COMMON SENSE VS. CUNNING

A young mother arrived at the office shaking her head in bewildered
amusement. Her 2-year-old had come to her that morning holding up a
storybook with several freshly ripped pages. Shaking his head gravely, he'd
murmured, "Oh, no, Mommy!"

It was a Nixonian moment, she observed. Damage had been done; pages had
been torn. Yet no one in particular seemed to be at fault.

Mom kept a poker face, reminding him sternly of the ban on ripping pages
out of books. Yet with some terrible motherly pride, she noted that her lad
was certainly catching on. He'd learned to be sly like a fox.

Heaven knows it's a useful skill. In a political town like ours, cunning
and craftiness are coins of the realm. It's almost expected that you
outmaneuver, undermine, twist and distort and call it playing to win.
Meanwhile, no moms are in place, hands on their hips, saying, "Nice try,
but I'm not buying it."

As election time rolls near, there is so much not to buy.

Florida's amendment madness - niche groups wanting to change the
constitution to do what lawmakers won't or haven't by statute - inspires a
new layer of blarney.

Voters can't possibly be blind to the guile behind a new law requiring all
proposed amendments to include a ballot statement of how much it will cost
taxpayers.

On the face of it, this seems quite reasonable. In fact, yes, let's do know
exactly the cost of a reducing class sizes (one of the amendments this year).

Except what voters might like to know about the cost is quite probably
unknowable. If it could somehow be estimated for one year, it probably
couldn't for the indefinite future, which is where immortal amendments
live. And who is making the calculations? You've got to pause over whether
objectivity is possible.

In any case, no candid Republican would deny that this new requirement is
meant to undermine amendments springing out of the furrowed brows of the
Democrats.

Another proposed amendment, to transfer all drug offenders out of prisons
and into drug treatment programs, is probably excessive. Yet I appreciate
that its sponsors are now suing to force ballot statements reflecting net
savings to taxpayers.

Also a good question: How much would be saved in the unknowable future by
rehabilitating all drug offenders? Or saved by paying for very small
classes and, perhaps, educating kids better?

Yet the reality is that voters don't know which to believe: a fuzzy
estimate of how much an amendment will cost upfront or a fuzzy estimate of
how much it would save in a charmed world.

This tempest of ambiguity is why amendments are not the appropriate venue
for enacting most good ideas. Constitutional amendments should be reserved
for broad-stroke operating concepts. Laws, on the other hand, can be coaxed
along, improved upon, deleted, funded more or funded less from year to
year, according to how efficient or beneficial they turn out to be.

With the passing of another July Fourth, I'm reminded that our first
president warned in his farewell address of the "baneful effects of the
Spirit of Party." George Washington saw how excessive party spirit
distracts, agitates and corrupts. Since 1796, it's gotten worse.

The only antidote for this miasma of cunning is you, my fellow voters. To
quote from a woman who could have been a founding mother, the late Ann
Landers: Wake up and smell the coffee. Preferably before the Sept. 10 primary.