(FORTUNE Magazine) – If nothing else, the White House sex scandal has revealed the essential Clinton problem--not his personal conduct, which is still as much a matter of conjecture as fact; not his trustworthiness, which is still in the balance; not his resiliency, which is once again being tested, but his political profile. In fact--despite recent high approval ratings, which astonished the so-called experts by spiking in the days after the crisis--not since Richard Nixon has a president inspired such a loyal cadre of opponents, many of whom loathe Clinton with a passion that is seldom seen, even in American politics.

So when the biggest sex scandal in the history of the presidency broke, Bill Clinton faced a country and a capital divided between stalwart enemies convinced of his guilt and sometime supporters ambivalent about his character. In good times that was good enough; he appealed to the self-interests of business groups, suburbanites, old people, and women, and was able to weave a series of ratchety coalitions and survive. But in bad times, when it was his self-interest at stake, there was nothing to fall back on. Americans think of themselves as Catholics or union members or Asian Americans or Deadheads or Red Sox fans. But despite his high approval ratings, there aren't many souls in Washington or anyplace else who think of themselves as Bill Clinton Democrats.

For years, Clinton has survived by his wits, discovering openings no one else can see, building majorities no one else can imagine, finding escape routes no one else can visualize. Like no other politician in America, he lives off the land, collecting people's hopes (racial harmony) and fears (expensive health-care bills) and making them part of his political persona.

He does more than feel people's pain; he makes it his own. In 1992, his voice was a siren song to the unemployed and those worried about job security. In 1996, it was the siren song to the comfortable and those worried about their 401(k) accounts. He's swapped voting groups more often than George Steinbrenner has swapped managers.

But his enemies are always with him. Carter's opponents dismissed him as feckless, Reagan's wrote him off as a slightly dozy former movie star, Bush's ridiculed him as an elitist who was born on third base and thought he had hit a triple. Clinton's enemies regard him as evil incarnate. The people who opposed Carter and Reagan didn't dislike them as people, they disliked what they stood for. The people who oppose Clinton don't dislike what he stands for, they dislike him.

They distrust his smoothness; they resent the easy way he bobs and weaves through moral questions; and they dislike his wife. And many of them are offended by how he appropriates the language and symbols of religion. As a boy, the president sent part of his allowance to the Billy Graham Crusade. As a young man, he took comfort in the lilting strains of gospel music. As a student, he pored over C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. As governor, he'd sit in his car listening to a Pentecostal singer from Louisiana, Mickey Mangun, singing "In the Presence of Jehovah." And as president, he has attended Rosh Hashannah services, lingering in the rabbi's study to discuss the meaning of the story of the binding of Isaac.

Clinton's spirituality deeply troubles many religious Americans. "It's like taking advantage of God's grace by constantly repenting and then going back to the same old life," says Michael Cromartie, director of the evangelical-studies project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. The more Clinton attends church, or quotes the Bible, or borrows rhetorical rhythms from liturgy or black spirituals, the angrier his naysayers get.

And yet, it's not fervent enemies he has to worry about in the weeks and months ahead. It's the profound lack of loyal friends.

DAVID SHRIBMAN is the Washington bureau chief of the Boston Globe and a Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter.