Politics, of course

Fair warning on a wintery Friday: This entire column deals with politics. Feel free to skip it and go straight to the crossword puzzle if you've had your fill of campaign bluster. I understand.

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In recent days I've taken quite a number of calls from other ink-stained scriveners who want to talk about the presidential race and Missouri's newly charged sprint to the governor's mansion.

Some of these callers indicated they believe I might have some special insight, considering I've been reading, writing and editing news stories about elections for more than 40 years.

I'll let you in on a secret. What 40-plus years of experience in the news business gives you is an all-too-acute awareness that any prediction you make can blow up in your face faster than you can say Gary Hart.

This presidential election is unusual. We have been thrust into the uncomfortable position of having to make a choice.

This is tough. So many voters have grown so accustomed to simply being against the obvious contenders.

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As for the race for governor, Missourians haven't seen musical chairs like this in years.

With Matt Blunt's unexpected announcement that he will not seek a second term, the music has started. The tempo is fast. And there's a lot of brass.

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a Cape Girardeau native, was the first to say he would run. State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, a Jefferson City native, and U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof, who currently represents Missouri's 9th District that generally covers the mostly rural northeast quadrant of the state, also have jumped in. Think of all the jockeying for those three offices.

It's interesting that two of this trio have Southeast Missouri roots. Kinder represented this area in the Missouri Senate before he was elected to the state's No. 2 post. Hulshof grew up on the family farm near Bertrand between Sikeston and Charleston. He served as Cape Girardeau County's prosecuting attorney in the 1980s and was on the attorney general's staff from 1989 to 1996, the year he was first elected to Congress.

Talk about having to make a choice. This will be an interesting Republican primary.

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One of the most interesting governors I've ever known was Joan Finney, Kansas' first woman to be governor. She served as state treasurer 16 years before that.

Finney, a Democrat, arrived unannounced at my office during her 1990 campaign. While she was popular throughout the state, Finney was never given much of a chance by the so-called political experts. I had just arrived in Topeka as editor of the Capital-Journal when the race was heating up.

"Hello," Finney said, "I'm Joan Finney, the next governor of Kansas."

One of the things I noticed about Finney was how easily she connected with ordinary Kansans. She would go to county fairs and greet people up and down the midway by their first names. She would chat with them as if they were her neighbors.

One of the statehouse reporters for the Capital-Journal thought Finney was quirky and, perhaps, kooky. He said he prayed every night of the campaign that she would win. "It would be like having a train wreck every day, except nobody gets hurt," he said.

I recall my favorite photo of Finney. It was a 360-degree panorama of her inauguration on the Capitol steps in Topeka. Later, the photographer and I presented her with a framed print of the photo to hang in her office. She was genuinely pleased.

Later, when Finney fired a black woman, one of the top administrators in state government, Finney and I had a strained exchange of words, both in print and in person, that included being called on the carpet in her Capitol office. Unfortunately, we never made up and never spoke again.

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Prediction: The 2008 elections will be exciting. There. How's that for sticking my neck out?

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.