CAMPAIGNING, NOT GOVERNING; EVEN IF WILLING, POLITICIANS LACK VOW-KEEPING SKILL.

Byline: Taegan D. Goddard and Chris Riback

IN the 1972 movie classic ``The Candidate,'' Robert Redford played an idealist running for U.S. Senate. He never worried much about his campaign promises because he never thought he would actually win. So when he did, the candidate turned to his manager and asked the question the campaign left him completely unprepared to answer: ``What do we do now?''

Hundreds of articles, thousands of hours of airtime and loads of angst are devoted to the national pastime of political campaigns. Pre-election debate centers on the easy stuff: the horse race, the daily tracking polls, the talking heads who follow bad prediction with worse. Where will the candidate spend money? Should he have ``gone negative'' so early? Does she have the best political consultants?

But as the 1998 campaign nears its conclusion, reality feels little different from the fiction portrayed in Redford's 1972 film. Candidates are rarely questioned about how they would put their grand plans into action. They rarely answer any question about how will they make government work.

Complaints about campaigns have become routine stuff. And the routine solution is to force candidates to focus on the issues. That's good. Focusing on issues is good. Choosing government's course is half of what campaigns are about.

But almost nowhere does the debate focus on the other half: How will this person govern once in office? Simply having good ideas can remain disconnected from the ability to implement them. It's as if we make certain these candidates have the right ingredients, but do nothing to ensure they can cook.

Tip O'Neill may have said it best: ``It's easier to run for office than to run the office.''

It should be no surprise that since the 1996 campaign, an IRS reform law, a pork-laden public works bill and the renaming of Washington, D.C., National Airport after Ronald Reagan are the only significant accomplishments of the Clinton administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. A tobacco settlement, campaign finance reform and myriad other pressing issues have been ignored. It's not from a lack of ideas that little gets done. Campaign promises go unfulfilled, and cynicism grows.

Yet from the Sunday morning television shows to the newspaper op-ed pages, pundits pin the blame for growing cynicism on everything except public officials' inability to accomplish what they promised in the campaign. American politics run as if the first Tuesday in November is the finish line instead of the starting gate, the final lap instead of the first.

Surely, other problems exist in campaigns. The three that get the most discussion are money, strategy and scandals.

Few disagree that campaign finance is a problem. When Democratic fat cats donate $100,000 to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom or Republicans pay big bucks to golf and dine with senators on a Florida junket, evidence grows that government is for sale.

Campaign strategy also breeds cynicism. From negative advertisements to the length of the campaign season, the public is tired of the way we select our top officials. Stories about political consultants and their prostitutes or campaign dirty tricks are plastered on the front pages. Many public officials run perpetual campaigns to keep potential challengers away. When campaigning becomes indistinguishable from governing, cynicism swells.

And then there are the scandals. From Watergate to Iran-Contra to check-bouncing congressmen to the White House sex scandal, the public is no longer shocked. Each new episode is met with a mixture of disgust and indifference. Cynicism runs that high.

These problems deserve attention. They represent the effect of public officials wandering off course, and they stand as monuments to the basic fact that our government frequently doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

But the ignored problem is still that many public officials do not know how to govern. To find an answer, the newest trend is a return to what's old: experience. The era of the outsider appears over. The insider has risen from the dead. Candidates are boldly admitting to time spent in Washington, even daring to show the Capitol in their ads.

But a return to the past is no answer. Despite their inexperience, outsiders bring vitality and new ideas to government. In addition, voters don't just want ideas. They want them implemented. Can't we have it all?

The good news is we can. But the change must start during the campaign. More effort from voters, journalists, watchdogs and even candidates themselves must be made toward understanding how candidates plan to get the job done. How will they manage a bureaucracy they didn't hire and can't fire? What types of appointees will they surround themselves with? What parts of government do they see as unnecessary and want to shut down?

Many citizens have simply given up on a government that cannot solve today's urgent problems. Elections seem pointless, no longer connected to what happens once they are over. Cynicism increases when government takes off in a different way than voters pointed, as often occurs.

``We campaign in poetry, but when we're elected, we're forced to govern in prose,'' said former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Turning a poet into a novelist isn't always easy. But that should be the goal for this election season if our democracy is to work the way it was designed.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) no caption (Gray Davis and Al Gore)

(2--Color) no caption (Dan Lungren)

(3--color) no caption (Campaign pamphlets)