There might be no job in politics more suited for a home economics major than Missouri governor. The Capitol needs a serious house-cleaning, and that's just for starters.

Have you seen the amount of food dished out daily in that place? Who bakes all that stuff? Who decides between Sterno or candles, paper plates or plastic? And how do you get the creases that straight when folding napkins?

We don't understand why Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Spence, a successful St. Louis businessman, would mislead the public about the true nature of his college degree, as the Post-Dispatch's Jake Wagman reported this week. Mr. Spence has been boasting of a degree in economics. Yes, but it's home economics from what Mizzou now grandly calls its College of Human Environmental Sciences.

Home ec these days is not just cupcakes and starched aprons, if it ever was. It's human and child development, nutrition, personal finance, textile management. Whatever Mr. Spence learned there he put to good use in building a plastic bottle company that made him a fortune.

Our advice: Embrace home ec. Tell the voters you not only can bring home the bacon, but fry it nice and crisp and serve it on Limoges china.