RUST COMMENTARY: TRAVELS END WITH CHURCH CELEBRATION

Last week I was out of town for the annual MISSOURI PRESS ASSOCIATION convention in KANSAS CITY where we received a number of awards (even though the Southeast Missourian was placed in the category with the larger St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star and Springfield, Joplin and St. Joseph dailies). My thanks to a truly dedicated staff for making these awards possible.

Then it was direct to Chicago where the INLAND PRESS ASSOCIATION (on which I serve as a board member and co-chairman for membership) was holding its convention over Halloween and Election Day.

Former Southeast Missourian (and former New Jersey senator) BILL BRADLEY was one of the speakers. He displayed his intellectual abilities in a solid, no-note speech and gave astute answers to questions.

It prompted me to ask Senator Bradley if he had ever been asked to serve in the CLINTON ADMINISTRATION (which desperately needs someone of his intellect and moral integrity). The answer was no ... he had not.

I serve on one other national board, and it had elected to hold its annual meeting one day later in Toronto. So I proceeded via another board member's private corporate jet to Canada for a two-day meeting (dream on).

Saturday noon Wendy and I flew back to Cape Girardeau in one hour and 48 minutes after departing from MEIGS (the historic downtown airport on the lake next to Soldiers' Field) in Chicago.

We got back in time to join the LaCROIX METHODIST CHURCH 10th anniversary of its founding and startup in a Wehrenberg theater at the mall. Over 550 people were there for the event of this church which has grown to over 700 church attendees on Sunday morning and requires three services.

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In politics as in riding a bicycle, you either pedal forward or you tip over. We hope Republicans keep this lesson foremost in mind as they shape their post-Gingrich era.

Whatever his mistakes, Mr. Gingrich understood that Republicans could win a majority only if they dropped their post-New Deal liberal mimicry and became a party of economic growth and government and cultural reform. The next speaker will need many talents, but without an appreciation of this agenda he is sure to fail -- as certainly as George Bush flopped after Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Gingrich's ouster, indeed, owes a lot to Congress's failure to pedal forward this past year. The speaker of course has been a lightning rod for blame since he bragged about his willingness to shut down the government in 1995. His success in breaking up 40 years of Democratic rule made him a partisan and media target. Now the Democrats and allied pundits are spinning his resignation as an abandonment of his supposed "extremism." This is self-serving nonsense.

The fatal calculation by Mr. Gingrich and other GOP leaders was to try to coast through an issueless election, selling out in the budget deal and not developing the Clinton scandal issue over the course of the campaign. The speaker wasn't even the main culprit here, because at least he pushed a tax cut through the House. But Trent Lott buried it in the Senate, a fact that would make him ripe for resignation if his Senate peers weren't complicit in his do-nothingism. Mr. Gingrich deserves credit for departing with dignity in order to spare his party greater turmoil. We know Democrats who wish their president had similar grace.

This month's election again showed that the Republican Party isn't going anywhere unless it's propelled by ideas and issues. A Democratic majority can rely on its coalition of special interests, with public spending to grease the wheels of its incumbency. A Republican majority can only succeed by championing growth in the private sector, especially in the high-tech, global economy we now live in. The GOP mission must be to fashion a government suited for the information age, by reforming outdated systems (entitlements, taxes), monopolies (education ) and rules (health care, labor law). Even if the trains run on time, they have to go in the right direction. -- The Wall Street Journal

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Initiative victories: The dearth of news coverage about initiatives to protect marriage in Hawaii and Alaska signaled that both of these measures had fared well. By two-to-one margins, voters in both outlying states approved constitutional amendments that will enable their legislatures to define marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Michigan voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure to allow physician-assisted suicide. Colorado residents voted to require parental notification for minors seeking abortions. Unfortunately, efforts to ban partial-birth abortion failed in Washington and Colorado. A handful of states also moved to legalize "medical marijuana." -- American Renewal

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Something missed in all the hoopla about Republican turmoil over the campaign strategy bust and unexpected congressional losses:

There'll be only 49 new faces among 535 House and Senate members. Means the fundamentals won't change when Congress reconvenes Jan. 6, 1999.

Clinton-Congress stalemates will continue over the big issues ... education and trade policies, tax reduction, environmental regulation, what to do about Social Security and Medicare, defense-spending plans.

Republicans will have less room to maneuver ... razor-thin majority in the House. They'll be facing a Democratic minority eager for combat and convinced it has a shot at taking over the House and Senate in 2000.

With Bob Livingston as speaker, most budget bills will move more quickly through Congress. Most GOPers are steamed over last-minute deal made with Clinton to wrap up '99 budget in a huge take-it-or-leave-it money bill. Next year, they'll pass most agency funding bills separately.

Good chance of managed-care regulation ... Congress agreeing to require more options for patients who are covered by HMO policies.

But trade legislation will stay bottled up, blocked by Democrats. They are more beholden than ever to unions opposing trade liberalization.

A drive by House Republicans for big tax cuts is likely to fail, unless the economy dips into recession and fiscal stimulus is needed.

Plenty of rhetoric but little action on education initiatives. Figure on gridlock, Clinton blocking Republican efforts and vice versa.

No changes to Social Security or Medicare in the next Congress. Neither party wants to take the heat for benefits reductions before 2000.

It's predicted Clinton will complete his term ... won't be removed by the Senate, and probably not even impeached by the full House of Representatives.

Most members will welcome a deal that can end the whole affair ... one leaving him in office without letting him off the hook completely. House Judiciary Committee is still likely to vote on articles of impeachment. The panel can't ignore the evidence that Clinton lied to a grand jury. -- Excerpts from a private newsletter.

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