POLITICS OF PRODUCE, VENERATION OF VEGETABLES

Every dog, it is said, has its day. So, too, do vegetables.

Broccoli took a nasty lick a few years back when then-President Bush, exercising executive prerogative, held forth on his aversion for the vegetable.

He was made to eat broccoli as a child, Mr. Bush pointed out. As president, he would not be made to do what he didn't want to do and eat what he didn't want to eat. He would not, he emphasized, eat broccoli. He would not serve it at White House dinners. He banished it from Air Force One.

It was meant in good humor. It was meant to be President Bush saying to the nation he was boss and would not be pushed around by those wanting to improve his diet (though even red meat fried in lard might have been an improvement over his fondness for pork rinds dipped in Tabasco sauce).

What President Bush failed to grasp at that early stage of his presidency was that any affront dispersed by the nation's leader, even that delivered in the best of humor, is taken seriously in some quarters.

Broccoli, it would have done the president good to recognize, is not free-growing produce but an industry, one with workers who earn their paychecks by its harvest, one with guarantors that see to its prosperity and one with lobbyists that safeguard its good name.

In other words, some people had a fit about the president's view on veggies.

In keeping with the tenor of the times, groups of vegetarians might have registered themselves in the national consciousness as victims of insensitive thought and oppression consistent with the Reagan-Bush era. Or the payback might have been more subtle.

Given the intricate nature of modern political polling, it would not be unthinkable that someone somewhere knows the demographic breakdown on the political allegiances of broccoli growers.

I've never seen such numbers. It bears noting, however, that President Bush lost a second term in office to a candidate who earned just 42 percent of the popular vote and made no disparaging remarks about broccoli. Now, there may not have been a political action committee called Produce Farmers for Clinton, but who knows what shape revenge can take.

For most Americans, President Bush's comments about broccoli proved neither validation nor dissuasion from their own tastes. For one, I like broccoli, and this trait has not influenced my political beliefs.

Influencing my health, however, is another matter.

A couple of weeks ago, Johns Hopkins medical researchers reported that broccoli contains substances that can naturally block the formation of tumors through the promotion of anti-cancer enzymes.

The scientists claimed that sulforaphane and its chemical kin prompt the body's own defenses against cancer. The crucial compounds can also be found in cauliflower, brussels sprouts and cabbage. The most recent studies reinforce earlier evidence showing that people who regularly eat these types of vegetables get cancer at a lesser rate than other people.

Thus, broccoli makes a comeback in the eyes of a nation, lifting its lot from banishment at the White House to symbol of preventive health care. One president insisted the vegetable recalled times of forced consumption. Now, it smacks of New Age doctrine.

Broccoli growers couldn't be happier. Unexpectedly, from an eastern laboratory comes a report that supplies their cash crop with a sexy and important image. It was different when Barbara Bush pointed a scolding finger at her stubborn and insisted greens were good for him. Now, the stakes are bigger. Now, broccoli is a lifesaver.

Were there such a thing as broccoli futures, any first lady could have made a killing the day the report came out.

In fact, President Clinton, conversant with the nature of the broccoli vote in 1992, might adopt the scientific findings as his own. Presidents have absconded with worse. If Mr. Clinton is willing to take credit for an improved economy before his recovery package even goes into effect, why shouldn't he claim a cancer defense mechanism that was reported on his watch.

It's the politics of produce, the veneration of vegetables. Soon, the chief executive will be skipping fries with his Big Macs and gulping down broccoli sprigs instead.

No constituency is too small when you have the liabilities of Mr. Clinton. Bringing home the broccoli vote, no matter the pretenses, would be a good day's work for a president whose nutritional habits are suspect and re-election chances are tenuous.

Ken Newton is editor of the Southeast Missourian.