DATE: Sunday, November 2, 1997              TAG: 9711010244

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 08   EDITION: FINAL 
COLUMN: ON THE STREET 

SOURCE: Bill Reed 

                                            LENGTH:   62 lines

HEED THE LOCAL SAGE: DESPITE CHOICES, VOTE

The Sage of 17th Street calls this one the ``dartboard election.''

That's because the selection of candidates for the top statewide offices on Tuesday is so - shall we say - uninspiring that voters may be forced to throw darts at a list tacked to a wall while blindfolded.

As a matter of fact, many of them probably won't even bother voting, which is a shame, since voting is a constitutional right of law-abiding citizens.

And, by not voting, those citizens automatically hand over the reins of government to other folks with special agendas that may not be compatible with their interests, the Sage sternly warns us.

So, from his soapbox (actually an empty wine crate perched near a trash dumpster behind a 17th Street convenience store) the Sage urges you to go to your nearest polling place Tuesday to vote.

Drive, bike, walk, hitch a ride. Crawl, if you have to, but vote.

And, when you're looking down at the ballot, with stylus poised to punch your selections, remember: you can always write in the name of a candidate of your choice - even if he or she is not on the slate.

How else can you explain past elections in which Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse or Bart Simpson scored thousands of votes?

Now the Sage has seen some no-choice elections before. How about Richard Nixon versus anyone? Or Ollie North versus Chuck Robb? Or Mary Sue Terry versus George Allen? And that's just the tip of iceberg!

Nevertheless, the nation and the state keep right on rolling, year after year, no matter who is at the helm making dumb decisions, the Sage notes.

Unless a newly elected office holder really goes off the deep end and befouls the machinery of government, it'll continue to chug along as it always has - guzzling endless quantities of tax money and spitting out reams of red tape.

And politicians will continue to hurl mud and epithets at each other on TV and in newspapers. And they'll continue to make preposterous promises to the electorate about cutting taxes and at at the same time increasing public services - all in one fell swoop.

They'll be beholden still to big money campaign contributors because they don't have the backbone or the inclination to reform the existing system of campaign financing.

And, they'll still be out on the rubber chicken circuit or pounding the streets glad-handing potential voters, and their advisers still will be polling households in the middle of supper in an effort to determine which candidate has an edge in popularity at any given time.

Then, with the results in hand, campaign strategists will continue to flood the media with the news and whine because the polls of opponents are allegedly inaccurate, bogus or irrelevant.

In short, the Sage has concluded, politics in this country ain't pretty and it ain't gonna change. But, it's still the best system going on this planet and maybe all of us should try to make it a much better one.

At this point, the Sage pauses and looks heavenward through bleary eyes and quietly utters this prayer:

`` Lord, please send us down an honest-to-goodness, through-and-through statesman or stateswoman - someone with a pure heart, a strong spine and a brain. Someone who genuinely has the interests of the people at heart. Someone who isn't bent on filling his or her pockets, isn't on a power trip or doing the bidding of big money interests.

``Is that too much to ask?''

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