The Associated Press

The Kansas City Star, Jan. 18

Presidential debates need less entertainment, more substance

Republican presidential candidates are reaping high television ratings for their entertaining but empty-calorie debates.

Meanwhile, Democratic candidates are attracting smaller audiences but holding more substantial interactions on issues that matter to Americans such as health care, foreign policy and the future of the U.S. economy.

Exhibit A: Contrast last Thursday’s GOP food fight with Sunday’s feisty Democratic event.

The bloated Republican field tussled over who can cling more strongly to guns, whether Ted Cruz is an American citizen and how Donald Trump really, really loves “New York values” (whatever those are).

The candidates seemed eager to get in personal digs as often as possible. Recall Chris Christie’s retort when Marco Rubio tried to speak: “You already had your chance, Marco. You blew it.” Or Rubio’s critique of the Trump-Cruz feud as an “episode of Court TV.” How presidential.

Meanwhile, Ben Carson remained a non-entity in the campaign, and John Kasich said something serious that no one remembers.

In a rare adult-in-the-room comment, Jeb Bush properly rebuffed Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering America. “This policy,” he said, “is a policy that makes it impossible to build the coalition necessary to hit ISIS.”

Remember that moment? Probably not because Trump quickly shot back, “I want security for this country.” Score one for sound bite over solid public policy.

Three days later, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders took the stage to continue their surprisingly competitive battle for primary votes. (Yes, the well-meaning Martin O’Malley was on the stage, too. Enough said.)

As is usually the case, Clinton — a former secretary of state — flashed her comprehensive and superior knowledge of foreign policy issues, though she reminded some people of her vulnerabilities in that arena as well. She correctly criticized Sanders for voting “with the gun lobby numerous times” and pointed out that his newly unveiled single payer health care plan would go absolutely nowhere in Congress.

Sanders did provide clarity between some of his positions and Clinton’s. Sanders offered the appealing impression that he’d like to throw greedy big bankers in jail as part of Wall Street reforms, while Clinton has reaped millions of their dollars in speaking fees. Sanders had an effective attack line: “I don’t take money from big banks, I don’t get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs.”

Still, as his comments on health care and bankers show, Sanders the democratic socialist doesn’t live in this political moment’s real world of how U.S. policy can effectively get crafted.

For example, the better approach for a Democratic president working with a likely Republican-controlled Congress would be finding ways to make incremental fixes to the Affordable Care Act so millions more Americans can benefit from decent health care coverage.

That there’s even a discussion about health care initiatives among the Democrats is far better than the GOP scrum over the issue, which one can boil down to the tired and simplistic “repeal and replace.”

Clinton punctuated her performance with some forceful and much-needed outrage over the toxic-water scandal of Flint, Mich., the kind of real-life issue that her small-government, safety-net-averse GOP opponents haven’t come close to addressing.

Soon, voters are going to weigh in and make their choices, starting with the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1. Elections follow in New Hampshire on Feb. 9 and South Carolina on Feb. 20, and then a flood of voters troop to the polls on Super Tuesday, March 1. The Kansas caucus is March 5; the Missouri primary is March 15.

By that time, the 2016 presidential race likely will be a lot more settled. Or … one or both parties could have chaos on their hands and be headed toward a brokered national convention this summer.

Americans would benefit greatly if candidates would discuss their real differences on serious issues facing the country.

The juvenile posturing among the gaggle of Republican candidates may be great for TV ratings. But it’s not a good way to help people select someone who might be the next president of the United States.

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The Columbia Daily Tribune, Jan. 18

The next president

At their recent meeting, University of Missouri curators discussed at length the process they will use hiring the next system president. As usual, the first question was how public it will be. As usual, they decided on a “largely closed” procedure.

This means only the names of search committee finalists will be revealed.

The usual arguments were made. Full disclosure of all applicants’ names gives the public more information about potential presidents but might deter some who don’t want their current employers to know they are looking.

The advantages of full disclosure are obvious, the disadvantages not so much.

Universities that use an open process do not seem to suffer from full disclosure. Candidates applying for other jobs should let current employers know. Prospective employers should give credit to candidates who shoot straight with employers.

UM curators would not lose their best candidates if all applied publicly.

The curators are using a professional search firm. The most valuable service such firms bring is the ability of their principals to quietly solicit talented people who are not openly on the market. A good searcher has such contacts and often is able to make a match good for both sides. By the time the candidate is willing to apply, he or she will have cleared the deck with the current employer.

The UM process is typical of most such searches, but a more open process can be better, allowing the public to deliver more information to the board about prospects. Secrecy in the conduct of public business always has a downside that should be avoided except in the most limited circumstances. The personnel exemption in the state Sunshine Law is designed to protect individual employees but often is used instead to provide comfort for officialdom.

Having delivered my little sermon on the value of public disclosure, I now defer graciously to the curators as they perform the most important duty they have.

