to begin one, still carrying the burdensome baggage of the president's past.

A new mega-poll of American attitudes looking toward the 2000 elections suggests that the same people who keep Clinton's approval ratings high are fed up with him because of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and other controversies and that the vice president is suffering for it.

Still, overcoming the past may be less of a problem for Gore than dealing with doubts about his own leadership, the survey shows.

Democrats prefer him for the nomination, but rival Bill Bradley does at least as well as the vice president in preference match-ups against Republican front-runner George W. Bush, who leads them both.

The Pew Research Centre poll, based on nearly 5,000 interviews in three instalments, is one of mixed messages. It puts Clinton's job approval rating in the 60 percent range, but with 50 percent of the people saying they want different policies and programmes from the president they'll elect next year.

Only 40 percent think Gore would be a president of new ideas; 55 percent said Texas Gov. Bush would be.

But in the same interviews, 56 percent said they are satisfied with the way things are going now.

So the message is blurred, except that Clinton gets credit for what is going right, and Gore does not. Andrew Kohut, director of the research centre, said people are angry with Clinton, "but they take it out on Gore''.

Campaigning, the vice president volunteers that he was angry, too, and disappointed with the president's conduct in the Monica Lewinsky affair. But he still holds, as he did on the day of impeachment, that Clinton will be regarded as one of the greatest of presidents.

"I think his accomplishments are going to loom very large in the history books,'' he says. A majority in the Pew poll said the achievements of the administration will outweigh Clinton's failures. That's a better legacy rating than Ronald Reagan got near the end of his presidency.

And Clinton told an ABC television interviewer that his fight against impeachment -- the House made him the second president ever impeached and like the first, he was acquitted by the Senate -- will be a positive part of his legacy.

"I think when historians get a little space, they will say, 'I don't know how those people stood up to that but, boy, I'm glad they did because it preserved the Constitution,''' he said. "So I think history will view this much differently.'' But first, there's the question of how large his misconduct will loom as the Democrats try to hold the White House next year.

"Everyone is tired of the problems associated with the Clinton administration, even a majority of the Democrats,'' Kohut said.

Not quite everyone. In the poll, 70 percent said they were. Then again, when people are asked whether they are tired of problems, they're likely to say yes. The Lewinsky affair was one such problem, but there were others, among them 1996 campaign finance breaches, questions about administration dealings with Russia, a Gore specialty; the controversy over Clinton's clemency offer to 16 Puerto Ricans involved in a violent separatist movement.

The bigger challenge for Gore, the survey says, is that two-thirds of Americans describe Bush as a strong leader, double the vice president's rating. When Democrats who oppose Gore are asked why, about half as many cite the Clinton connection as say it is because of personality and leadership questions.

That's the mix for Gore to overcome, first against Bradley for the nomination, then against the Republicans. There's time. Only one out of 10 Americans told the Pew pollsters they were paying close attention to the campaign so far.

About 70 percent said they think Bush would win if he and Gore were the nominees next year. Half the Democrats would bet that way.

Then again, at this point in 1991, the year before Bush's father was denied a second term, three-quarters of Americans thought he'd be re-elected president in 1992. (AP)