After the House votes on the impeachment, the White House and the two houses may negotiate a censure deal. Despite the firm likelihood that the Senate would not approve a removal, the White House does not want to go to trial there either since it would add to his legacy.
60 MINUTES: IT'S THE PEOPLE, STUPID
**Exclusive First look**
Why did President Clinton use the word 'private' six times in his four-minute speech admitting his relationship with Monica Lewinsky? It's because the public responds to that word positively, Clinton's own former strategist Dick Morris tells 60 MINUTES this Sunday in a deep report that offers a rare glimpse into the focus groups that are the heart of politicians' ultimate weapon -- polling.
"President Clinton uses polls as often as he breathes," Morris tells 60 MINUTES reporter Steve Kroft. "I don't think there is a single area of American life that he's not polled on."
In a rare look at a part of that polling process called instant response, a 60 MINUTES camera rolls through the two-way mirror as St. Louis focus group respondents use hand-held electronic devices to gauge their reactions to video of Clinton's public pronouncements. The reactions are then fed into a device that can superimpose lines over the video that shoot upward for positive and downward for negative responses.
No word if the devices gauge perspiration, but Republican pollster Frank Luntz tells 60 MINUTES that the polling machines "get inside your heart and inside your head."
"We know how they're reacting to every word, every phrase, every facial expression, reveals Luntz.
Luntz gauged the reactions of the St. Louis residents who were of all political stripes to the phrases in Clinton's speech admitting the Lewinsky affair.
"Answered questions truthfully, nobody believes him. Answered questions about his private life and it goes positive," he demonstrates to Kroft. "It's almost like an EKG."
Clinton's current pollster, Doug Schoen, who would not allow 60 MINUTES cameras into Democratic-sponsored opinion research sessions, believes pollsters haven't manipulated the public, rather the public has spoken on the issues. "It is about sex and sex alone," Schoen
explains, who was temporarily unhooked from the machine. |