The past two UM presidents have come from business backgrounds. After a history of only considering prospects with academic backgrounds, under President Don Walsworth the board broke with tradition by hiring businessman Gary Forsee. The experience was positive enough to permit the choice of another businessman, Tim Wolfe, to succeed Forsee. Now the interim UM president, the highly regarded Mike Middleton, is from academe.

So, I think the matter has evolved to its proper and obvious dimension: A good university president can come from either business or the academy. If from business, he or she must have a deep appreciation and understanding of higher education. If from the academy, he or she must have good business instincts: effective large institution management and political skills.

Finding the right president is always a challenge for curators, perhaps even more so at this particular time than usual.

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Jefferson City News Tribune, Jan. 15

Government problem is our problem

Government, according to a recent Gallup poll, is the nation’s biggest problem.

And leaders of both major political parties recognize this.

During Tuesday’s State of the Union message, Democratic President Barack Obama said, “The rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better.” And, in a self-deprecating admission, he added: “There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide.”

In the Republican response, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said: “We as Republicans need to . recognize our contributions to the erosion of the public trust in America’s leadership. We need to accept that we’ve played a role in how and why our government is broken. And then we need to fix it.”

If everyone from polled Americans to the leaders we elect recognizes the problem, why does it persist? Can we, as Haley urges, fix it? And how do we do that?

Based on our observations of governments from municipal to federal, public rancor and anger at government seems to increase as government becomes larger, more bureaucratic and less approachable.

For example, Jefferson City Council members or Cole County commissioners may disagree on issues — and residents may disagree with local decisions — but disagreement rarely descends into personal animosity.

Perhaps because residents interact with their local officials at sporting events, grocery stores, etc., we share a recognition that everyone wants the best for the community, although we may have different ideas on how to achieve that.

As governing bodies expand to include a state or nation, however, the concept of what’s best becomes more diverse. Shared goals splinter into factional concerns, and communication and influence with a larger bureaucracy becomes more difficult. As a consequence, resentments, frustration and anger grow.

This sentiment is summed up in the axiom: “Everyone hates Congress but loves their congressman.”

The hatred, however, is tearing us apart.

Government is identified as the biggest problem among polled citizens, but we are the government.

A first step to “fix it” is to let go of resentments, frustration and anger. Government action is not a personal slight. We must recognize that as governments expand their constituencies to represent wider interests, no initiatives or decisions will satisfy everyone.

Consensus among the officials we elect signals agreement to try to improve overall conditions, not to worsen them.

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 18

Time for Missouri to get Real with ID security

When it comes to securing the nation from potential terrorist attacks, some Americans want it both ways. They demand high levels of security and want to hold President Barack Obama personally responsible for any domestic terrorist incidents that occur on his watch. Yet they are loath to embrace the personal sacrifices that such security entails. The bottom line: You can’t have it both ways.

Security comes at a price, whether it’s the humiliation of partially disrobing at airports or increased federal surveillance of phones and Internet communications. It’s all invasive and always disconcerting. And none of us will ever know whether these procedures are actually working because a terrorist attack thwarted or deterred by extra security measures is a nonevent. It’s only the successful attacks that prove where the holes exist in our security procedures. So there’s a natural tendency to push back and ask: Is all this hassle really necessary?

The issue now confronts Missourians head-on. In 2005, Congress passed the Real ID Act to ensure nationwide conformity with measures to prevent state-issued ID cards from being counterfeited or altered. The goal was to stop would-be terrorists from falsifying their identities to gain access to airliners or secure facilities. Congress passed the law, and then-President George W. Bush signed it, at a time when the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were still fresh on everyone’s mind.

Most states have complied with Real ID requirements or are transitioning toward compliance. Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington have refused. For years, that hasn’t been a problem, but now the deadline is approaching for mandatory compliance. We are two years away from a nightmare scenario in which travelers relying on Missouri or Illinois drivers licenses might not be able to enter federal buildings or board airplanes.

Officials at Lambert-St. Louis and Kansas City international airports say travelers should expect no sudden changes, and would receive at least four months’ notice before new restrictions apply. No one wants to push this issue to the point where Missourians have to carry passports just to board domestic flights.

Which means the Legislature must get off the dime. In 2009, lawmakers were in a cantankerous mood and determined that Real ID opened too many ways for the federal government to get into our business. They didn’t like the idea of federal computers storing birth certificate data, and they feared that Real ID was a first step toward creation of a national identification card. Gov. Jay Nixon signed a law banning Missouri from complying with the Real ID Act.

This gesture of legislative defiance now looks exceedingly reckless in retrospect. Mr. Nixon is calling for the law’s change so Missouri can begin updating its IDs with federally compliant watermarks, codes and seals. Two bills now pending in the Legislature would give Missourians the choice of having a compliant or noncompliant ID.

Far too much time has been wasted fighting a Quixotic battle against a perceived federal bogeyman. It’s time for Missouri to get right with federal law and update state IDs with modern security elements designed to keep us all safer. Otherwise, that plane’s going to leave without us.