AUSTIN, Texas — Well, this is discouraging: Every time you turn on the TV, you see more reasons not to vote. All those brains, all that energy, all that savvy poured into making campaign ads — and this is what we get. It does raise the eternal question: "How dumb do they think we are?"

It also raises the eternal proposition: Can't we do better than this? I believe we can, and I believe that now is the time to take back the process.

Something is very broken in our political life. I was startled to learn that South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission — the official body investigating who was responsible for the terrible violence during the final years of the apartheid regime — had finished its work in less time than Kenneth Starr has taken to investigate a 20-year-old land deal in Arkansas.

We are sunk now in a morass of nasty, mean-spirited partisanship. The First Rule of Holes is: When You Are In One, Stop Digging. It's time to stop digging.

I-now-forget-who suggested that this election is really about our television schedule for the next year or so — either we wallow in Monica for another year or not. That's such a sad, stunted little reason to vote in a democracy.

It seems to me we can do better. We can vote for the Democrats and those Republicans who supported the Shays-Meehan campaign-finance reform bill in the House this summer. They stood together (despite the best efforts of Speaker Newt Gingrich, Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay to stop them) and voted to end the worst of the ceaseless money grubbing that pays for all these negative campaign ads. They are sick of the system of legalized bribery that got them elected in the first place, and they have the decency and the courage to vote against it even though it works to their benefit. So let's vote for them.

Let's vote for the people who Took Care of Business while they were in office. And I don't mean "bidness" — I mean the People's Business.

Here's to Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who tried to reintroduce safety standards for pajamas for children and at least got a study going. And to Sen. Ted Kennedy, who tried, alas, to get an increase in the minimum wage. Here's to President Clinton, who finally got his $1 billion for more teachers — it may not be as much as a new stealth bomber costs, but at least it's something. Here's to the valiant coalition that tried for a real patients' bill of rights against the HMOs. (It would help, team, if you first passed a truth-in-captioning rule, so the opposition couldn't also call their distorted, insurance company-lackey bills a "patients' bill of rights.")

Here's to the stout hearts who fought for the consumers against the banking industry during the unfortunate events leading to bankruptcy "reform." They won. And to the coalition that won against Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's junk-car bill that would have rolled back state protections against selling salvaged autos. (There was another award winner in the misnomer category: Lott more or less called it "The Motherhood and Apple Pie Act.")

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said flatly: "This is the worst Congress that's ever sat in this building. All they've cared about is investigating everybody and everything."

Sure, it's a discouraging prospect. This is the gang that couldn't even get it together to stick it to the tobacco companies — which, by the way, turn out to be worse liars almost every day.

Although I sympathize with those who look at the dismal campaign ads and think they'll skip the whole thing, it seems to me that this does not exempt us from our responsibility for this whole mess. The two key points here are: (1) If you don't vote, you can't complain. And you will need to complain. It is said that man invented language out of a deep need to complain, and that's the way I feel about Congress. (2) If you don't vote, it will get worse.

And then, too, there is the off chance that this time or next, some young Lochinvar out there (not unlike yourself on a good day) will look at this whole mess and say, "I believe it's time to pledge my life, fortune and sacred honor to see if I can't help fix this." And he'll be off to the hustings to see if he can't persuade you to vote for him.

If no one is paying any attention, if you are all too discouraged and cynical and angry and full of contempt, why, there'll be no one to notice the young heroes — and so fewer and fewer of them will ever try to run.

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.