When President Bush addressed the National Urban League recently, he spotted Al Sharpton, one of the also-rans in the Democratic presidential nomination contest, and commented on the difficulties of political candidacy.

“It’s hard, isn’t it, Al?”

Hard? More like excruciating.

True, public office offers glory and prestige to those who gain it. But if some egos are stroked in the process, others are scarred.

This week in Olympia, in Spokane and in 38 other county seats in Washington, citizens stepped forward to file as candidates for public offices ranging from governor and seats in Congress to judgeships and county offices. By announcing their aspirations to serve, they invited the rigors and sacrifices of campaigning and public life.

Some of the candidates are seasoned incumbents. Some are first-timers. All are agreeing, whether they realize it yet or not, to expose themselves to intense public scrutiny. They and their families will learn what it’s like to have their pasts, their finances, their opinions, their abilities and their motives dissected and analyzed by critics. Most of them will surrender the majority of their privacy and free time. Their lives will be consumed by fund raising, doorbelling, handshaking, debating and interviewing. They will lie in bed at night trying to relax their smile muscles before lapsing into fitful dreams of campaign missteps.

They will stand in the spotlight, alone mostly, suggesting and defending their ideas and justifying their worthiness to run other people’s lives. Some of those other people will declare in the shrillest of terms how empty-headed the candidate’s proposals are.

By election day, win or lose, they may well find themselves physically and emotionally on empty. In some cases, they will have increased their debts and tested the ability of their personal relationships to endure political tensions.

There is more to political campaigning than standing under an election-night cascade of balloons and confetti, grinning, waving to supporters and hugging loved ones, describing to reporters how your vision for the community will unfold now that you have the office and the resources to make it happen. Winners may savor the intoxication of victory, but losers nurse a hangover called rejection.

Admittedly, this pessimistic scenario is an exaggeration in some cases, but a jolting reality in others. It’s something to keep in mind the further this community and the nation move into the campaign period.

With good reason, many people deplore the mean-spirited, cynical tone that seems to dominate political conversation these days. Citizens say they long for constructive discussions about issues, for honest evaluation of competing solutions. They disapprove of candidates who sink to the lower path with attack ads and personal innuendo.

There is a challenge for all of us. For candidates, to make their cases vigorously and honestly, but to stay focused on issues. For the voters, to insist on political discourse that is meaningful and relevant and to refuse to submit to the appeal of anything less.

“Government,” writes historian Garry Wills, “is a necessary good, not a necessary evil; and what is evil in it cannot be identified and eliminated from the good if the very existence of the good is being denied at every level.”