RUST COMMENTARY: MEETING SHOWS SUPPORT FOR RIVER CAMPUS

There was nothing but positive vibrations at the Cape Girardeau City Council's public meeting Monday night on information and plans to move ahead with the River Campus and South Side economic development plans. In a packed room of almost 150 people, not a negative remark was heard.

A lot of people liked the new financing proposal which would have low-interest bonds guaranteed by the university rather than the city. There are still some hurdles, but some major ones have been cleared.

It was new information to me at the hearing that $8.8 million has been recommended by the Coordinating Board of Higher Education to be put in the governor's budget for next year. That would be the first of two installment payments necessary for the finance model to fund the project at the former St. Vincent's Seminary.

The plans would be to sell no bonds until after the final state budget is passed next year, at which time Southeast University and the city will know if the state money is a reality.

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The national debt rose $1.7 trillion under REAGAN and will go up the same amount under CLINTON despite so-called surpluses. The national debt now totals $5.58 trillion ... the accumulation of annual deficits. The so-called budget surpluses don't count all the current excess contributions to Social Security ... amounts included in the revenue.

Gasoline is now the lowest it has ever been when adjusted for inflation.

Many people are realizing that the power of government innovation and change is returning to the states where a governor can establish and carry out an agenda much easier than anyone can do in Congress. Look for more congressmen to leave Congress to run for governor in the future.

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Only in America ...

... do people order double cheeseburgers, a large fry and diet soda.

... do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

... do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and leave useless things and junk in boxes in the garage.

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Legal notices in our Monday newspaper listed three ordinances "declaring it necessary to improve" 1) Silver Springs Road from Missouri Route K to the end of the existing pavement south of Independence Street, 2) that part of Broadway from Clark Avenue east to Perry Avenue and 3) that part of Mt. Auburn Road from Missouri Route K north to Independence Street.

A public hearing before the City Council will be held on all three this coming Monday at City Hall.

This is another sign of progress and growth in Cape Girardeau.

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Lessons for leadership: National exit polls aren't holy writ, but since they involve a sample of more than 10,000 people and are conducted just after people vote, they are the best guide we have on who voted and why. The results for House races tell a different story about what ails the Republican Party than has been touted lately around the media.

Charlie Cook, the National Journal's political handicapper, says "the real story was that Democrats cleaned up in the close races," winning 18 of the 26 toss-up House races.

Nationally, however, Republicans not only won more votes in House races than Democrats, but in key demographic groups they equaled or bettered any previous showing they've made. Republicans won 47 percent of female voters and 54 percent of white women. Senior citizens voted 55 percent Republican. A third of gays and lesbians voted for the GOP. Republicans did better (41 percent) among voters earning under $15,000 a year than they have since the days of Ronald Reagan. The popular spin most hear is that the GOP's prospects among all these groups is hopeless. Obviously not true.

Some outreach efforts have clearly helped. Hispanics voted 37 percent Republican in House races, just shy of their 1994 high-water mark and up from 27 percent in 1996. Black voters were staunch Democrats, but Republicans won 21 percent of the vote among the growing numbers of both black independents and blacks under 30 years of age.

Once again, abortion was the issue that didn't bark. People who spend more time at cocktail parties than in bowling alleys believe GOP women are leaving the party in droves over abortion. Not so. Republican women voted 91 percent for their party's House candidates, compared with 89 percent of Democratic women who stayed loyal to their party. As California GOP Assemblyman Tom McClintock points out: "Only the extremes view abortion as a primary issue, and then it breaks about evenly." He notes that in the GOP's landslide loss in California for governor, 12 percent of those who voted for pro-choice Democrat Gray Davis cited abortion as their most important issue, while 13 percent of pro-life Dan Lungren's voters said the same thing.

To repeat, the real lesson of the 1998 election is short enough for a bumper sticker: Issue-free campaigns hurt Republicans. Exit polls show that some three million conservative voters didn't vote. -- Excerpts from a Wall Street Journal editorial

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New York responds: There's no telling what supply-side forces lie waiting to be unleashed in New York City. First, they tried a holiday from sales taxes, and sales sky-rocketed. Now, as some miracle, the subway system is showing a revenue surplus in the wake of giving the city's strap hangers an incentive to hang on longer. First the city allowed free transfers between buses and the subways. This produced a $187 million surplus. They tried to give the money back in the form of unlimited-use weekly and monthly passes -- and an additional burst of ridership outputted another surplus of perhaps $200 million. Gee, if they cut income taxes in a big way, who knows, they might generate enough revenue from a booming economy that money would be available to help the homeless, the mentally ill, the Yankees and other needy New Yorkers. The Wall Street Journal

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Son JON RUST had a letter printed in this past Sunday's New York Times in the business section. He responded to a column on an ethical business question, and the Times chose to edit and run it. I'm amazed how many people have called it to my attention. Jon is current president of the Harvard Graduate School Leadership and Ethics club and is planning on returning to this area sometime next summer after completing the program.

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Dash's mad dash: Most members of Congress -- and most Americans -- seem to be shrugging off the surprise resignation of SAM DASH, one of Ken Starr's ethics advisers, the day after Starr's compelling House Judiciary Committee testimony. Dash, a Georgetown law professor who was billing taxpayers $400 an hour, quit in protest over Starr's appearing before the committee to defend his impeachment report. But as Starr pointed out in a reply letter to Dash, "I didn't ask to appear before the committee, I was invited to appear." And Judiciary chairman Henry Hyde said he would have subpoenaed Starr had he not appeared voluntarily.

ABC television reported Nov. 20, the night of Dash's resignation, that Dash, a Democrat who served as chief counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, had been under pressure for months from the White House allies to quit Starr "in a very public way." Dash, however, chose to wait until after Starr's testimony to quit. Ron Rotunda, another Starr ethics adviser, noted that Dash had been "thoroughly involved in" and "fully embraced" Starr's report, even urging Starr to strengthen the section accusing Clinton of abusing power.

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.