MISSOURI WATCH: VOTERS' GRIEVANCES ARE REAL ISSUES

Although he is now only a postscript to the recent Republican presidential primary season, Pat Buchanan's strategy for obtaining the nomination attracted more than enough attention from voters to rate him only a mere also-ran. The former editorial writer for the now-defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat was the single-most primary candidate touching many citizens' hopes, fears and frustrations, and while both his Republican opponents as well as unfriendly commentators accused him of pandering, what Buchanan discussed during the first three months of this year defined the American political process.

Campaigns are supposed to be about voters' hopes, fears and frustrations, and when Buchanan started discussing them in clear, concise sentences, he surprised many of his opponents who seemed to have overlooked this fact. After the New Hampshire vote, for example, Sen. Bob Dole admitted that he "did not realize that jobs and trade and what makes America work would become a big issue." If the Senate majority leader was seeking to distance himself from the dreaded Beltway environment, he could not have chosen a worse explanation of why he did so poorly after spending months courting the voters of New Hampshire.

At that juncture in the campaign, it was obvious that Buchanan had already listened to what voters were saying, while the man everyone expected to win had not even turned up his hearing aid. Dole's lack of recognition of vital issues is surprising, after spending three and a half decades in central government and after his failed attempt for the nomination four years ago. Dole, of course, is not the only politician who has been guilty of believing that candidates, rather than citizens, are the true arbiters of campaign issues. Shucks, there are state politicians in Jefferson City who suffer from this same misconception and many are unlikely to alter their beliefs anytime soon. The Beltway syndrome exists in Jefferson City and every state capital just as it does in the District of Columbia.

Exit polls in New Hampshire indicated that 32 percent of those who chose Buchanan did so "for reasons having to do with the economy or jobs." This column is not about Buchanan the candidate, but about something more permanent in the American political system: the "constituency of grievance" that projects candidates like the former Missourian into important, even decisive, electoral roles. How soon we forget the major impact of a presidential candidate four years ago who also addressed the nation's grievance constituents. Does anyone really believe Bill Clinton would have been elected president in 1992 if Ross Perot had never entered the race? His grievance constituency prevented George Bush from having a second term, just as these same constituencies kept Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter from having their White House leases renewed.

Buchanan's critics have asked how such a doleful view of our common future could be justified when most economic indicators are positive. At least three answers can be given. The first, and most obvious, is that voters respond to the situation in which they find themselves, not to data in the Survey of Current Business. Politicians ought to know that very well, but they seem to forget it during every quadrennium. Secondly, aggregate data can always hide weak or troubled spots. For example, employment is up, but millions of workers stay just above the poverty line only by holding two or even three jobs, while couples most often need two paychecks to get along. These people are now just statistics but real, live voters who search for a candidate addressing their concerns.

Thirdly, Buchanan was not entirely wrong about wage trends (real wages have drifted downward) and foreign trade policy. Factory jobs have indeed moved out of Missouri and the rest of the country. Moreover, part of the output of relocated jobs is then brought back in, contributing to persistent trade deficits. Whether anyone likes it or not trade issues are going to be on the political agenda this fall, and reciting "free trade" creeds and proclaiming our technological superiority will not quiet the protests. Certainly Bill Clinton has less to worry about with Ralph Nader campaigning about the environment than Bob Dole does with Ross Perot banging the podium about NAFTA, GATT and U.S. jobs going south.

Anyone who believes the economy doesn't affect state elections simply has not been listening, for Missourians will, and do, vote their pocketbooks when selecting a governor, an attorney general or a congressman, following not only the current national trend but in the belief that what happens in Jefferson City can also affect pocketbooks and family bank accounts.

The popular belief in Jefferson City these days is that a state Democratic ticket led by Mel Carnahan will win over one headed by State Auditor Margaret Kelly. The same old reasons are offered: the incumbent governor is better known, has a far greater campaign treasury and has compiled a superior record over the past three years in the executive office. It is at this point that the conventional wisdom breaks down. For even if all of this is true, it still overlooks the so-called grievance constituency, which even in a state with a current unemployment rate of only 4.0 percent, is still a formidable and likely election factor.

Like their counterparts in New Hampshire, New York, Florida, Illinois, Arizona and California, Missourians are not well pleased with well meaning candidates who, like Dole in New Hampshire, forget about "jobs and trade and what makes America work." By the time voters go to the polls next November, Pat Buchanan will probably be only a postscript to the 1996 campaign, but candidates who ignore what he said, do so at the risk of running no better than Bob Dole in New Hampshire.

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