In the short term, economists agree, presidents have almost no influence over the ups and downs of the business cycle. But largely because presidents take so much credit when the economy is strong and bear so much blame from their political opponents when it is weak, the public's opinion of a president rises and falls, polls show, depending on how well people think he is dealing with the economy. There may be other reasons why Bill Clinton remains popular. One, no doubt, is that he has opponents, such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich and independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who are unpopular. But the public's favorable view of how Clinton is dealing with the economy seems, more than anything else, to be the main basis for his popularity.
Times are unusually good.
The economy has been growing at a steady pace ever since Clinton took office. The unemployment rate, 4.7 percent in January, was the lowest since 1973. No inflation is on the horizon. Mortgage rates are as low as they have been since the 1960s. And stock prices, as measured by the Dow Jones industrial average, cracked still another barrier last week.