IF Bill Clinton were running for election as Israel's next prime minister, he'd win in a landslide. His speech at the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin six months ago, when he urged Israel to stay the course" of peace and democracy, pledging that the United States would always be by your side", made a profound impression here. And affection and regard among Israelis for the President have been cemented by his occasional visits, his unflagging financial support, his readiness to deepen defence co-operation, and more besides.
But Mr Clinton is not running for election in Israel, and the man he wants to see win, the current prime minister, Mr Shimon Peres, does not enjoy the same level of personal popularity, despite a lifetime of service to the Jewish state. So the US President, fearful that the chances of comprehensive Middle East peace might fade away should Mr Peres be defeated by his Likud rival, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, on May 29th, is doing his best to help.
When a series of suicide bombings by Islamic radicals in Israel killed 60 people two months ago and threatened to destroy both the peace process and Mr Peres's electoral hopes, Mr Clinton stepped in to host a confidence boosting international anti terrorism conference. When much of the world lined up to attack Israel over the killing of Lebanese civilians last month, Mr Clinton gave interviews pinning the blame on the Hizbullah gunmen, whose "deliberate tactics" had attracted the tragic Israeli retaliatory fire.
And now, hosting Mr Peres on a mutually beneficial, high profile visit to the US, Mr Clinton has been serving as a veritable spokesman and spin doctor, assuring every audience that Mr Peres is the man to take Israel forward. If the Likud was already nursing a mild grievance about the President's apparent intervention in the domestic Israeli political race, that must have swollen into downright outrage this week when Mr Clinton went so far as to directly rebut the central message of Likud's own electoral campaign.
At a packed, upbeat conference in Jerusalem on Monday night, the Likud formally launched Mr Netanyahu's bid for the prime minister ship, unveiling a jingle that asserted Israel badly needed a younger leader, and the simple slogan "Netanyahu making a secure peace".
The implied message is that, while Mr Peres may be bent on achieving peace treaties with all Israel's neighbours, he is prepared to pay so high a price as to endanger Israel's very existence. The Likud argument is that Mr Netanyahu would drive a far tougher bargain.
Barely had the first Likud campaign posters begun appearing on the nation's billboards, however, but Mr Clinton was putting the case for the defence. He told a Washington audience on Monday My friend Shimon Peres is carrying forward the work of peace with security."
Mr Peres may need all the presidential help he can get His lead in the polls, once more than 30 per cent, is now down to only five or six. Labour's campaign has been strangely dormant, so far, while Likud seems to have more activists, more posters, and the slick, media savvy Mr Netanyahu spouting resonant sound bites at every opportunity.
The Peres camp's strategy appears to rely on casting the prime minister as being somehow above the fray, not a politician but a statesman, soberly pursuing the business of government while Mr Netanyahu snaps insignificantly at his heels. It's a high risk approach and one that didn't work for Mr George Bush when Mr Clinton came after him.
Indeed, while Mr Peres is enjoying the President's public displays of support, Mr Netanyahu is profiting from what appears to have been the careful study and emulation of Mr Clinton's own successful, high energy campaign strategy. It may be, in the end, that it is Mr Netanyahu and not Mr Peres who benefits more from having Mr Clinton in the White House.