Category Archives: Local Elections

Missouri Spotlights

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The Kansas City Star ran an article about Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich who is running for Governor on the ‘Pub ticket. I’ve met him a few times, heard him speak and was generally impressed. However, if the Red Star’s quotes of him are accurate, I would have a hard time voting for him.

The article is written by Steve Kraske, a well-known rabid liberal who has, on occasion, fled far from the truth. Given his reputation, I’m accepting this article with a large grain of salt while I wait for Schweich to comment on it.

Tom Schweich is running against the Missouri GOP, but wants Republican votes

By STEVE KRASKE, The Kansas City Star, 02/02/2015 12:00 AM, Updated: 02/02/2015 6:00 AM

ANALYSIS

As Tom Schweich launches his bid for the 2016 GOP gubernatorial nomination, he’s doing so as an outspoken critic of much of what the Missouri Republican Party has become.

And yet, he needs GOP votes.

The party, Schweich says, is dominated by one man, the wealthy party benefactor Rex Sinquefield.

It’s beholden to other special interests, too, and has often not acted on behalf of the vast majority of Missourians.

Party leaders have flaunted ethics laws, Schweich insisted, and he reels off several examples. “It’s like Ethics 101,” he said during his quick stop in Kansas City last week when he rolled out his campaign.

They’ve threatened to go too far with tax cuts, and the GOP has picked up a reputation as a “mean party,” Schweich said.

“What I’m seeing from my party is not good,” he said.

Tough talk, to be sure. But is this the way to curry favor with his fellow Republicans?

Schweich is gambling that rank-and-file Republicans are fed up, too, and that he will contrast favorably with his GOP primary opponent, Catherine Hanaway, a former House speaker who has received more than $900,000 in donations from Sinquefield.

But these days, evidence that Republicans are frustrated is tough to find.

The GOP is sustaining record majorities in the General Assembly. They control six of eight congressional seats and believe they’ve got a great chance to pick up statewide seats in 2016.

And lawmakers report a dearth of phone calls from constituents when it comes to concerns over Sinquefield and the state’s standing as the only one in America that permits unlimited campaign donations and unlimited lobbyist gifts.

Still, when voters have been asked to crack down on lawmakers through term limits or low-dollar strict campaign donations, they’ve done so in overwhelming numbers.

And Schweich himself has taken big money from other mega GOP donors, including former Ambassador Sam Fox.

Schweich rightly points out that his job as state auditor presents a strong platform from which to base a gubernatorial candidacy. Example 1A is Claire McCaskill, now a two-term state senator. Schweich can talk a lot about rooting out inefficiency and corruption and cracking down on wayward city and county governments all over the state.

But last week, he kept coming back to a single theme, and that is the lost-in-the-wilderness modern-day Missouri Republican Party.

“I don’t like the direction the…party is going now,” he said.

Will his fellow Republicans agree?

By the end of the article, I’m a bit unsure who Kraske is attacking? Schweich, Sinquefield, Missouri’s open campaign contribution laws, or those nasty, mean, unrepentant republicans in general. Regardless, he has quotes from Schweich that if accurate, draws questions on Schweich’s run for Governor.

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Today is a big day for Right-to-Work advocates. They will be heading to Jeff City for a RTW hearing on HB 116, sponsored by Eric Burlison, R-Springfield, and HB 46, HB 47, HB 48, and HB 69, sponsored by Bill Lant, R-Pineville.

This year there is something new! Some democrats are talking about voting for or are sponsoring some Right-to-Work bills, too. One democrat, Representative Courtney Curtis, has sponsored such a bill, HB 582. It’s a soft bill, of course, but  it is still a loosening of the rigid, pro-Union stance democrats have held for nearly a century.

Is Democrats’ Big Tent Open To ‘Right To Work’ Legislation?

By

When it comes to having a “big tent” for its members, Missouri Democrats have talked the talk – and walked the walk. 

After all, the Missouri Democratic Party has included state lawmakers who vote against abortion rights and gun laws; such legislators have even run for state Senate and congressional seats. And the party appears poised to nominate for governor Attorney General Chris Koster, who opposes campaign donation limits.

But state Rep. Courtney Curtis may be testing his party’s permissiveness by sponsoring so-called “right to work” legislation for construction unions. Curtis says the bill is “drawing the line in the sand.”

“The question really is: Are we a big tent party or not?” Curtis, D-Berkeley, said in an interview. “If we are, then you know there is room for a person like me. But the reason I’m doing it is because one of the other tenets of the party is equality and fighting for it.”

Curtis introduced a bill and a constitutional amendment late last month that would, among other things, no longer make paying dues to a construction union a condition of employment. While it’s not unusual for lawmakers to propose “right to work” legislation, it is for a Democrat like Curtis to sponsor such a measure – especially since organized labor is such a mainstay in the Missouri Democratic Party.

Curtis’ bill appears to be an offshoot of the lingering frustration between African-American political leaders and labor unions in the St. Louis area. Last year saw fierce – and often hostile – battles on the St. Louis County Council over legislation to expand the availability of contracts to minorities and women.

During that debate, Councilwoman Hazel Erby, D-University City, and then-St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley contended it was difficult for African-Americans and women to break into the building trades. Curtis emphasized his bill is “not about spilt milk. It’s about opportunities going forward.” 

But he minced no words about the bill’s desired impact: “It would hopefully cripple the building trades.”

“It is a ‘right-to-work’ bill. But I’m calling it Workforce Opportunity Improvement,” Curtis said. For “minorities within the unions that aren’t getting a fair shake, (it) would give them better opportunities potentially. And for the individuals that are minorities outside of unions, it would give them better opportunities to participate in the workforce. They currently don’t have that.” The article continues at the web site.

As expected, the unions are all up in arms, especially the construction unions who have been so proliferate with their contributions to various democrat candidates. “Labor is up in arms about it. [Construction unions are] already starting their marketing campaign that if this happens to us, it’s going to happen to everybody else,” said a union spokesman.

Perhaps democrats, at least some of them, see the declining union membership numbers and realize that unions are fading slowly away and will soon follow those extinct species like the Dodo, Great Auk and the Giant Moa. It can’t happen too soon. Our economy can no longer support parasites like those unions have become.

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Today is Groundhog Day. “Punxsutawney Phil, the world’s most beloved and furry seasonal prognosticator, saw his shadow on Monday morning (despite overcast skies), portending six more weeks of winter, “ sayeth the Washington Post.

Let’s remember that Groundhogs are varmints and it’s open season on varmints.

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Hearts and Minds

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…is an old phrase made famous in the ’60s and ’70s. The concept was valid. However, the implementation left a lot to be desired. The phrase came to me today as I read an article in the American Thinker. Most of the nation is watching the candidates for federal office. But there are hundreds of other candidates running for local, county and state offices as well and the prognosis for THEM is more telling on the sensibilities of the country. The outlook for the dems is potentially worse than anyone thought.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/content/images//2014-10-16%20Senate%20Map%20(600).png

Center for Politics Projected Map of the 2014 general election

One clarification. When the article below speaks of chambers, it counts the state Houses and state Senates separately. One state, Nebraska, has a single-chamber legislature. Nebraska is also, by state law, non-partisan. That leaves 98 partisan legislative chambers.

State Legislatures and 2014

By Bruce Walker, October 19, 2014

Most of the midterm attention seems to be on control of the United States Senate, with some attention on key gubernatorial races like Florida and Wisconsin, and with a smidgen of notion to the size of the Republican House majority after 2014.  Most pundits see Republicans padding that current majority by some seats.

There is another level to the 2014 midterm that passes almost completely under the political radar:  control of state legislatures.  Twenty years ago, in the 1994 midterms, Republicans made dramatic gains in state legislatures – a vital part of our constitutional system, which had been utterly dominated by Democrats for a century.

How weak had Republicans been in state legislatures?

