MISSOURI WATCH: VOICE OF THE TURTLE HEAR ACROSS STATE

When election returns are tabulated and the winners and losers on Nov. 5 are recorded, the name of the most important participant will be missing. As important as it is to report who has won and lost in this campaign, the missing person will be the Missouri Citizen for whom the election was held and for whom the results will have the greatest impact.

This increasing irrelevance to the Average Citizen seems to have escaped many of the participants, who now seem oblivious to how little focus is placed on the public's need for information. If one examines the news reports of the campaigns of 1996, it is surprising how little attention is paid to the issues before the public and how much space and time are devoted to the candidates' position in the polls.

Campaigns have become more like Olympic races, where the emphasis is on muscle, speed and endurance, and less like events envisioned by the nation's Founding Fathers. In discussing the critical need for voter education, Thomas Jefferson wrote some 200 years ago: "I know no safety depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves. And if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to educate their discretion."

Jefferson was calling for greater public enlightenment of important issues, not less, but in today's complex society that has become increasingly burdened by inadequate educational systems, drug-driven criminal acts that threaten innocent lives and an increasing disdain for the needs of all of society's members. Public enlightenment may be an elusive even impossible goal. Most certainly the conditions under which we select our leaders today make it extremely difficult to accomplish Jefferson's expressed need for widespread public understanding.

This year's general election campaign in Missouri will decide the winners and losers of five highly important statewide offices, nine congressional seats, 17 state senate and all 163 state house positions. This means we will elect 194 officials who for the next two or four years will occupy extremely important offices that will over the next 12, 24 or 48 months have an almost revolutionary effect on the lives of more than 5.3 million men, women and children in our state.

If you believe the importance of these public offices is exaggerated, consider that these officials will decide, among other things, what measures can be taken to protect your safety, educate your children, feed and clothe the needy, meet society's medical needs, enhance both individual and corporate income, regulate public services ranging from utilities to insurance, supervise such far-ranging activities as banking, professional services and gambling, build and maintain highways and other forms of transportation, confine and hopefully rehabilitate thousands of convicted felons, care for at-risk citizens who suffer mental and developmental disabilities, provide for a court system that dispenses thousands of decisions every year and answer the public's call for help in times of disaster.

None of these individually is without consequence to each and every citizen in Missouri. Combined, they present an overwhelming agenda for the 194 public officials who will be elected to office in less than two months.

Returning to Jefferson's cry for public knowledge, just what is it that voters know about the 400-odd candidates for available public offices? First of all, does the average voter in Missouri know the names of the candidates for the five statewide offices, the names of those seeking to represent the voter in Congress and those seeking to represent the citizen in the state House of Representatives and Senate?

If the names are known, what knowledge is possessed about the background, the views held and the service objectives of the candidates? Do the candidates favor the existing tax levels or does he or she favor higher or lower levels? What plans do the candidates have for meeting some of society's more topical problems, such as K-12 education, crime on the streets, statewide bond issues, desegregation, welfare reform, health-care programs and substance abuse?

It is probably safe to say that only a small handful of citizens could answer the last question, and it is perhaps even safer to venture that a vast majority of voters cannot give a response to all of the questions. Today we view a voter informed if he or she can identify the candidate for public office and even better informed if the candidate's political affiliation can be provided as well. As for more specific information, few voters have any idea what views the candidates hold about any public issue, much less all of them.

Not all of this ignorance is attributable to the voter. Some of it rests with the candidates themselves, who are not overly eager to supply complete information for fear of alienating support and who are content to follow the time-tested rules of simply soliciting votes rather than earning them through thoughtful discussion and debate.

Still another factor in the electoral process, the changing patterns of campaigning, must assume its share of responsibility in the downward direction of representative government. Television has become a key campaign component, and its importance has reached such heights that the number of TV spots can determine the winner of virtually every contest.

The public has almost abdicated its electoral powers to television commercials that specialize in saying as little as possible about the real issues of any campaign. Jefferson's ideal of an informed electorate deciding issues at the ballot box has been lost, perhaps irretrievably. The voice of the turtle is heard across Missouri amidst the silence of a distracted and indifferent public.

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