MISSOURI COMMENTARY: BEST SPEECH WASN'T CENSORED

It's never too early to discuss presidential politics -- even the politics of the year 2000. Fast-moving events within a 72 hour period may have determined the course of the Republican presidential race four years from now.

Bob Dole debated whether to seek someone he liked but offered nothing to the ticket, or pick someone he didn't like but who could add something to the ticket. He wisely picked the latter, Jack Kemp, a person of unquenchable optimism and every lasting zest.

Dole rescued Kemp from political oblivion. At age 61, Kemp said of himself that he was "an elder statesman" with "no future in electoral politics." He didn't seek the 1996 presidential nomination because he didn't have the requisite fire in his belly to spend a couple of years hustling money throughout the nation. Give Dole credit for a smooth move.

General Colin Powell gave one of the great political convention speeches of the television era. To his credit, he refused to have his speech sanitized by the official Republican thought-control team. It wasn't only what he said or how he said it. It was General Colin Powell who was saying it.

Powell is a contemporary folk hero. He has a commanding presence. Like E.F. Hutton, when he talks, people listen. You could put virtually the same words in Senator Phil Gram's mouth and he would put the nation into a deep slumber.

Every number of Congress of both parties knows in his or her heart of hearts that the exploding growth of entitlement promises -- especially Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- has to be curtailed.

Every member of Congress is both political parties knows that there will never be a balanced budget without curbing the growth of these programs.

If Dole is elected, Powell is a cinch to be the next Secretary of State in the presumably one-term Dole presidency. If Dole loses, then Powell and Kemp bide their time for the run in 2000 -- presuming by that time that Powell has the requisite political fire in his belly.

Kemp has been brought back from the dead. Even if the ticket goes down, he will be credited with putting some vitality into the effort. Franklin Roosevelt, Ed Muskie and Walter Mondale grew in national stature as losing candidates for Vice President.

Colin Powell has already made his mark with a speech to remember. This fall he will not have to run around the country giving endless campaign speeches. A decorous address here and there before prestigious audiences will suffice.

As the Republicans departed San Diego, some delegates may have wondered: Wouldn't it have been a bit easier to win with a Powell-Kemp ticket?

Think of it: A black man, the most respected political personality of our age, being applauded by an audience half of which was to the right of Attila the Hun, as Powell was at the 1996 Republican Convention.

A black man of immigrant Jamaicans capturing the hearts and minds of the political party that declares war on immigrants in its platform.

An African American reminding the Republicans that they are the party of Lincoln when it is not P.C. to mention Lincoln anymore at Republican national conventions.

Powell will be the only speaker at the Republican convention to say anything remotely like: "And where discrimination still exists or where the scars of past discrimination still contaminate and disfigure the present, we must not close our eyes to it, declare a level playing field, and hope it will go away by itself. It did not in the past. It will not in the future." He went on to say that, for these reasons, he was for affirmative action.

Think of it: The leading public figure of this time telling the Republican Convention that "corporate welfare and welfare for the wealthy must be first in line for elimination."

Perhaps most politically courageous of all, Powell said "The entitlement state must be reformed, not just the welfare state." No speaker at either the Democratic or Republican convention, other than Powell, will have the courage to mention the need to reform our entitlement programs.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.