MISSOURI COMMENTARY: SAM NUNN: LAST OF OLD SOUTH

The ups and downs, twists and turns of national politics are front-page items in Britain and the United States.

In Britain, a pure-bred Tory MP jumps ship to the Labor Party. Alan Howarth, not a household name but a certified Tory nonetheless, announced he was leaving the Conservative Party because of its decidedly rightward drift on such matters as integration with Europe, immigration, welfare and crime. He picked the even of the Conservative Party's annual conference to announce his defection to as to inflict as much political pain as he could. He was the first MP ship-jumper in 60 years.

In the United States, ship-jumping has recently become common place. Since the 1994 election, two Democratic senators and three Democratic House members have gone overboard to perceived greener pastures.

Then Sen. Sam Nunn, a purebred Southerner, retired because, in party, the Democratic Party was too liberal for his and his Georgia constituents' tastes.

There is absolutely nothing new about a split in the Democratic Party between the conservative southern wing and the rest of the party. The split existed in the 19th century. It widened beginning in FDR's tenure and continued through the Truman, Kennedy and Johnson years. The great fights over civil rights and the expanding role of the federal government pitted the South against the other segments of the party.

What is new is that the nature of competitive politics in the south has changed radically in recent years. When the south was one-party Democratic, southern senators and representatives benefited form their Democratic affiliation because of their seniority within a philosophically divided but majority party in Congress. Democratic statue is no longer beneficial when these same senators and representatives were being challenged on the right by a reinvigorated and now, at the congressional level, majority Republican Party.

A one-party Democratic south made a marriage of convenience workable as between the two wings of the party. Homegrown, local competition changed that.

The south is now trending politically towards a small liberal Democratic Party concentrated around black voters and a conservative Republican Party geared to the white electorate. As this trend continues, the Senate seats of the Old South -- now split 12 Republican and 10 Democrats -- will move further into the Republican column. Professor Merle Black of Emory University states, "Nunn will be one of the last of the great Southern Democratic conservatives we'll ever see."

Nunn wasn't the first Democratic senator to bail out. David Pryor, D-Ark., Howell Heflin, D-Ala., J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., -- all from the South -- beat Nunn to the exit door. Other Democrats around the country joined the stampeded: Bill Bradley, D-N.J., Jim Exon, D-Neb., Paul Simon, D-Ill., Claiborne Pell, D-R.I. The Democratic candidates will be hard-pressed in all these "open" races. In 1994, the Democrats lost all of the "open" Senate seats.

Each of the departing senators expressed his reasons for departing in different styles. Bradley was the hardest in criticizing the ineptitude of the existing political system. Nunn was the Cautious Southerner escalating his voice a bit to deplore the fact that "American politics has been corrupted by money, political polls, and attack ads on television." All the other departing senators took a shot at the excesses of campaign spending. It seems to be the one consistent link in driving people out of politics.

What does it all mean? In the larger sense, the departure of so many Democratic senators ensures a Republican-controlled Senate for, at the very least, the rest of this century. Whatever the results of the presidential election, the Senate will be comfortably conservative -- simply as that.

The Democratic Party will ultimately recast itself as the Labor Party as done in Britain. Conservatives has held power in Britain for 16 years and, if the polls are correct, this will end in 1997. The Labor Party disgorged its old encrustations and seems to have convinced the British voters that it is something fresh, new and exciting. The Democratic Party needs a similar overhaul -- one not yet readily apparent.

Oh yes, a concluding word about campaign spending, the consistent link in driving people from public office. Senators on the way our decry it. Senators staying in see fit to suffer it. Incumbents, by and large, are the huge beneficiaries of this odious money system. It has the smell of permanency, like a corpse left out to rot.

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