DEMOCRACY FULFILLED THROUGH STAMP IDEA THAT'S HARD TO LICK

What's the king doing up for election? Is this any way to treat royalty?

Elections are for folks like George Bush and Bill Clinton, who get a lot of neat cars and bombs if voters favor them but whose capacity to move people in a profound way is related more to the process they've become involved with than personal appeal.

Will New Zealanders remember that George Bush was president of the United States three decades from now? Some of them will ... those with astounding memory, high-level government involvement or who have no life.

The guest register at Graceland has signatures of people visiting from New Zealand, probably more than you'd think. More than likely, there's a chapter of the Elvis Presley Fan Club in Auckland.

No such club will be formed there for Bill Clinton, regardless of how he fares this year. He may prove presidential, but, short of easing duties on kiwi fruit imports, the people of New Zealand probably wouldn't feel a lasting impact of his administration.

Elvis, on the other hand, touched lives worldwide. And even though he died in 1977, the king of rock 'n' roll still gets company at his Memphis mansion, like pilgrims to Mecca. They want to see how the man lived.

Who cares how inconsequential presidents lived? Does the house of James Polk draw thousands of people each year? Does it get a lot of guests from abroad?

Thus, the election of substance this year has nothing to do with primaries, caucuses or conventions. Our sights should be aimed higher, at balloting on more imperial matters. The king is being federally and officially remembered, and your vote counts.

Beginning this week and continuing until April 24, Americans can help choose between two postage stamps that will commemorate Elvis. It is part of a Legends of American Music series of stamps.

Millions of votes are expected. Apathy won't be a problem. It is being handled Chicago-style: vote early and often.

The reason for the election stems from the Presley mystique. His fans have a vision they want to see memorialized on millions of letters. When these devotees lick, they want to make sure their saliva is not squandered on some half-baked observance.

Nominees are a stamp that shows Elvis in his teen-age idol phase, a slim sex symbol slithering up to an oversized microphone, and a stamp that depicts the singer later in life, as a heftier Las Vegas showroom performer.

Postal officials tactfully describe the stamp choices as "the younger Elvis" and "the more mature Elvis."

Less discerning sorts call them "the greasy Elvis" and "the whale Elvis."

One might understand the caution with which the king's fans would approach this decision. They've seen enough bad portraits of Elvis on velvet to be cynical.

But both of these stamp entrants were developed by reputable artists, two men with confidence enough in their work to have it displayed in a format of roughly one square inch.

The real problem in facilitating this endeavor was philosophical, whether Elvis should be portrayed as a sneering iconoclast with scandalous pelvic movements, or as a man approaching middle age with mutton-chop sideburns and an obvious fondness for Twinkies. A vote was the only way to avoid hard feelings on the matter.

Were I to misjudge our current presidential race, and were it to one day be celebrated on a stamp, would the same liberal rules of transformation be allowed?

Would postal patrons one day get to choose among stamp designs that feature either the "presidential Bill Clinton" or the "philandering Bill Clinton" or the "draft-dodging Bill Clinton?"

Jerry Brown would be drawn in his "Moonbeam" phase and his ~"Flat Tax" phase ... the public would be allowed to decide how he is remembered.

That might be the beauty of stamp design in these complicated times ... revisionism is made easy.