Consider these data.  After the 1980 Reagan landslide, Democrats held 74 of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers.  After the 1984 Reagan landslide, in which Democrats carried only one state, Democrats held 67 out of the 98 chambers.  After George H. Bush beat Dukakis in 1988, Democrats held 72 out of 98 chambers.  Even when Republicans were winning the White House easily, Democrats held overwhelming strength in state legislatures.

This really changed when Newt Gingrich nationalized the midterm election with his Contract With America, which swept Republicans into secondary statewide elective offices, like lieutenant governor and state attorney general, as well as state legislative seats.  After the 1994 midterms, Republicans held 46 of the 98 state legislative chambers; they held the same number after Clinton was re-elected in 1996.  This strength actually grew after the 1998 midterms, when Republicans were losing House seats, and grew again after the 2000 presidential election. 

That was a tipping point.  Democrats had long, and rather boastfully, gerrymandered congressional districts so that the number of Democrats in the House was significantly larger than the number of votes Democrat candidates in House races received.  In the reapportionment and redistricting after the 2000 census, Republicans, for the first time in a century, could stop Democrat gerrymandering and, in fact, gerrymander themselves.

Just as importantly, Republicans could now stop Democrat gerrymandering of state legislative districts and could, in fact, draw the district lines in state legislatures to maximize the number of seats Republicans would win.  This strategy proved so resilient that even after the 2008 election – after two straight elections of big Democrat gains – Democrats held only 62 of the state legislative chambers, five fewer than they held after the 1984 Reagan landslide.

Hidden in the congressional gains of the 2010 Republican landslide, the GOP controlled 59 state legislative chambers, far more than at any time in modern history, and as a direct consequence of that, Republican governors like Scott Walker were able to push through laws to limit public employee unions, reduce voter fraud, and protect the sanctity of life, among other conservative reforms.  

Because 2010, like 2000, was the election to choose state legislatures who would draw congressional and state legislative districts for the next decade, this Republican midterm gain was particularly important.  So even when Obama was re-elected in 2012, the congressional seats that had been drawn after the census largely by Republican state legislators elected a comfortable (albeit smaller) House Republican majority, and the state legislative districts drawn largely by Republicans gave the GOP 56 of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers – a slight drop, but far more than Republicans had ever held in the heyday of Reagan or Eisenhower, both of whom won two landslide presidential elections.

After the 2014 midterm, which looks increasingly like a Republican wave election that will bring victory to Republicans in state elections as well as Senate and House elections, that 56 state legislative chambers could grow – perhaps a lot.  The Democrat majority makes for just one vote in the Colorado Senate, Iowa Senate, Nevada Senate, and Washington Senate.  In other chambers, the Democrat majority could easily be swept away by a modest Republican tide: Colorado House, Maine Senate, Minnesota House, Minnesota Senate, Nevada House, New Mexico Senate, New Mexico House, New York Senate, Oregon House, Oregon Senate, Washington House, and West Virginia House. 

Depending upon the outcome of gubernatorial races, this could put Republicans in a position to actually control state government in sates like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Iowa.  These legislatures could pass and Republican governors sign new laws that rein in the political levies of public employee unions or create new and more effective ways to investigate and prosecute voter fraud.

No one is going to be talking about state legislative races on the Tuesday evening of this midterm, but the impact on politics and policies could be huge.

Liberal tyranny is spreading everywhere from Houston’s Mayor Annise Parker attempting to suppress religious speech to the city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, ordering two pastors to officiate same-sex marriages or face fines and/or imprisonment. These two examples of suppression of free religious speech is no different from Kansas City’s Mayor Sly James passing an ordinance banning the open carry of a weapon, “to send a message,” to open carry advocates. The purpose of the ordinance was, again, the suppression of free speech and expression.

In the end, all these acts by government are suppression of ‘unalienable’ and constitutional rights by leftist controlled governments. That is why gaining control of local and state governments is so important. Political rot starts at the top. Political recovery begins at the bottom.

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Wow! What a weekend.

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I had a real busy weekend. I had a real busy week. My shootin’ buddy and I spent Thursday at the range practicing for a pistol match coming up next month. Saturday night was a Friends of the NRA dinner and auction in H’ville. Then Sunday afternoon was the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance 25th Anniversary picnic.

