Our loss in the tragedy of the Carnahan crash

Off the Editor’s Spike by Darryl Wilkinson

This has been a sad week. Our flags were flying at half mast to memorialize the sailors murdered while serving aboard the USS Cole in the Middle East. Now we add the sorrow of losing Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, who perished along with his son and a friend in an airplane crash Monday in Jefferson County.

Mel Carnahan was one governor who remembered that part of this great state lies north of the Missouri River. He was one of the few governors to visit Daviess County while in office, touring Landmark Manufacturing to direct focus on economic development. Most, including those who politically opposed him, acknowledge Carnahan as one who conducted the office of Governor with dignity.

My personal acquaintance with the governor was during his invitation to Northwest Missouri Press publishers to dine at the mansion several years ago. It was an informal luncheon, and by chance I wound up seated at the same table with the governor. I realize that such an affair equates with any politician who makes the effort to knock on your door just to shake hands. But what impressed me was how we disagreed on the Hancock Amendment, at that time still to be voted, and that the governor listened more than he talked.

William L. Miller Sr., publisher of The (Washington) Missourian and current president of Missouri Press Association, must feel likewise. Mr. Miller says he admired Carnahan’s openness with the news media. “He was always respectful, open, and straightforward in his answers. I never saw him dodge a question.

“He understood the role of community newspapers,” says Miller, “because he came from a small town. He was very sincere in getting his message out to the people through newspapers. His accessibility to newspapers is something we didn’t always find with other governors.”

This puts Carnahan in stark contrast to other politicians, such as Dick Cheney, especially when you consider how Cheney managed and censored information during the Gulf War. And, yes, I realize the big difference between public information in a state capitol and information released publicly during a shooting war. My point is only that some politicians conduct business as a public trust, others more like “just trust me.”

Carnahan was in the middle of his biggest political war. At his age, this election was quite likely his last. This little country newspaper office has been overwhelmed with countless political messages sent by fax, e-mail and regular mail. Many if not most have focused on the Carnahan-Ashcroft race. If we’re getting that much attention (when our scope is so narrowly local), we can only guess how much effort was going into this particular race statewide.

No doubt campaign pressure pushed the Carnahans and Mr. Sifford into that airplane despite the storm, in hopes of making a political rally in south Missouri. Thus, it seems particularly appropriate that many candidates involved in the Nov. 7 election have suspended campaign activities out of respect for the Carnahan and Sifford families.

If you’re like me, you wonder why anybody would consider entering the murky swirls of politics. I admire Carnahan’s reasoning. He once replied that he was most inspired by the words of Adlai Stevenson II. “As a youth,” Carnahan said, “I remember Stevenson saying public service was a high calling and urging young people to get involved. I am still enough of an idealist to believe he was right.”

News of the death of Gov. Carnahan prompted a flashback to 1976 when another plane crash took the life of another Missouri leader, Congressman Jerry Litton. I’ve heard many people say this. Like Carnahan, Litton was a candidate for the U.S. Senate when he died.

Litton died knowing he won his election. Unfortunately, for him as well as for us, Carnahan died with the election question unanswered.