DAYS DWINDLE TO ONE; POLITICAL SEASON WAS PAINFULLY LONG

The days dwindle down to a precious one. Campaign `92 has been a season of political evanescence. A once unbeatable incumbent with an 80% favorable rating struggles to get approval of 40% of the electorate. The press-blessed challengers stumbles from front-runner and rises from the near dead as the "Come Back Kid." A quixotic outsider first captivates, then quits and then returns only to derail his second climb in the polls with his weird conspiratorial ramblings.

The season of presidential politics is a painfully long one in America. What other nations do in 45 days, we do in 450. American politics is not a conscientious effort of deliberation to select the best and the brightest. It is a blood sport where victory goes to the one most able to traverse the minefield with mind and body nearly intact. We select our president the way college fraternities used to select their new members. If you can survive an exhausting regimen of willful humiliation and degradation, you have somehow proven your capacity to lead this nation to a brighter tomorrow.

As the season started well over a year ago, it really wasn't going to be much of a contest at all. George Bush's triumphant role in the Persian Gulf victory scared off the Democratic A Team. It was supposedly a GOP rout in the making and, with redistricting and virulent anti-incumbent dissatisfaction, there would be accompanying Republican gains of great magnitude in the Congress.

Bill Clinton was the captain of the B Team. As the governor of an insignificant state, he wasn't a national personality, but he was bright and articulate and had thought more about what the next president should do than the rest of the field. The press and the old pros thought he was the best in the second division. Captain B TEam would take on Bush of the Gulf. Then all hell began to break loose.

Bush found that moments of heroism can be eclipsed by months of economic stagnation. Bush could pull together a coalition to whip a common enemy abroad, but couldn't do the same at home. His approval rating fell and a rapacious opportunist like Pat Buchanan gleefully saw a chance to kick him further down the ladder.

Meanwhile, the extramarital and draft avoidance charges knocked Bill Clinton off his perch. He narrowly escaped in New Hampshire by declaring himself an upset winner in finishing second. He showed a survival instinct. He wasn't a knockout puncher, but somehow you got the sense he could stay on his feet for 15 rounds.

Enter Perot. Full of fresh simplistics, he skyrocketed in the polls. When softball Larry King interviews became hardball Wall Street Journal inquiries, Perot quit because he didn't want to be "disruptive." Exit Perot. Reenter Perot. Full of another batch of fresh simplistics, he shone in the debates. Up he went in the polls only to move to "60 Minutes" and shoot himself in his ever-twitching foot with all of his conspiracies.

And now the days dwindle down to a precious one. Our heads ache. We have heard all there is to hear. We have watched all of the TV spots that we can absorb. Perhaps, along the way, we have learned a bit about ourselves and our nation. If this presidential season's trial by ordeal has prepared us for the heavy burdens our nations will have to face in the years ahead, then the pain has been worth the maturational gain.