MISSOURIANA

Vice President Dan Quayle attracted a huge crowd in St. Louis recently even though the dinner cost $250, which is no small potatoe, even if your name is Murphy Brown.

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Bill Webster's campaign platform borrows heavily from a book that bears the title "Reinventing Government." Apparently Bill decided to reinvent all those jokes about Sen. Joe Biden.

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Conservative Republicans in the state are already promoting Gov. Ashcroft as an opponent to Sen. Danforth in 1994. These are the same people who refuse to eat left wings on any bird even if it has a marriage license.

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The only consolation for anyone who's just lost a job is the sight of hundreds of candidates running around the state, hugging strangers and promising to work for practically nothing if someone will just give them a chance.

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Both parties are busily pouring through records seeking negative information about Ross Perot, who only needs to point to yesterday's newspapers for his campaign material.

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With 55 candidates for statewide office, nine congressional races, hundreds of county contests and five proposed changes to the Constitution, it will take Missourians longer to vote Aug. 4 than it took to dissolve the Soviet Union.

By Jack Stapleton