RIGHT OF CENTER: TOP ENTERTAINMENT: THE CAMPAIGN

Forget the O.J. trial. Forget the return of professional baseball. The best entertainment bet for the next several months will be the 1996 presidential campaign.

I realize these campaigns typically are the stuff that send insomniacs into dreamland. But this next election will be different. This week, "B-1" Bob Dornan, the fiery congressman from California, joined the swelling GOP presidential field, and the bomb-lobbing ensued.

Dornan reproached other candidates for ignoring social issues, saying that "moral decay is rotting the heart and soul of our country," and that America is having a "cultural meltdown." Dornan's the guy who got in hot water for his attacks on the character of President Bill Clinton, accusing him in a recent House speech of giving aid and comfort to the enemy during the Vietnam War.

But at a press conference announcing his candidacy, Dornan was unapologetic, saying Clinton isn't "worthy to be commander-in-chief" and telling reporters he expects to "go down swinging. I love the arena. I love the dust." An Air Force pilot toward the end of the Korean War, Dornan's nickname "B-1" comes less from his service record than from his take-no-prisoners brand of political conservatism.

His hot rhetoric will win him admirers but isn't likely to put him at the top of the list among presidential aspirants.

Dornan isn't likely to emerge at the head of the pack when Republicans pick a presidential candidate in 1996. But he can keep other candiates who are wooing conservative support honest. It's the same role being played by candidate Alan Keyes, a black talk show host and former Reagan administration official.

Keyes already has criticized candidate Pat Buchanan for not focusing his campaign on social issues. He said he would make abortion the No. 1 issue of his campaign. "Abortion is morally wrong," Keyes said when he announced his candidacy. "It epitomizes the central issues of our time."

Keyes said society's most serious ills -- crime, drug abuse, failing schools, welfare -- can be traced to "the disintegration of the institution of the two-parent family. This can't be a campaign about winning power in government," he said. "It is a campaign about restoring responsibility. I think we ought to go over to Singapore and learn how to administer a civil beating" to fathers who don't support their children, he said.

With Buchanan, a foot soldier on the front lines of our nation's culture war, coming under fire, imagine the uneasiness among GOP moderates in the race like Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander.

Another moderate, Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, also announced this week he will make a third try at the White House. But Dole didn't sound like a moderate in his kickoff campaign tour, advocating school prayer and accusing Hollywood of poisoning young minds. Dornan conceded Dole will be unbeatable if he sticks to the values approach.

Also from the GOP, Sen. Dick Lugar of Indiana is scheduled to announce his candidacy next week, and California Gov. Pete Wilson is expected to announce his in late spring.

Thanks to Dornan and Keyes, the growing field of presidential contenders may be forced, kicking and screaming, to focus on morality and social issues instead of solely on economics. As "B-1" Bob told reporters earlier this week, the national debt is horrendous, but "it's not causing teen-age suicide. It's not causing the contraction of fatal venereal diseases like AIDS."

Unfortunately for conservatives hoping to build on last fall's historic GOP sweep, the Republican nominated in 1996 likely will be much more moderate than the animated and entertaining Dornan and Keyes. The good news is that any one of the growing number of GOP presidential hopefuls would be a vast improvement over who currently resides in the White House.

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian. He will take his conservative commentary to the airwaves next week as host of "Community Conversation with Jay Eastlick" on KAPE-AM 1550 radio. The local call-in talk show will air from 9 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday on the Cape Girardeau radio station.