Molly Ivins October 25

AUSTIN — What a commercially disgusting political year it is. Both sides lobbing stink bombs on the airwaves with unparalleled disregard for truth, probity or the mental health of the citizenry.

Leading off, in the totally vacuous, non-information mode, we have George W. Bush, who seems to be running for an insurance company position. He's an optimist, he's responsible, he's honest, and he likes family. At no point do we get a single hint of what he's for or against, what he has done (not much to report), or what he plans to do. There's just not much there there.

"Where do you stand on abortion, Governor?"

"I'm an optimist."

And there's no there there for Bush's hapless opponent Garry Mauro, who doesn't even have the money to put ads up. Mauro's one chance to debate Bush (on a Friday night in October in Texas — please) showed him well-informed, well-prepared and more knowledgeable about state government than Bush on several points. But all Bush had to do was show up and not drool to win that encounter. The Mauro camp's spin was "We may not have won the governorship, but we cost him the presidency," meaning that if you can't flat-out beat a mere state land commissioner in debate, how can you hold up against the big boys? Actually, I suspect the theory is wrong: My observation is that anyone who looks very good in Texas looks very good nationally. We are the Big Leagues. On the other hand, if you look vapid in Texas, you'll look vapid on a bigger stage too.

Meanwhile, the lite guv's race has blossomed into a veritable knife fight. John Sharp started it (I think) with a dreadful ad in the Willie Horton mode. (" ... Rick Perry voted to release twenty zillion people from prison (along with everyone else in the Lege), and one of them committed this terrible murder, and it's all his fault!") I couldn't imagine what Sharp was doing with this thing, until I noticed Perry was running for lieutenant governor on the crime issue. I was amazed, of course. It's silly enough when we have our quadrennial who's-tougher-on-crime duke-out in the attorney general's race. At least the attorney general sounds like he might have something to do with crime (he doesn't actually), but the lite guv? The lite guv presides over the Senate and has sway on the Legislative Budget Board, and it would be helpful if he knew a lot about water.

But crime? Perry thinks he's running for district attorney; someone should clue him in.

The worst ad (so far) is Perry's response to Sharp's awful ad: A female voice screechy with indignation demands to know what John Sharp will lie about next! Your 6-year-old could do better than that. How embarrassing.

A spirited down-ballot scramble is developing in the land commissioner's race, where we find Richard Raymond, a poor but proud boy from the Valley, pitted against Mr. Megabucks, David Dewhurst. Dewhurst is either loaning his own campaign millions of dollars or borrowing millions from banks; it's a little unclear. He's using the money to run ads pointing out that he, David Dewhurst, is endorsed by George W. Bush, completely agrees with George W. Bush, will do whatever George W. Bush tells him to and never, never will they have a cross word. Dewhurst seems to be running for Dubya's dog.

Meanwhile, Raymond is raising questions about how Dewhurst got his money in the first place. In a legal dispute, former partners accused Dewhurst of fraud, but the records in the case have been sealed. Dewhurst was so upset, he put up an attack ad calling Raymond a liberal. Well! That certainly settles the questions in the sealed fraud case.

Meanwhile, over in the attorney general's race, John Cornyn just has so much money. His positive ads have been up for weeks ("anointed by Gov. Bush"), and now come the nasties. "NOW you remember Jim Mattox (dum-de-dum-dum)." Say this for Our Boy Mattox, he's sure given them a lot of material to work with. But, being Mattox, he instantly went negative himself, finding some giant conflict of interest in a campaign contribution of Cornyn's, which I'm sure is a horrible conflict of interest, but Mother Teresa couldn't have run under this system without some conflicts.

Well, so far, no good. Looking on the bright side, it'll all be over in a few weeks anyway, and in the meantime, we can hope that someone, somewhere, is even now toiling over a campaign ad that discusses an idea about how to run state government better — and does so in a witty and charming fashion. Like the governor, I'm an optimist on that issue.

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 1998 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.