THE 'COMMON GOOD' IS AN UNINVITED PARTY GUEST

KENNETT, Mo. -- The presence of partisan and personal politics in affairs of state has always been troubling to citizens who are less interested in party affiliations than good government. Although we Americans are competitive in many areas of our lives -- from business to baseball, extending even to where and how we live -- few of us have a personal stake in partisan skirmishes that over any extended period of time have little or no effect on our daily lives.

The prevailing view of John and Jane Doe, as reported by countless opinion polls during the Florida recount skirmishes, has been one of both disgust and impatience with the principals. Voters' concerns seemed to be less over who was winning at any given moment than how much longer the ordeal would require before its final resolution.

One party leader here in our own state even went so far as privately admitting that he had reached such a point of indifference that he no longer fervently cared whether his candidate was the next president of the United States. He still cared, but not fervently. Quite an admission from a partisan who lives and breathes politics in all its forms.

It is possible that some of our public distrust can be traced to the almost constant expediency demanded by the principals in the Florida brouhaha, with both sides evidencing attitudes that resolution was more important than any other issue. Indeed, it is this attitude of party survival and the opposition's surrender and defeat that is so off-putting for less maniacal Americans.

The idea that the republic cannot survive unless one party prevails and the other party is vanquished is illogical for many reasons, the principal one being that virtually all U.S. governments are predicated on a two-party system which should provide citizens with more than one solution to current challenges and problems.

The real danger in any democratic form of government such as the one we have embraced for the past 224 years is that one political philosophy will grow so powerful that it will eliminate the value of considering other options and will completely halt the necessity for compromise that is so essential over the long haul to the public's welfare. Totalitarian forms of government rise not from a majority but from minorities that extend their oppression in all directions.

Adolf Hitler started as a representative of a small but vocal minority that soon gained sufficient power to halt input from groups representing the vast majority. There have been times, even in American history, when the first signs of such exclusivity began making thoughtful Americans worried or at least apprehensive.

A Democratic official recently thought he was being reassuring when he confidently said, "At least we're safe here in Missouri." I didn't have to ask what he meant for his words translated into optimism that his party would still be occupying the office of governor and that it would either dominate or share power in the General Assembly.

For several moments I debated whether to refute his premise that Missourians were "safe" because Bob Holden rather than Jim Talent would be seated in the executive office on the state Capitol's second floor. I decided to remain quiet, realizing that nothing I could say to this individual would be in the least effective in changing his outlook on democracy in the Show Me state. He was wrong, of course, and I now regret I didn't attempt to present him with a few constitutional sentences that contradicted his views, even if I had no great expectation of convincing him.

I hope it will not be shocking to some readers to declare that Missouri, in order to be "safe," will not be one degree closer to that goal by the exercise of one-party control over elective offices. Missouri faces a multitude of problems that neither party can resolve unilaterally, except perhaps to make them worse.

There is no Democratic or Republican way to deal with the education of our children or resolve the societal, economic and racial divisions among our population. There is no partisan solution to inadequate health care for approximately one-fourth of our population or the ever-troubling challenge of eliminating a drug culture that destroys families and lives with everyday regularity.

Likewise there seems to be little public consensus, much less partisan agreement, on how to revive a troubled highway transportation program or any agreement on how to deal with crumbling urban areas that are being transformed into ghost cities before our very eyes.

Even the state's basic industry, agriculture, faces challenges that neither party has seriously addressed, and this dilemma has even farther-reaching consequences by spilling over into smaller cities and communities and threatening their existence as well.

Do the Democratic or Republican parties of our state have an answer for these major problems?

More importantly, are they willing to forgo their strident party affiliations and beliefs and begin concentrating on resolving dilemmas for the common good of all Missourians?

I hope I'm not being overly cynical in responding in the negative, but there is little reassurance out there to provide much solace.

I believe citizens want closure to this year's seemingly endless presidential campaign because, consciously or not, they realize that in the long run neither party is entirely selfless in addressing troubling problems, doing so primarily because they wanted to win votes for their own candidates.

Validation of this view can even be found in the concession speech of a losing state political candidate this year who promised followers he would "work to restore the strength of our party to make it victorious once again."

When will be me mature enough to recognize that party strength has nothing to do with serving the needs of the citizens of our nation and our state?

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