominee to be confirmed by the Senate for a high office; and the actress Clinton appointed to head the National Endowment for the Arts.

The First Lady draws her own share of fire. About 500 men, women and children braved a wet, bitter wind to protest her visit last month to Wausau, Wisconsin. BILL AND HILLARY, PREZ AND CO-PREZ OF SLEAZE, read many of the placards. In the middle of the crowd Constance Brockman, an apple-cheeked mother of two, talked about why she came out in such foul weather. Brockman, a 38-year-old homemaker, said she was worried about social ills -- crime and the lack of sexual abstinence among teenagers -- which she blames the Clinton Administration for exacerbating. "The country has no morals, and they are in charge," she said. "I fear for the lost."

Two men who have benefited as professional Clinton haters are behind-the- scenes activist Floyd Brown and conservative celebrity Rush Limbaugh. Both profess not to hate Clinton. "We like the President," said Limbaugh's producer, Kit Carson. "We think he's probably a lot of fun to go out with after work -- have a few beers and chase women." Brown said he has no personal animosity toward Clinton and only "the greatest respect for his raw political instinct and capabilities." He explained that he and his associate David Bossie are merely "researchers."

Brown's digging, however, can be dirty and deadly for his opponents. Brown achieved fame as creator of the infamous Willie Horton ads used in the Bush campaign against Michael Dukakis. Now head of the conservative, Virginia-based group Citizens United, Brown has become a major source of Whitewater information for reporters and, he says, congressional investigators. His group's membership has boomed under Clinton, Brown contends. Last summer, he started a monthly newsletter called ClintonWatch (annual subscription: $29), which contains items ranging from Whitewater rumors and innuendo to right-wing critiques of Clinton's agenda. In his quest for damaging material, Brown has spent hours in Little Rock cultivating Clinton enemies and other sources.

The Arkansas branch of Clinton haters is led by two attorneys: Sheffield Nelson, who is a Republican candidate for Governor, and the quixotic Cliff Jackson. Both seem to harbor personal animosity toward the President. Nelson, who lost to Clinton in a Governor's race in 1990, was responsible last year for bringing damaging Whitewater-related allegations to national media attention. He also taped a conversation in which Jim McDougal, the Clintons' Whitewater partner, accuses the President of lying about the business venture. Jackson, who was a schoolmate of Clinton's at Oxford, represented the two Arkansas state troopers who told tales about Clinton's use of state employees to procure women. Jackson later arranged for a Washington press conference by Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who says she was sexually harassed by Clinton while he was Governor. Although Jackson says he has urged reporters to stay away from allegations about Clinton's sexual escapades, Jones is expected to file a formal sexual harassment suit against the President sometime later this month -- an event the media will probably not ignore.

Other Presidents have been vilified, says historian Alan Brinkley, but new forces are shaping Clinton's situation. "Clinton is the first President who has generated this kind of right-wing hatred," Brinkley said, adding that the proliferation of radio talk shows and direct mail -- two methods of communication much used by conservatives -- have changed the political landscape. According to mail wizard Richard Viguerie, he and his fellow conservatives regard Clinton as a "serious threat" and thus feel justified , using any material at hand to bring him down. "It's nothing personal. Just business," Viguerie said. "But they have a lot more material to work with. What President since Lyndon Johnson has been so open in his sexual promiscuity? He brings this on himself. No one has given the country, the media, his opponents as much personal material to work with."

The White House is planning a counterattack against professional Clintonophobes like Brown, the kind who feed "the slime funnel," as an Administration official calls it, of negative stories in the media. "They are very good at shepherding people around," said the official. "We are worried to the extent they get their poison message into the mainstream media because there's a very low filter for it. The American people aren't aware of the extent to which the President's political opponents have been able to plant stories."

Historian Brinkley says Clinton has his work cut out for him because he is young, unlike previous Presidents who had "genial, paternalistic qualities and sunny personalities." Brinkley says Clinton is also a victim of a political fact of life: he's on the wrong side of the tolerance fence. "Liberals tend to value tolerance highly, so there's a greater reluctance to destroy enemies than among the right," he said. "Democrats are historically more likely to cooperate with Republican administrations than Republicans with Democratic administrations." With Clinton's foes growing fiercer by the day, his problem is that Democrats have a lot more to contend with than just Republicans.

With reporting by Julie Grace/Chicago and David Seideman/New York