BY THE WAY: ELECTIONS AND DEAD RACEHORSES

With November 8 approaching, there will be plenty of political messages for voters to consume in the next few days. Or is it messages that consume voters?

Anyway, if you don't know about Hancock II, you probably don't know that O.J. Simpson is no longer doing Hertz commercials or that Cheryl Crow just wants to have fun.

Come to think of it, Hancock II has been getting more ink and air play than O.J. lately. Nobody, however, is getting more air play than Cheryl Crow.

Back to Hancock II. It's an important issue that deserves to be written and talked about up until the time the polls open.

What Hancock II seems to boil down to is whether or not you trust the people you elected. If you trust them, it's no big deal that they are spending money on projects you never get to vote on.

If you don't trust them, you will want to have a say about every project that carries a price tag beyond the average personal income, which is now 5.64 percent. Perhaps this begs the question: Why did you elect them in the first place if you don't trust them with your hard-earned money?

Sikeston attorney Jim McClellan pointed out that the scare tactics used by opponents of Hancock II have people fearing for their jobs. McClellan said the scare tactics can be traced to bad information.

McClellan said teachers aren't going to lose their jobs automatically if Hancock II passes. Hancock II wouldn't go into effect until fiscal year 1996. And just because the cost of projects would exceed the personal income, it doesn't mean something is automatically taken away. Voters will decide that.

McClellan pointed out that prisoners shouldn't hope that Hancock II passes. It's not going to set them free.

But there would be some cuts. And that has a lot of people nervous. No one wants to lose what they feel they've already worked hard to get.

Regardless of which way you look at Hancock II, it appears to be an important enough issue to bring out more voters than we've seen in a long time.

There are other issues, other commercials out there. I like the commercials for judges. It seems a lot of them are proud of the fact that they are tough on crime. Can you imagine any judge talking about being soft on crime?

There hasn't really been much lately about Amendment 6. I think that has something to do with gambling casinos.

Actually, the gambling issue hasn't really been that exciting for me. The first time I ever bet on a horse at a race track, the poor steed died. I don't mean it ran out of gas during the race. It actually died when the chute failed to open at the start of the race.

I felt sorry for the poor animal as it was being dragged off the track. There weren't too many people around me showing the same kind of compassion, however. Most of the people near me shouted obscenities and threw their programs at the television screen as the race was being replayed.

I took the freak accident as a sign I'm probably one of those people who was not born with a great deal of luck.

I'm better off going with a sure thing. Like my vote on a hot issue during election time.

~Bill Heitland is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.