December 26, 1982

HARTFORD LONG after the counting of the votes, the financial accountings for the Nov. 2 election campaigns are piling up this month in filing cabinets at the Secretary of the State's office, and they contain some common themes - record spending and several cases of leftover debts. The cost of running for office in Connecticut increased substantially for the major offices at stake in the election, and an analysis of the final campaign-spending reports of the candidates showed the following: - In most cases, the candidate who spent the most money won the election. - Some of the largest increases in campaign spending occurred in the races for the United States House of Representatives, with the major candidates in the state's six Congressional districts spending an average of $245,000 each, compared with only $142,000 two years ago. - Political action committees of business and labor groups provided significant portions of the total contributions to candidates for Federal offices.

Q. During the recent battle over your budget for 1983, you announced that you planned to run for re-election in 1985. Wasn't that a little early for that kind of political decision? A. Well, there was a lot of speculation that I had been offered jobs in private industry, and some of it was probably true. Some top leaders of the party apparently got wind of the fact that I had an offering. So, rather than have speculation and have people looking for something that might not exist, I felt it was the smart thing and the right thing to say that I would run again in 1985.

BACK in the mid-1970's, the fledging Quick & Reilly Inc., one of the pioneers of the discount brokerage business, had few friends on Wall Street. Quick & Dirty, it was called by a Wall Street fearful of its rock bottom rates - nearly 50 percent below what the big firms charged to buy and sell stocks. But that view has changed as Quick & Reilly has flourished. ''Now they tell me they admire my father,'' said Leslie Quick 3d, the 29-year-old son of co-founder Leslie C. Quick Jr. ''The same people who didn't think we would be anything now tell me: 'If I had only done it myself.' '' Discount brokers, once the scourge of Wall Street, have come of age. Giant banks - BankAmerica, Citicorp and Chemical Bank - are moving into the discount brokerage business, and in just a few weeks Los Angeles-based Security Pacific National Bank will begin marketing a cut-rate brokerage service that will enable corner banks across the country to execute stock trades for their customers. Many of the discounters themselves, flush with profits from the huge trading volume generated by the bull market, have grown from simple ordertakers to sophisticated multi-branch houses offering a variety of financial products.

In a long analysis of the Soviet economy, the Central Intelligence Agency says the Soviet gross national product has grown at an annual rate of 4.8 percent, in Western terms, over the last three decades. But it adds that in recent years the increase has dropped to less than 3 percent a year because of poor harvests. The 401-page study was released today by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, which had commissioned it. Representative Henry S. Reuss, Democrat of Wisconsin, the committee chairman, said, ''This important study helps put into perspective for Americans the fact that the U.S.S.R., far from being on the verge of collapse, has experienced major growth.''

American multinationals working in Europe can breath half a sigh of relief--Vredeling is going to be emasculated. Probably. For years, the European left has been trying to write into the Common Market law a requirement, known as the Vredeling Amendment, that large companies must make public more information about their activities and plans, and must consult with their workers before introducing major changes in the way they do business. Big business and the political parties of the right have been bitterly opposed. And now, Vredeling's enemies have won a major victory. By a comfortable majority, the European Parliament has adopted a new version of the amendment, carefully tailored by the conservative parties to satisfy the demands of business. Only Socialist and Communist members voted nay.