MISSOURI WATCH: BEST FAUSTIAN POLITICIANS MONEY CAN BUY

A lobbyist writing a book on politicians recently inquired how I would characterize Missouri politics today as compared to three score years ago. It was a question I had never asked myself, so the query required more than minimal reflection. To gain time to compare our state in the 1930s with the 1990s, I flippantly provided a reflex response that today's politicians were both smarter and more devious than those who traveled the road in the days of Guy Park, Lloyd Stark, Harry Truman and, yes, even non-candidate Tom Pendergast.

"What do you mean, smarter?" my friend wanted to know.

"First, I'll start with more devious," I answered. "I believe today's political players find themselves in an entirely different climate than the one 60 years ago. The computer age has provided a new freedom to shout and spout anything into the public domain, without restraint or any thought needed. To compete with all the opinions out there today, a candidate has to worry not only how he or she delivers the message, but how the words conform to the rest of the views entering the ether. Today's information tyranny demands a kind of regimentation that earlier politicians never even considered. They sought to tap into the mainstream of society, and lacking both focus groups and hundreds of conflicting views, they aimed their campaigns at the majority, which meant they didn't have to deceive the fence-sitters and the undecided. Today's politicians aim for the middle, while injecting enough duplicity to give them cover in the future, even the next speech."

My first response was long enough to give me time to reflect on the lobbyist's second question: "But how are politicians, the people whose very lives are tied to elections, different today than when you were young?"

"I'm not certain there really is a basic difference," I said, starting slowly in order to try to remember how politicians behaved in the early Roosevelt-Park era. "For one thing, they traveled light compared to modern versions ... no press aides, no policy wonks, no yes men following their heels. They handed out whatever campaign gimmicks were available, mostly cards and match books, and not even Senate candidates had professional schedulers to keep them on track." Thinking back I recalled the first time Judge (Jackson County Court) Harry Truman entered our family newspaper office. Since he was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, he could have been an auctioneer and I barely noticed him as I went about my custodial sweeping duties.

Thanks to today's flacks, you know today's politicians are coming to your office days, then hours, then minutes before they arrive. The Queen Mother is less conspicuous.

"A big difference," I continued, "is how candidates behave, then and now. Sixty years ago candidates wanted to learn all they could about public opinion, what the 'average' citizen was thinking, how voters might respond to this or that idea. Today, candidates rarely ask what average citizens are thinking. Thanks to polling companies that drag down munificent fees, candidates believe they know what John Q. Public thinks. I have found there's a corollary between a candidate's certainty of public opinion and the chance that he's dead wrong. And you can be reasonably certain that a politician who believes the public is clamoring for experienced candidates is one with a long history in government with a newcomer for an opponent."

"The money's different too, isn't it?" the questioner injected.

"Only the amount of it," I responded, probably too quickly and thoughtlessly. "Money corrupts, whether the amount is $25 when 50 cents bought dinner or $1,000 when it won't buy a good suit of clothes."

"Yeah, but big money ... " the lobbyist said before I interrupted him.

"But politics is really not about money, it's about power, and while the Beltway and Wall Street may argue differently, most political decisions are made on the basis of exercising power or keeping power, because whether the candidate is in a pre-inauguration or post-inauguration cycle, his or her real goal is not the accumulation of wealth but the power to decide, which is really the nature of all governance."

"After all," I added, "we didn't revolt against George III because he was the wealthiest man in the world but because he had the temerity to tell us how we were going to live in the New World. Bill Clinton had far more money in his campaign account than Newt Gingrich, but which one transformed the nation's much criticized welfare system?"

"You're not saying money isn't corrupting today's political climate, are you?" the lobbyist asked in an obviously disbelieving tone of voice.

"Money has always been a factor in American politics since the days of Washington and Jefferson," I answered. "But we elected both of these founding fathers not because they were reasonably well fixed, by late 18th century standards, but because they espoused great visions for a young, struggling nation. Voters chose Bill Clinton, not because he had more money than George Bush, which he didn't, and not because he spent more money in the campaign, which he didn't, but because he seemed to have a clearer view of the nation most voters wanted."

"Then you're saying issues are more important in today's politics than the amount of money a candidate raises?"

"Only when the candidate has enough money to promote his ideas," I responded.

By this time the interviewer was darkly muttering something under his breath as he hung up the phone.

Jack Stapleton of Kennett is editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.