MISSOURI WATCH: CONVENTIONS: OLYMPICS FOR POLITICIANS

Every quadrennium, two of the responsibilities of good Americans is to cheer for the home team at the Olympics and watch the political conventions of America's two principal political parties. I know that's asking a lot of patriotism, but the least we can do is feign interest, even if we would rather be reading "War and Peace" or the "Components of Qualitative Psychoanalysis." You can't have fun all the time.

Although they are constituted differently, the Olympics and the Conventions bear passing resemblance. Remember that opening day of the Olympics when all the athletes from all over the world enter the stadium, bearing their national flags? Well, think of that as the principal activity of the hundreds of Americans who arrive at a Convention, bearing the bona fide delegate credentials of their states.

Olympic athletes and Convention delegates also bear an eerie similarity. Preparing for an athletic event is not unlike preparing for the right be announce your state's 18 votes for "The Next President of the United States." Participating in either event requires long hours of training, discipline and endurance. Those who are good at their avocation get up early every morning and hone their skills by repeated exercise, whether in pursuit of the decathlon or a place on the platform committee.

And the key to success, whether one is going to Atlanta or San Diego or Chicago is endurance. It is impossible to win acclaim as a synchronized swimmer or as vice chairman of a state delegation without the ability to concentrate, endure and overcome the perfectly human instinct to grow weary and give up. If you are unable to picture yourself receiving a gold medal or introducing the gubernatorial candidate of your state, then neither an athlete nor politician will you make.

Like the Olympics, Conventions are exhilarating places to be. Particularly if it is your first Olympics or your first Convention. I remember the first one I attended, some 36 years ago, when I was serving both as a journalist and as a volunteer worker for the Symington-for-president organization. I was so energized my friends didn't even know me, and the result, outside of a few stories filed for the papers back home, was total failure. I had little training on how to be a political worker, which I was to learn required as much discipline as a gymnast on the uneven bars.

By the time the convention was over, the candidate I was supporting had finished third in a three-man race, I had made a fool of myself by insulting the winning candidate's campaign manager, had become disillusioned with the politician I had expended so much energy for, had predicted electoral defeat for the winner which was to prove incorrect and had worked myself into a state of exhaustion that required a month to recover from. My one accomplishment -- securing the autograph of Frank Sinatra -- was done for my kids, who had not the slightest interest in it. I was like the pathetic athlete who is stricken Olympics with a hamstring during the preliminaries.

Later Conventions were somewhat easier. Or at least I thought I knew what to expect until I attended the ill-fated Democratic Convention of 1968 in Chicago. That was the closest thing to a civilian World War II I had encountered since the real thing. I would defy even America's Dream Team to get through that convention without serious loss, injury or humiliation.

During one part of the convention I found myself in a Chicago park that was being tear-gassed by the police, rousted by National Guardsmen and populated by a group of drug-crazed Hippies who didn't care what happened because they were stoned out of their minds. They used razor blades, which ruined the best suit I ever owned, like a relay runner carries a baton. A drunken St. Louis politician got a bunch of us reporters kicked out of a restaurant, a politician talked me into giving him $50 to bet the horses at a nearby race track and returned to report that everyone had won but me, and Mayor Richard Daley called me disgusting when I didn't stand up and applaud when Lyndon Johnson's son-in-law was speaking at a caucus breakfast.

So maybe you found the Olympics a little boring after two weeks and you resolved not to watch the Conventions because nothing ever goes on. Well, maybe you're right, but where else are you going to see someone applying a choke-hold on an opponent until he turns red? I'm talking about the Conventions, not the Olympics.

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