MISSOURI COMMENTARY: PRESIDENT CLINTON IS THE GREAT PERSUADER

It may go down in history as the O.J. State of the Union. The juxtaposition of the President of the United States about to make an important address on the East Coast and the Simpson verdict being announced on the West Coast put the television networks in a quandary. Choosing between what the nation needs to know and what the nation wants to know annoys the television moguls. Almost always "wants to" prevails over "needs to."

While the networks waited anxiously for the verdict, President Bill Clinton arose from the oratorical slumber of his limpid second inaugural and delivered a first-rate State of the Union address. Clinton, like most speakers, does better with immediate and intimate audience contact. Inaugurals do not provide that; a State of the Union message does.

Clinton's first priority was to balance the budget and "finish the job of welfare reform." He will get enthusiastic Republican support on the former; no such support on the latter. Republicans consider that welfare reform was finished last year. In reality, it has just begun. It's one thing to declare war and impose limits on welfare dependency. It's another to train people for sustainable jobs, provide day care and make certain that there is transportation from the ghetto, where the jobs aren't, to the suburbs, where the jobs are.

Clinton did throw in a line about a need for bipartisan support "to preserve Social Security and reform Medicare so that these fundamental programs will be as strong for our children as they are for our parents."

That signals that the president is fully aware that both of these programs require significant attention. He is not buying into the fantasy that all is well. Democrats and Republicans alike do not want to deal with Social Security -- not now, not in the next century. Medicare for now and Social Security for later will be the most significant tests of bipartisanship.

Next came campaign-spending reform. After participating in one of the most tarnished presidential campaigns in American history, Clinton felt he had to dance lightly lest he engage in too much self-condemnation.

Fewer than 100 words were all that he allotted to democracy's great embarrassment: how candidates sell themselves on the auction block in political campaigns. Clinton couldn't spell out a long list of specific sins needing remediation since all of them were committed by both parties last year. No 10-point program for campaign finance reform spelled out in detail, as he did elsewhere in the speech with respect to education.

It will take discernible public outrage to force Congress to reform the current obscene mess that tends to favor incumbents. Self-preservation is an inescapable impediment of politics. The ugliness we know is more attractive than the presumed beauty of what we can only contemplate. Despite the horrors of the 1996 election, the public is still ho-hum about the campaign finance issue. Reform awaits an even higher degree of political indecency to inflame the somnolent public.

Finally, the president devoted a great deal of attention to education, augmenting his text with introductions of guests in the gallery. Ronald Reagan crafted gallery introductions into an art form. Clinton is today's practitioner.

There is no safer a position than being in favor of better education. In truth, the federal government does not have all that much to do with public education at the elementary and secondary levels.

In a typical American school district, the federal government puts in as little as a .37 percent (Ladue), and no more than 10 percent (St. Louis and Kansas City) of the budget. The state may contribute anywhere form 25 percent to 45 percent. The remainder comes form local funds. So whatever the federal government does financially, it does at the margins. Standards, teacher qualifications, reading and writing skills, character education and computerization are matters that the president can talk about, but the local school district is where the decisions are made.

The president can sprinkle around some award money, some construction money, some tax credits and deductions, but the direct impact of it all is a bit illusory.

To be sure, the president can lead. He's the only figure who can attract national attention. His influence, as in many areas, derives form being the great persuader, not so much being the great benefactor. It was in the persuader role that Clinton addressed the nation last week.

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