Iowa Electronic Market, 7/4/96
	Vote Share			Winner-Takes-All
	Dole	Clinton		Dole	Clinton
Open	45.4%	52.0%		38.1%	56.8%
Close	45.4%	52.0%		38.0%	56.4%
Pundits' Index
Clinton: 69%, up two points from last week Dole: 31%, down two points from last week

Saudi bombing: Left-leaners rallied round the president (Sam Fulwood: "It's made him look very statesmanlike") while right-leaners held their fire (Fred Barnes: "I don't really blame him for this"). The explosion drowned out much of this week's scandal chatter. Still, a few analysts speculated on a summer push by Republicans to oust Defense Secretary William Perry.

Aldrich: Ex-FBI agent Gary Aldrich's new book, chock full of allegations about Bill Clinton's midnight trysts, Hillary's sponsorship of Filegate principal Craig Livingstone, etc., engorged the weekend chat and quiz shows with gossip and indignation--in the campaign press corps' Victorian tradition (British archpundit Martin Walker: "This is a squalid little volume"). Between onscreen displays of the book and rehashing of its "salacious" tales, the pundits sniffed that it was hearsay, poorly sourced, concocted by a disgruntled Clinton-hater, and hawked by right-wing operatives.

Filegate: A few days of congressional hearings failed to link FBI file-handlers Craig Livingstone and Anthony Marceca to higher-ups, frustrating hopes for a Clinton implosion. By week's end, neutrals and some right-leaners were falling back on the "doofus" theory (George Will dismissed Livingstone and Marceca as "incompetent lowlifes") and reducing the mystery of who hired Livingstone to comic chat-show banter (Paul Gigot: "Maybe Eleanor Roosevelt did").

Hillary's ghosts: Bob Woodward's disclosure that Mrs. Clinton had consulted a New Age spiritual adviser and had envisioned conversations with Gandhi and Eleanor Roosevelt prompted much pious disdain (Nina Totenberg: "I would never do that kind of kookiness"). Right-leaners were split, with some coolly evaluating the market (Paul Gigot: "It's not a big deal") and others trying to rattle it (John McLaughlin called Hillary's New Age theology "un-Christian"). A week of pummeling has emboldened contrarians: Fulwood warned that attacks on Hillary's spirituality would make her a "martyr," and Linda Chavez suggested Mrs. Clinton's dependence on New Age nostrums "looks pretty pathetic," contrary to her Lady Macbeth image.

Paula Jones: The Supreme Court's decision to rule on her sexual-harassment suit has pushed it past the election and into pundit oblivion.

Looking ahead: Some pundits, taking a long view, still predict a Clinton slide. William Safire called White House scandals a "cancer" that will "metastasize," angering voters and destroying Clinton. Al Hunt suggested Clinton's ethics "time bomb" is on a long fuse. Donaldson compared the scandals to "Chinese water torture: One more drop crushes the skull." But other metaphors about the scandal/poll gap are more bullish for Clinton: the scandal-cluster theory (Jodie Allen: "Each bomb is hitting the other one" and detonating without damaging its target), the empty-Dole theory (Will: "There won't be an implosion of Clinton until at least he's tapped hard with some alternative policies"), and the pocketbook theory (Donaldson: "If Sen. Dole can't get a wedge in on the economy, the character issue probably will not do it").

Meanwhile, the market has found new reasons to worry about Yeltsin (Howard Fineman: "If he's as sick as the rumors are saying, then the whole Clinton foreign policy's in big trouble") and to write off Dole's prospects for a summer surge (John Cochran: "Once the Olympics happen, nobody in this country is going to pay attention to politics until the Republican convention").

--William Saletan

William Saletan co-founded and edited The Hotline, a daily digest of political news, and is the author of a forthcoming book on the politics of abortion.