I’m pretty much whooped.  Still…I’d do it again in a second.

***

The Kansas Senatorial race continues to be in the front of the news. I’ve had some friends ask me what the controversy is all about. It’s this, as briefly as I can explain.

There are (were) three candidates running for US Senator; Pat Roberts, the incumbent on the Republican Ticket, Chad Taylor on the democrat ticket, and Greg Orman, a democrat who the democrats wouldn’t let run against Taylor in the primary. Orman decided to run as an ‘independent.’ In reality, it’s two democrats running against one ‘Pub. Ordinarily, this would be a shoo-in for Roberts because Orman would split the democrat votes with Taylor.

Suddenly, the environment changed. Polls indicated that Orman was running better against Roberts than Taylor. To the democrats, this meant one of their candidates was a possible winner, especially since Roberts pissed off much of the grass-roots conservatives who had backed Milton Wolf. A significant percentage of those Wolf supporters declared they would either vote for Orman or stay home.

The democrats were now in a dilemma. Orman, a democrat in an independent’s costume, was ahead of Taylor. They decided to have Taylor quit. That would allow the democrats to vote for Orman instead of splitting their votes between the two democrat candidates.

The Kansas democrat leaders forced Chad Taylor to quit.

After a series of legal shenanigans, with the aid of their left-leaning KS Supreme Court, they got Taylor off the ticket. Bad news for Roberts. But Orman isn’t the clean-cut, scandal-free candidate the democrats and he projects. He is being sued for failure to pay royalties to another company for the use of their patented technology.

The establishment ‘Pubs are rallying around Roberts and Orman is facing more scrutiny from the national press. Surprise, surprise! Orman is keeping closed-mouth about what his political views?

Greg Orman, a political enigma, faces growing scrutiny in Kansas Senate race

By Philip Rucker September 28 at 8:53 PM

WICHITA — Greg Orman, the upstart Senate candidate threatening to unseat longtime Republican incumbent Pat Roberts in Kansas, says it’s liberating to run as an independent: “I can go to Washington as a problem solver, not a partisan.”

But not having a party also liberates Orman from taking positions — especially on controversial issues that might alienate partisans.

Greenlight the Keystone XL pipeline? Orman said he doesn’t have enough information to say yes or no.

What about gun control? He said gun restrictions should be “strengthened” but would not specify whether he backs an assault-weapons ban.

And on the biggest question of all — Would he caucus with Democrats or Republicans? — Orman insists he’s not sure.

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, left, and independent candidate Greg Orman talk after a debate at the Kansas State Fair Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, in Hutchinson, Kansas. (Charlie Riedel/AP)

“It’s not in the best interests for us to say that,” Orman said in an interview here last week.

Orman has said he would caucus with whichever party has the majority after November’s midterm elections. But what if the Senate is evenly divided and Orman’s decision swings the balance? He said that would be “a wonderful opportunity for Kansas.”

Orman’s rise has transformed deep-red Kansas into the year’s unlikeliest political battleground. Many voters say Roberts has lost touch with the state he’s represented in Congress since 1981.

Since Democratic nominee Chad Taylor withdrew his name from the ballot this month, Roberts has been in a two-man race with Orman, who has previous ties to the Democratic Party but preaches independence. Public polling has been unreliable, but both sides believe the race is very tight.

Orman, who entered the race in June, has surged on the strength of his pitch to fix a broken Washington without any allegiance to a political party. But now the enigma is under increasing pressure from voters to provide a clearer sense of his ideology and politics, while facing attacks from the Roberts camp over his business ties and Democratic past.

“I’ve been impressed with Greg so far, but we’re still in the ‘I’m an independent’ stage,” said Lynda Neff, 68, a retired teacher. “I’m ready to move past that and hear about some issues. . . . I will support him if he gives me a little more information.”

Perhaps the biggest test for Orman, a multi­millionaire investor who is partially funding his campaign, is surviving the intensifying public scrutiny of his business and personal relationships with Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs board member who was convicted in 2012 of insider trading and is serving a federal prison sentence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dre/politics/election-lab-2014

Election Lab: See our current forecast for every congressional race in 2014.

