Oh, Great. More Bulls in Politics.

By PAUL GRAY/

In one of their wearier metaphors, commentators often talk of a politician's stock rising or falling during a campaign; at the Iowa City campus of the University of Iowa, politicians' stocks are actually rising and falling. Four faculty members -- three economists and a political scientist -- have opened a computer-driven stock market in which the only two issues available are Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and his Republican challenger Tom Tauke. (Because the university draws students from neighboring Illinois, shares in Paul Simon and his G.O.P. opponent Lynn Martin will soon be available.) Investors can buy a bundled issue, a minimum of one share each in Harkin and Tauke, for $2. Or they can go into the open market and buy shares in either candidate; at the moment, Harkin is trading at $1.20 and Tauke at 80 cents. Do these price fluctuations have any bearing on the November outcome? The same faculty group set up a market for the 1988 presidential race; the day before the election, prices indicated a preference for Bush shares by a margin of 7.6% -- almost exactly his edge in the nationwide popular vote.

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS