MISSOURI WATCH: POLITICS AND PARKINSON

"If there is a way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it."

-- Parkinson's Fifth Law

In an all-too-brief period, Missourians will find themselves involved, and eventually engulfed, in a long, contentious and most unpleasant series of political campaigns, and that's not including the race to become the next occupant of the White House. The contests that will consume our state and its reluctant spectators will be for the U.S. Senate, governor, Lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, attorney general and U.S. House of Representatives.

That's hardly all of the campaigns Missourians will have to endure, for there will be additional contests for county offices that will create still more division, contention and bitterness before the entire mess is over and done with, a time when most of us will say, "Thank heavens, that's over!"

But it never is, not really, since the election process produces both familiar and unfamiliar faces in Washington, Jefferson City and 114 county courthouses, and this means we will have to endure the process of implementation and change within all manner of bureaucracies that will provide still greater opportunities for division, contention and bitterness.

In the meantime, the 5.3 million of us who have chosen to remain outside the campaign process will be faced with post-electoral indoctrinations that will tax our patience to the limits as the new players hand down their plans and programs to resolve the persistent problems that were discussed at great length, but never resolved, during the campaigns that face us.

It has long been argued, but never satisfactorily, that campaigns are the point in time in which major public policies are discussed and nagging public problems are resolved. No one believes this for one moment, except freshmen political science teachers and geriatrically addled philosophers. The rest of us believe with every fiber of our being that campaigns resolve little except which candidate has been able to raise and spend the most money.

Indeed, the news coverage to date of the state's millennial campaigns has centered on nothing but the amount of cash candidates have managed to wheedle from reluctant contributors. For good reason, society considers it extremely important to know each candidate has thus far raised, as if the amount was somehow connected to that individual's competence in public office.

The fact that most of us realize there is no connection between the way a candidate will behave in office and the number of donors who believe the candidate will emerge the winner has done nothing to deter this overly simplistic way of reporting.

The dismal fact is this condition is unlikely to change for a number of reasons: candidates are reluctant to go on record for specific solutions, which may or may not be well reasoned or even logical, for fear of providing an opponent with telling evidence that his remedies are idiotic. Additionally, candidates who think they are winning are hesitant to paint themselves into a corner that will certainly become the focal point of public attention once the oath of office has been administered. In contrast, candidates who perceive they are running behind will offer solutions the believe will be popular even if they are also impossible to achieve.

The fact our state's news media permits candidates to slide through campaigns with little or no discussion of anything but God, the flag and love of country is no credit to those who call themselves journalists. As for the ubiquitous TV ads, see the paragraph above, raising still another campaign problem that deserves notice. Candidates who believe they can win elections with nothing but 15-second televison spots, thus avoiding the risk of thoughtful discussion of important issues, don't deserve anyone's support and certainly not the votes of the public.

Missouri has an increasing number of extremely important -- and unfortunately unresolved -- issues that are crying for debate in the approaching campaign, and there should be public concern that many of these problems will not be discussed, or even mentioned, in the months ahead. In addition to the problems bothering you, the most, here is just a short list of issues that deserve candidate attention:

-- What direction is Missouri to pursue in the matter of encouraging alternative educational sources for K-12 children and what will be the state's guiding principle in resolving such vital, unresolved matters as tax fairness, separation of church and state and support for the concept of public education?

-- Will our next state officials embrace or ignore an approaching referendum on a new state Constitution?

-- What steps can be taken to resolve the highway plan dilemma that continues to be ignored by current state officeholders, including virtually the entire membership of the General Assembly?

-- What precautions have been taken to provide backup funding for state services when the next economic recession greatly heightens demand for social services and at the same time dramatically reduces state revenue?

-- How can we make the state's present tax system more equitable and at the same time provide economic assistance to new and expanding companies?

-- What remedies can be implemented to reduce the state's growing environmental problems, ranging from increased ozone threats to corporate farming pollution?

-- Constitutional structuring of municipal and county governments is more than a century old, geared to the horse and buggy days and diminishing the ability of these units to meet the problems of the electronic age. What should be done?

The approaching campaign season may not be pleasant but voters at least have a duty to make it important.

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