View Graphic

Roberts and his Republican allies have launched a barrage of attacks designed to make Orman appear untrustworthy. On the campaign trail in Kansas last week, a parade of top Republicans alleged that Orman is a liberal Democrat in disguise.

“Anybody with a liberal record like Greg’s . . . that’s not independence. That’s someone who’s trying to snooker you, Kansas,” Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee, said Thursday in Independence.

Palin’s 2008 running mate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), told voters a day earlier in suburban Overland Park: “Let’s be honest — he’s a Democrat. He walks like a duck and he quacks like a duck and he is a duck.”

Robert J. Dole, a former Senate Republican leader and 91-year-old Kansas legend, said Monday night in Dodge City, “There’s a multimillionaire who claims he’s an independent, but really [he’s] in the other party.”

In Kinsley on Tuesday, after reporters asked whether he trusted Orman to govern as an independent, Roberts said, “All of a sudden, if there’s a metamorphosis and the caterpillar changed — why, I just don’t think that’s in the cards.”

Orman argues that the Republicans are reading him wrong. He said he voted for Obama in 2008, and public records show that in the middle of that decade he made donations mostly to Democrats, including Obama and Sen. Al ­Franken (Minn.). In 2008, he briefly ran for Senate against Roberts as a Democrat before dropping out.

The column by the Washington Post is long. You can read it completely on their website.

I was surprised that the Washington Post says the new Senate will be ‘Pub controlled, 62 to 48 given their history of biased reporting. Joni Ernst now leads Braley, 44 percent to 38 percent. Most of the polling over the last month or more has Ernst in the lead but the MSM claimed otherwise and called Iowa a ‘leaning blue’ state.

Des Moines Register: “The ground under Bruce Braley has shifted. The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate is 6 points behind his GOP rival, Joni Ernst, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll of likely voters. Ernst leads 44 percent to 38 percent in a race that has for months been considered deadlocked…. One potential reason: Two-thirds of likely voters who live in the country are bothered by a remark he made about Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley that’s been perceived as besmirching farmers.”

Braley should have known that dissing farmers in Iowa is not a career-enhancing tactic.

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Payback

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The Kansas Senate race continues. Pat Roberts is running behind Greg Orman in the polls. Orman has not declared, if he wins, which party he will caucus. In the Senate, one seat could make a critical difference.

A new factor has appeared, Milton Wolf, Roberts’ primary opponent. Rumors are flying that Wolf may endorse Orman in return for Orman’s commitment to caucus with the ‘Pubs.

FOX News reports…

WOLF LOOKING FOR REVENGE WITH ORMAN
Milton Wolf, who lost tough primary battle with Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, may dish out some political payback by endorsing Roberts’ general election opponent, Greg Orman in the key Kansas Senate race. As Wolf weighs the move sources tell Politico, “[T]here’s a big catch: To win Wolf’s endorsement, Orman must first agree to caucus with the Senate GOP if he were to defeat Roberts…The two men were scheduled to meet Friday afternoon at Orman’s house in Olathe, Kansas., just outside of Kansas City, according to two people familiar with the matter. One person said Orman’s team sought the meeting but there was no ask for an endorsement. Another source said the meeting may be canceled now that the media have caught wind of it…An endorsement could provoke some sharp GOP backlash for Wolf, too. As Roberts has slipped in the polls, the GOP has made a furious push to showcase a united front behind his candidacy.” — FOX Newsletter, September 26, 2014.

Add to this situation, Roberts’ residency problems have just grown worse. The Topeka Capitol Journal has uncovered documents where Roberts purchased a home in Virginia whose sale included the statement that the Virginia home was his ‘primary’ residence.

I’m not a Kansas resident, but in my opinion, Pat Roberts is toast. He can retire to his ‘Ol’ Virginny Home!’

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On the Missouri side…

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I wrote about Jay Nixon’s fiasco last week. His handling of the Ferguson shooting was incredibly inept. I’m being kind with that description. Some of his fellow democrats were not pleased either.

