MISSOURI WATCH: IS THE DEMOCRATS' PARTY REALLY OVER IN MISSOURI?

In recent days a New York newspaper, a Washington political consultant and two talk show radio hosts have inquired about the health of the Democratic Party in Missouri. These have been perfectly normal inquiries about the state of our state's oldest political organization in light of the declining fortunes that have become increasingly evident in the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Roosevelt.

The inquiries have focused on the future ability of Missouri Democrats to retain control of the state Capitol, from the-office of governor on down to attorney general and both chambers of the legislature. Such complete control by Democrats, excluding the office of state auditor, has become such a rarity that outsiders are now viewing the state as either an accident waiting to be reversed or a one-time apparition that is likely to disappear the next time the state's voters get together for an election.

Either way, our state seems to be running in opposite directions from much of the rest of America. The transformation from the era in which Democrats more often than not controlled a majority of the executive offices and the legislatures has been remarkable, if not startling. The 1994 elections that saw the balance of power in Congress shift to the Republicans was an electoral revolution of startling proportions.

Last year's congressional races proved to be the undoing of the national Democratic Party. For the first time since Harry Truman won his upset victory in 1948, Democrats hold fewer than 200 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Recent days have seen announcements from eight of the 15 Democratic U.S. senators that they will not even seek re-election next year, leaving the upper chamber in a kind of semi permanent GOP dominance. Incidentally, these eight retiring senators constitute the highest number of no-returns in congressional history.

In 1992 the Democrats had 258 members in the House, while they have only 199 today. The party had 57 members in the Senate, and today it has only 46. These numbers are remarkable, not only in indicating the ascendancy of the GOP but in demonstrating the sudden loss of public confidence in the nation's oldest political faith. This has been particularly true in the South, where just three years ago Democrats held 71 percent of all seats south of the Mason-Dixon line; now they hold 49 percent.

The transformation has been even more remarkable in state government. Just two years ago Democrats controlled 34 state houses of representatives and today have majorities in only 22 of these chambers. The party exercised dominance in 32 state senates in 1993, while today that figure is down to 24. As for governors, Democrats occupied the executive offices in 28 states, and now have the keys to only 24.

No one can really determine with pinpoint accuracy whether voters have simply become both weary and wary of Democratic ideals and the men and women who have sought to advance them in public office or whether they have had an out-of-politics experience that led them to love and embrace anyone running as a Republican. All of this is the more puzzling because Democrats have not been the sole perpetrators of latter-day Watergates, and while they have had their share of scoundrels, the Republicans have managed to stay reasonably close in this body count.

One can suspect that one of the principal players in this Democratic Disillusionment Drama is 1992's Baby Boomer of the Year, Bill Clinton from down home in Hope, Arkansas. To say that the incumbent president is a disappointment to millions of Democrats, not to mention many more million Republicans, would be the political understatement of the decade. There are times Clinton as president has seemed almost irrelevant to the national agenda, and his waffling has been both disturbing to the body politic and embarrassing to the members of his own party. He is ahead in most polls today not because of his record but because of the confusion over which Republican will finally win the scramble to succeed him.

Clinton's chances for another four years in the White House hang by the narrowest of threads at this moment. If he faces even the less-than-ebullient Bob Dole in the final runoff, Clinton will be the candidate of the lesser political party in America today, and this lack of basic precinct-level strength will diminish his ability to attract both old and new voters next year.

As the figures above clearly illustrate, the party that brought about Clinton's less-than-majority plebiscite in 1992 is far less potent today, while its vote-delivering capability is radically lessened. If you put the Democratic nominee in a two-way race with Gen. Colin Powell, he probably loses. If Clinton runs, as he did in 1992, in a three-man contest, his basic strengths have been so diminished that his chances are far less than they were three years ago. His appeal as a young, fresh candidate who was capable of tremendous energy in bringing about needed change has pretty well gone down the dumper given his performance in office. If Dole does not project the image of energetic innovation, neither does Clinton.

How does all of this impact on our own state? No one really knows, but there are some evident signs that are mitigating as far as the two parties are concerned. Voters in the Show-Me State, while still less angry than their neighbors to the south, are still capable of filling both U.S. Senate seats with Republicans and sending a U.S. House delegation to Washington that is one-third Republican, with one-half of House Democrats voting more often than not with the GOP.

State Auditor Margaret Kelly has the Capitol all to herself, but this minority status will likely change simply because experience in office has been relegated to the second tier of convincing political arguments. Voters today are wary of political life-termers, and the Forrest Smiths and Haskell Holmans of yesteryear are electoral relics. In 1995's political climate, don't bet the farm on statehouse re-elections on any floor of the Capitol. If the party is really over, there will always be plenty of volunteers waiting to clean up.

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