After 10 years of being shipwrecked, storm-tossed and nearly eaten by a cyclops, Ulysses was so bone-weary of sailing he threw an oar over his shoulder, turned his back on the beach and set out to find a place so far from the sea that people would have to ask him what he was carrying.
OK, so it's a myth. But sometimes I feel the same way about politics.
There are days when I'd like to put a poster-sized picture of Newt Gingrich over my shoulder, head for the beach and keep walking until I meet someone who asks, ''Who dat?''
I would reply, ''It's Newticarus, whose wax wings melted when he flew too close to the TV lights.''
I would tell the tale of President Slickachilles, who was dipped in Whitewater by the back of one foot to protect him from the sharp arrows of criticism when he acts like a heel.
And brave Bob Doleysses, who won the Trojan War but spent so many years wrestling with serpent-headed senators that he was mistaken for a beggar when he finally tried to claim his kingdom.
I wouldn't have to walk far to find people who wouldn't know a Newt from an oar, whose lives are so distant from the lapping shores of politics that the 1996 campaigns are pure mythology from a distant, duller Mount Olympus.
Unconcerned citizens are around every corner in every neighborhood. They may glance up at the stray thunderbolts in campaign commercials sometime after Labor Day - just long enough to pick a winner. Or they might just change the channel and not even vote.
''What difference does it make?'' they ask.
This year, I've been tempted to ask the same question. Looking over the campaign of 1996, even political Popeyes feel shipwrecked and storm-tossed by the gods in both parties.
What irony to watch the Democrats abandon any shred of principle to prop up, cover up and clean up for a slippery president who has won office by perfecting what his party has been doing since it ran out of cards in the New Deal deck: Promise anything to please everyone.
And Republicans are a Greek tragedy. The historic victory of 1994, won by so many young new candidates with fresh ideas, is now clutched tightly in the frail hands of the last standing survivor of the old-growth Republican forest - a gnarled oak with roots twisted deep in Senate bedrock, and tree rings that were formed before Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic.
The unbreakable law of the Republican Party is ''Wait Your Turn'' - even if giving Bob Dole his turn will turn away voters and stop the ''revolution'' before it gets started.
Some choice.
If there were real truth in advertising, the Democrats' slogan this year would be: ''The party that stands for anything stands for nothing.''
Republicans are ''The party where anything CAN'T happen.''
With my toes burrowed into beach sand, watching white clouds sail in an deep-blue sky over turquoise waters, I spent whole minutes of my two-week vacation dreaming of a nail-chewing open convention that throws Bob Dole overboard and turns to someone like Colin Powell, even George Bush. Then I woke up.
But I could see clearly how so many people have been stranded on the far shore, so bored by the dead-calm predictable that they know little about Bob Dole and care even less.
I know how they feel. The clouds still float by, the waves pound the sand, the sun rises in a rosy-fingered dawn and life goes on without TV, newspapers or acres of newsprint predicting the end of civilization over punctuation marks in public policy.
So, what difference does it make?
Oceans. The most important choices we make are the toughest ones. It's the easy ones that don't count.
And, as Newt Gingrich says below, this one will determine the direction our country over the next four years. It also will determine the standards we set for our leaders - and ourselves.
It's a classic battle over age, character, taxes, abortion, honesty, philosophy of government, the past and the future. It's no less than a moral decision.
So, I'm not putting an oar over my shoulder. Instead, I'm heading for the Trojan War of 1996, the Republican Convention in San Diego.
Along with about 14,999 other mediacrats, I want to be there to see if Bob Dole can still string his bow and say, like Ulysses, ''I was once a soldier, and there is still some strength in these old limbs of mine.''
Or will he turn his back on the wine-dark sea of politics and walk away, carrying his World War II medals until he comes to a place where nobody knows what they mean?
I want to watch this Odyssey, listen to the myths and write about them like that heroic reporter Homer. Anyone who misses the boat could miss a lot.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
Dateline: San Diego
Enquirer Editorial Page Editor Peter Bronson and Editorial Cartoonist Jim Borgman will cover this week's Republican national convention in San Diego. Look for their reports on The Enquirer's Opinion pages this week.
