With the economy doing well, and Democrats having embraced economic conservatism, elections in the year 2000 will pivot on moral issues, predicts Seymour Martin Lipset, one of the nation's leading sociologists. Even as the popular culture champions individual choice, the election campaign will be dominated by bruising arguments over personal character, choice and values. Lipset explains the seeming contradiction in a conversation with Rene Ciria-cruz, editor of New California Media, a collaboration of ethnic news media which hosts the first multi-ethnic portal on the Internet at ncmonline.com.

SAN FRANCISCO -- That terrible, swift sword hanging over George W. Bush's head because of an alleged stash of past indiscretion signals the coming of a morally unforgiving political season.

"It will be a moralistic presidential election because there are no big issues at stake on the economy, which is generally doing well," said Seymour Martin Lipset, one of the nation's leading political sociologists. "In fact, there's a boom mentality."

So the election campaign will be dominated by bruising arguments over personal character, "choice" and "values," specifically, over such issues as abortion, lesbian and gay rights and that unending duel between collective interest and individual freedom, gun control.

Basic ideological disagreements on economic policy have been pushed to the back-burner, said Lipset, "because conservative economic ideas have won the debate."

"The last big spurt of liberal economics was with President Johnson, the war on poverty and all that, and now the Democrats have become economic conservatives," Lipset added. "Even in Europe today all the socialist parties are for the market."

But this big conservative victory in economic policy isn't matched on the cultural front: "In fact, the popular culture over time has turned left." The popular culture's preference for individual choice is often disruptive to traditionalists' sense of right and wrong.

"This is terribly frustrating for American conservatives, who have to accept the fact that their children are having premarital sex, are living together outside of wedlock, getting abortions, or are gay," Lipset noted.

The presidential election promises to turn into a scorching ideological face-off because "Americans are a very moralistic people, but they're also obsessed with individual rights," noted Lipset, who teaches at George Mason University.

His more than two dozen books on the American public's political mindset and behavior have become staples of college political science courses. "Political Man," published in 1981, sold more than 400,000 copies.

A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and professor of both political science and sociology, Lipset sees all politics as being ultimately rooted in the popular culture.

He has made a highly regarded career of exploring America's conflicted political psyche -- its twin, contradictory impulses toward collective morality on the one hand and unfettered individual liberty and achievement on the other.

This "double-edged sword" is what makes America "exceptional" among Western societies. Observers throughout the centuries -- from Alexis de Tocqueville to Friedrich Engels and Antonio Gramsci -- have been struck by this "American exceptionalism," which Lipset sees as the source of the country's unique strengths and equally extraordinary weaknesses.

"America, for example, has the highest rate of membership in volunteer organizations and is the most productive country because of the culture's traditional dedication to work." But it also has the most number of people in prison.

"After all," Lipset once explained on C-SPAN, "the saying 'Nice guys finish last' is a very American statement. So is 'by hook or by crook."'

But if moralism reigns supreme, why is Vice President Al Gore far behind Bush in the polls, when he's more straight-laced than the latter, who has a touch of the devil-may-care good old boy in his persona?

"Gore is suffering from his linkage with Clinton," Lipset said. While the public supported the president's right to personal privacy during the impeachment hearings, it also found his behavior morally reprehensible.

In fact, the moralistic side of the "double-edged American sword" cut deeper than the libertarian one during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, argued Lipset.

"It's very easy to misread the polls during the impeachment. One third of the American people said 'Kick him out,' one third said 'Just censure him,' and one third said 'Leave him alone."'

What that means, Lipset said, is that two-thirds of the people "found him guilty and believed what he did was wrong."

It's just that some wanted capital punishment and others a lighter sentence. And even if Clinton has had a high job rating, people still put him in the dump when ranking him historically among all the presidents."

How a candidate conducts his personal affairs has become a burning issue among an electorate that is jealously protective of individual privacy. Ironically, the boringly upright public life of Al Gore is now burdened by his partner's private sins.

It's also ironic that Republican leaders Newt Gingrich and Robert Livingston ended up paying much more than Clinton, for touting moral standards they themselves couldn't live up to.

The same may happen to George W. Bush if he can't artfully dodge the double-edged blade that's now swinging in his direction. As things stand, he could be damned if he comes clean with past drug use, and damned if he doesn't.

Following Lipset's thesis, that's just how America works.