FERGUSON — ‘Black legislators air frustrations in meeting with Gov. Nixon in St. Louis County,’ St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Members of the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus used a meeting Sunday with Gov. Jay Nixon to vent over the investigation into the Aug. 9 shooting death of an unarmed Ferguson teenager. The meeting Sunday afternoon at the University of Missouri-St. Louis was closed to the public and reporters, but some legislators said they repeated calls for an indictment of Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson and for Nixon to remove St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch from the case. “He’s pretending he cares,” said Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, who walked out of the meeting after about 10 minutes. “It’s a waste of time. He’s doing this to look good.” — PolitocMO Newssletter, August 26, 2014.

Nixon told the St. Louis Post Dispatch that he would be attending Michael Brown’s funeral. A space was reserved for him. But, come the funeral, Jay Nixon was missing.

Nixon told the Post Dispatch on Sunday that he would be attending Michael Brown’s funeral yesterday. He had a place marked for him at the church where the funeral took place, but was not in attendance. Per spokesman Scott Holste: “The Governor has communicated to attorneys representing the family of Michael Brown that he will not be attending today’s funeral out of respect for the family, who deserve time to focus on remembering Michael and grieving their loss.” — St. Louis Today.

Every one seems to be jumping on Jay Nixon. I can’t think of a better person to be receiving all this negative attention.

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Last week, by state law, democrats and republicans met to ‘reorganize.’ By reorganize, I mean all the Precinct Committeemen and Committeewomen elected in the primary on August 5th, met to choose committee officers for the next two years.

Each county has a party central committee. What I didn’t know until last week is that each House and Senate districts also have committee each with a set of officers. The county central committees choose a Chairman, Vice-chairman, Treasurer and Secretary for the House District committee. The House District Chair and Vice-Chair are automatically members of the Senatorial District Committee.

What is the purpose of these committees? Basically, to choose candidates for office in case of a vacancy. For example, a couple of years ago, the Cass County Presiding Commissioner was deemed ineligible for office. The county central committee chose a candidate to run for office and that candidate won a special election a couple of months later. The committees also sent recommendations to the Governor when an appointment to fill a vacant term is needed.

The House district committee serves the same function if the state Representative position falls vacant for whatever reason. In such an occurance, the district committee would choose a candidate for the position.

The Senate district is slightly different. Its members are the two Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of all the House districts that fall within the Senatorial district. They choose a candidate for the state Senate seat if case of a vacancy. Plus—they also choose members of the state central committee. The House and Senatorial committees may have more functions than I have described, but those are the ones pertinent to today’s discussion.

Why am I going into all this detail? Because of what is happening in one House and Senatorial district.

TROUBLE BREWING IN STATE GOP? — ‘Local leader in GOP faces issue for post,’ Joplin Globe: “A longtime Southwest Missouri conservative activist has hit a bump in the road after his three decades of involvement within the inner workings of the Missouri Republican Party. The eligibility of ballots submitted by Carthage-area resident John Putnam, former chairman of the Jasper County Republican Central Committee, in his two-way race to become chairman of the 127th House District Republican Committee has been questioned. The issue arose after Putnam narrowly defeated Dade County resident Bob Jackson in a 15-14 vote last week. … 
“Putnam, a tea party activist who is well-known throughout the state, has not been shy about his concerns with the so-called party establishment. He backed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin until the end of the tumultuous 2012 campaign, and he has taken criticism directly to Republicans who he thinks are too flimsy on their beliefs. The night before the 127th District Republican Committee chairman election, during remarks to the Jasper County Republican Central Committee, Putnam criticized U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., for what he said was Blunt’s support of Mississippi Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in his heated primary against tea party favorite Chris McDaniel. … 
“‘’Roy Blunt has divided the Republican Party before, and I can’t support him in the Senate race next time, and I do think that has some bearing on what’s happening now,’ Putnam said in an interview. Missouri Republican Party Chairman Ed Martin has called for the Republican National Committee to investigate the Mississippi Senate race. He has said the runoff election there included “racially charged” television ads opposing McDaniel that should not be tolerated by the Republican Party. That episode solidified the distrust between Martin — and Martin’s supporters, like Putnam — and the so-called Republican establishment. Putnam said, ‘They can read the tea leaves: If I’m the chairman of the district, I’m going to vote for a state committeeman and woman that will support Ed Martin in his re-election.’” — PoliticMO Newsletter, August 26, 2014 and The Joplin Globe.

