ith the presidential primary calendar earlier than ever, most of the candidates were campaigning in New Hampshire last Thursday when President Clinton delivered his final State of the Union address. It was not an encouraging contrast.
While Clinton's speech was far longer than the shrinking attention span of many Americans, it was on target in returning time and again to fundamental issues that will shape the nation and the world well into the century. It set ambitious goals and proposed concrete steps toward many of them.
The presidential candidates as a group have said less in a year than Clinton did in 89 minutes.
This surely is one reason a great many Granite Staters - perhaps even more than usual - are still undecided only days before their primary, a trend described by polls and confirmed by interviews. Voters are listening attentively to these candidates but yearning for something more.
Clinton on Thursday night seemed to have it. His ''bridge to the 21st century'' is pure rhetorical flourish, but he backs it up with solid proposals on education, job training, Social Security, and Medicare - all couched in a strategy to carry this generation into an unknown era as safely and productively as possible.
The presidential candidates, by contrast, offer remedies that are timid, incremental, and seem designed not to inspire but to avoid offending. For boldness, the 1992 campaign was better. Rarely do the candidates of either party betray any recognition that the nation and the world are indeed at an extraordinary pivot point in history, with economies and international relations all linked more closely than ever and changing with ever-redoubling rapidity.
The opportunities - and threats - of this new, fast-changing world should be an underlying theme of this year's campaign. There is still time for the candidates to articulate ambitious, far-sighted goals, attracting votes in New Hampshire and around the country.
