MISSOURI WATCH: CURSING ALL THE WAY TO THE POLING PLACES

Although each quadrennium produces its own unusual features, the Election of 1996 has been unique in a number of exceptional ways, few of them, I am sorry to say, of any great benefit to the public at large. Although it is John Q. Taxpayer who bears the multimillion-dollar cost of federal and state election, both of these plebiscites have increasingly become the tools of the individual candidates and the two major political parties.

What our Founding Fathers envisioned as a chance for voters to hear enlightened debates and thoughtful discussions, amidst periods of serious reflection, has instead become a time of partisan rancor, expedient character assassination and double-speak that borders on pure, unintelligible gibberish.

Seldom, if ever, has an incumbent president so fully embraced the agenda of the opposition as Bill Clinton has in this election. Listening closely to the president's rhetoric, one often has difficulty in disassociating Mr. Clinton from the causes espoused in Speaker Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America." From the presidential declaration that "the era of big government is over" to the near-complete acceptance of the GOP welfare reform measure, the Democratic incumbent has sought to defuse an anticipated GOP attack on his liberalism.

While the president has been applauded for his sage political strategy and his willingness to be "open" to Republican innovations, he has nonetheless made himself appear as a man for all seasons for all the wrong reasons. If he truly finds the Gingrich game plan for remodeling the federal government so logical and applaudable, then his conversion has been miraculously rapid. Even those who accept him at his campaign word should wonder if Clinton's new-found philosophy will reemerge at any point in a second term.

The Republican nominee, former senator Bob Dole, has faced monumental problems in trying to establish important issue differences with President Clinton. Given his own unique personality quirks, Senator Dole has often appeared anything but presidential, attacking not the positions of his opponent but his widely recognized character faults. The strategy may be germane but, as the polls show, the public has long ago arrived at the conclusion that neither party can claim a closer relationship with the Almighty.

The widely experienced Kansas Republican substituted the long litany of proposed Gingrich reforms for the one issue his consultants thought would carry the day: tax cuts. It is really no surprise this promise is viewed skeptically by the American voters, who in 1980 warmly embraced the promises of another GOP presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan, and then lived through a long decade that saw the national debt triple in size. Unfortunately for this year's nominee, voters hold the view that there is more to economic growth and fiscally sound government than simply reducing the tax rate.

The same strategy was adopted here in Missouri by another Republican candidate, Margaret Kelly, who told voters she would reduce taxes by as much as $600 million, but she made one critical error: she refused to say where the cuts would be made. Since Missouri still ranks as a low-tax state, not many voters could be persuaded that the candidate would succeed in her implication that she knew more about government waste than anyone in Jefferson City.

Seeking another four years in the Executive Office, incumbent Mel Carnahan carefully chose the issues he wanted to discuss, avoiding many of the problems that will face Missouri between now and the year 2000. One of the most neglected issues was how the state will devise its own welfare system to meet the needs of recipients who must now look to Jefferson City instead of Washington for support and succor. If any reader has heard any discussion of this highly critical issue in the current campaign, would you please raise your hand so the rest of us could receive some hint about future policies.

Ironically, the three main issues discussed by the presidential candidates---crime, education and the family---have little to do with the federal government and are very much within the realm of state governments. While both Clinton and Dole were handing down personal opinions, alleged improvements and proposed initiatives on how to resolve these three issues, the candidates seeking the office of governor which must deal with solutions were ignoring new ideas or even revised old ones. The federal government has almost nothing to do with reducing local/state crime, provides only modicum support and leadership in K-12 education and has relinquished many of its social service initiatives to the states.

Missourians were no doubt anxious to get the views of Clinton and Dole on crime, education and the family, but they would have preferred to have heard the views of the person who will be facing these dilemmas first-hand: their governor.

If this election saw little meaningful discussion of highly critical issues, it also failed to provide any arguments for reforming the electoral process itself. Indeed, the issue blackout would imply that neither party is interested in ending the horrible system that has grown up around the process of electing state and federal public officials. The current system is so basically unfair, undemocratic and unprincipled that its continued existence threatens our democratic government. The silence is deafening.

Nothing illustrates this year's campaign better than a ploy practiced repeatedly by Bill Clinton on his train ride from Washington to the Chicago convention. Spotting an elderly woman in the audience who seemed to be suffering from the summer heat, the candidate would stop his speech and ask if she needed a doctor and then order help for her. Or how about Bob Dole's parting words to a group of young black school children: "Thank you for all you have taught me today"?

No, this campaign will not be missed. Only cursed.

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