If Putnam’s election to the House District is upheld, he will automatically be a member of his Senatorial committee…and possibly be selected as a member for the state central committee.

Roy Blunt is well known in ‘Pub politics as being an establishment butt-boy. His endorsement and contribution to Thad Cochran’s campaign, in opposition to Missouri’s GOP State Chairman Ed Martin, broadened the schism between party conservatives and the Washington (and state) establishment. Ed Martin was elected State GOP Chairman with the backing of the Tea Party and other grassroots activists as an anti-establishment candidate. The question upcoming is whether he will retain his position after the new crop of state GOP committeemen are chosen.

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Extinction Event

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Today’s post title is taken from a story that appeared this morning about an endangered species—coal-country democrats. At one time, the United Mine Workers of America owned coal-country and through the UMWA, so did democrats. In a recent blog post, I remembered the first time I voted in an election. I didn’t know at the time I was voting illegally. I do remember my father reluctantly indicating that I should follow the order of the union official at the polling place.

Times have changed. Democrat policies since Roosevelt and LBJ have taken their toll. The federal government is horrifically in debt. Personal liberty is a shadow of that possessed in past decades. Our military has been infiltrated by incompetents and political sycophants elevated not for their military skills but for their political allegiance.

But the changes have not all been towards socialism and political tyranny. There have been casualties on the left. In West Virginia, coal-country democrat office-holders are now extinct and that’s a good thing. The struggle between right and left, democrat and republican, communism and individualism continues. What happened in West Virginia could spread to coal-country in other states.

Another Species Has Gone Extinct

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  August 20th, 2014 at 04:30 AM

My most frustrating moments on CNN were during the course of 2009 and early 2010 special elections. In several cases they went to the Democrats. The liberal on with me would make a passionate case that this was a harbinger of future Democratic successes in 2010 and I would be forced to point out that special elections are rarely harbingers of anything.

That is true.

What is also true is that last night in Virginia an endangered species went extinct due to a special election. That would be the coal country Democrats. Last night brought to an end the tenure of all coal country Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly.

What is also interesting is that the GOP turned out in Northern Virginia last night that they did in the gubernatorial race in 2009. Again, I remain skeptical of the results of special elections. But with so much on the line for the Democrats in Virginia, including control of the Virginia State Senate, they fell short. Virginia probably will not now expand Obamacare. Virginia probably will not now see taxes go up.

And though special elections are a different breed, the trend is remarkably consistent since 2010 — Democrats in coal producing areas are going extinct. They simply no longer exist. And the irony is that this is a direct result of Democrat policies.

In the article above, Eric Erickson said that special elections do not make a trend. That is true, we’ve seen that all too often. It is possible that some coal-country democrat could be resurrected in a future election. However, the longer democrats rule the federal government, the less likely that will happen. Democrats are their own worse enemy.

 

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Da-Dump!

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Da-Dump? That the sound of someone being tossed under the bus and the wheels pass over the body. Anyone close to DC should be familiar with the sound, it’s happened enough around the White House.

It is now being heard elsewhere, Hawaii for instance. In this case it is a long-time democrat pol being thrown under the bus during a primary election. The democrat establishment candidate for US Senator is losing in the primary by 1,600 votes. Two precincts weren’t able to vote due to storms that knocked out power and blocked roads. Those two precincts will vote today, despite an attempt to postpone voting to give her more time to deluge the two precincts with last minute campaigning. The Judge wouldn’t play along.

Da-dump!

