MISSOURI COMMENTARY: THEODORE ROOSEVELT, WHERE ARE YOU?

History teaches that third-party presidential candidacies evolve form a mixture of principle, peevishness, personality, pride and protest. Depending on the specific election and the individual candidate involved, the mixture of these five "p's" can change.

The greatest third-party candidate of this century was Theodore Roosevelt. He was a hugely successful and popular president who had served for 7 1/2 years. He was deterred from seeking another presidential term in 1908 by the looming specter of the unwritten custom that a president should not serve more than eight years in office. When he left office at age 50, it was a safe bet that the nation would hear more form energetic, restless Theodore Roosevelt.

The progressive Roosevelt had picked the massive William Howard Taft to succeed him. TR personally admired Taft, but later became disenchanted with his successor's conservative tendencies. It was almost inevitable when Roosevelt broke with Taft and challenged him for the 1912 Republican presidential nomination. Roosevelt won most of the few primaries that were held, but the conservatives had a lock on the rest of the convention delegates and Taft was renominated.

Roosevelt exemplified four of the five "p"s. He was peeved that his own party wouldn't nominate him since he was by far the most popular Republican in the country. His limitless pride was wounded. Great principle was involved in the distinct variance in views of the progressive Roosevelt and the conservative Taft. The personality of Theodore Roosevelt was such that he could not take a back seat to another public figure. Only the protest factor was missing in the 1912 election. Roosevelt formed his own Progressive Party.

With the Republican schism, Woodrow Wilson was easily elected in 1912. The popular vote percentages and electoral vote were: Wilson 42 percent (435 electoral); Roosevelt 35 percent (88 electoral) and Taft 23 percent (8 electoral).

There never was and probably never will be a third-party candidate of such commanding presidential presence as Theodore Roosevelt. So many years afterwards, it is difficult today to imagine the captivating popularity of Theodore Roosevelt.

Ross Perot's significant showing (20 million votes, 19 percent - no electoral votes) pales in comparison to Roosevelt's. However, Perot had the one "p" ingredient that Roosevelt missed: protest. Most of Perot's voters never believes he would become president. Many felt he didn't have the temperament to be president. Nevertheless, they cast their votes in protest against the regular party nominees.

If Theodore Roosevelt couldn't win as a third-party candidate, how can anyone win? The difference is found in the word protest. Remember that word because the protest quotient in America is higher today than ever before. Many -- maybe most -- Americans feel their quality of life slipping away. Things aren't going to be as good for their children and grandchildren. The country is politically stagnant. Because of today's protest quotient, third-party presidential campaigns, doomed to fail in years past, are not inherently quixotic in 1996 -- if you present the right ticket.

There is no Theodore Roosevelt around. Ross Perot is even less presidential today than he was in 1992. There is one ticket that could make an appeal of freshness in contrast to beleaguered Bill Clinton and aging Bob Dole: Colin Powell and Bill Bradley or Bill Bradley and Colin Powell. The first question, of course, is who would head such a ticket. There is no such thing as a co-presidency. Someone sits in the driver's seat and someone sits in the back seat. Two of the "p"s, personality and pride, would enter into this decision.

Powell is an enormously respected public figure. He does not have the hero status of Dwight Eisenhower, but he has more high level Washington experience than Eisenhower did before 1952. Powell has a better sense of politics than Eisenhower. He is presidential in stature -- even Clinton and Dole would so agree.

Bradley, disenchanted with the moribund Washington system, is an untarnished, still fresh insider. Yes, he's been in the Senate for 18 years, but he remained sufficiently apart from the internal machinations of Washington as not to lose his unsullied appeal. In 1996 terms, he is an outsider who knows how the inside works and would know where to begin the overhaul.

The political climate in 1996 is more conducive to a third-party movement than was the case in 1912. Protest abounds. Playing the protest card to the full, a modern-day Theodore Roosevelt would win in 1996. Do Powell and Bradley linked together constitute a winning Theodore Roosevelt?

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri and a columnist for the Pulitzer Publishing Co.