DECISION DAY IN HEATED HAWAII VOTE
Pacific Business News: “A Hawaii judge on Thursday rejected a request by U.S. Rep. and Senate candidate Colleen Hanabusa [D-Hawaii] to delay opening the polls on Friday in the areas of the Big Island where voters were unable to vote in the primary election because of Tropical Storm Iselle. Hanabusa, who trails U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz [D-Hawaii] by 1,635 votes in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, had filed for a temporary restraining order Wednesday in the 3rd Circuit Court in Hilo, seeking to stop the state Office of Elections from holding the election Friday for the two precincts in Puna that were unable to vote in Saturday’s primary because of power outages and blocked roads caused by the storm the day before. … 3rd Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura rejected Hanabusa’s argument and ruled that the election should proceed as planned.” Polls close at midnight (ET). — FOXNewsletter, August 15, 2014.

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http://www.rushimg.com/cimages//media/images/obamahillarypix/1290729-1-eng-GB/ObamaHillaryPIX.jpgA number of recent news stories have been circulating this last week with a common theme: the US has no foreign policy. If there is one, it must be, “let’s wait and see what happens?” That lack was covered yesterday on Rush and other news sites. Hillary is jumping in as well trying to distance herself saying that the White House made policy and she was just the powerless front man. No one believes her, either.

Clinton versus Obama on Syria and foreign policy

By: streiff (Diary)  |  August 14th, 2014 at 03:00 PM

The kerfuffle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is all in the news right now. Clinton, who sees her coronation as Democrat presidential candidate for the 2016 as a done deal, is trying to establish some daylight between herself and her former boss on foreign policy. There is a good reason for that. Other than coasting through 2009 with an “I’m not George Bush” strategy (which we’re seeing play out in the long run as a “I’m an incompetent boob”) this administration has had no identifiable foreign policy. For a while it seemed to embrace the feel-good but impractical Responsibility to Protect doctrine. This was abandoned before the first Syrian chemical attack and since that time the administration simply staggered from one crisis to the next failure.

The conflict comes from an interview Clinton gave The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg titled Hillary Clinton: ‘Failure’ to Help Syrian Rebels Led to the Rise of ISIS. It is unusual not because of any insights we gain into what passes for foreign policy in the Age of Obama but we see a secretary of state disavowing herself from the foreign policy she formulated and carried out. The key pull quotes follow:

Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the “failure” that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising.

“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton said.

As she writes in her memoir of her State Department years, Hard Choices, she was an inside-the-administration advocate of doing more to help the Syrian rebellion. Now, her supporters argue, her position has been vindicated by recent events.

…

…At one point, I mentioned the slogan President Obama recently coined to describe his foreign-policy doctrine: “Don’t do stupid shit” (an expression often rendered as “Don’t do stupid stuff” in less-than-private encounters).

This is what Clinton said about Obama’s slogan: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

When one looks at the record one is strained to conceive how what Clinton says in the interview actually differs from her actions. In fact, her concern that aiding the Syrian opposition could result in arming al Qaeda was, and is, spot on. In fact, by September 2013 it was being reported that Syrian opposition fighters were rallying to the al Qaeda because the al Qaeda were actually fighting.

The real problem on this is that the only source we have for this disagreement in policy on Syria between Obama and Clinton is that it is based on alleged “behind the scenes” discussions, they are non-falsifiable. The non-falsifiable nature of Clinton’s assertions are further complicated by the fact that both principles and their inner circles are enthusiastic and inveterate liars. All things considered, it is difficult to see how arming any of the opposition groups earlier and more aggressively would have produced a better or different outcome. The other alternative is that Clinton means by “ help build up a credible fighting force” a significant US military presence to bolster our chosen faction. That idea, in the context of Obama facing an election in 2012, is so farfetched as to not merit discussion.

The column continues at the website. In essence, Hillary is blaming Obama for the lack of policy while Obama continues to blame, “the previous administration.” Both Hillary and Obama created our current mess, both were/are incompetent, and both are equally culpable. It’s laughable seeing the two trying to throw others; Hillary, in particular, throwing Obama under the bus.

Da-dump!

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In closing, I present this little positive item, off topic, Phyllis Schlafly is 90.

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