2010 Missouri Primaries Preview

Since I live in Illinois, these are votes I would cast if I lived in MO and the relevant jurisdiction. Election Day is August 3.

SENATE-R: Roy “Bugs Bunny” Blunt vs Chuck “Buster Brown” Purgason.  Roy Blunt holds MO-7 (Southwest MO) in the House.  At one point in early 2006, it was a two-man race between Blunt and John Shadegg (R-AZ) to replace Tom DeLay as Majority Leader, but John Boehner came out of nowhere to win that caucus, but the GOP losing the House that November combined with no-longer-Speaker Denny Hastert stepping down from GOP House leadership and eventually leaving the House, means that Boehner is now (and Roy Blunt could have been) perhaps one November night away from being Speaker of the House.  Chuck Purgason is from West Plains and holds the State Senate seat that overlays Howell County.  I’d vote Purgason because he’s more conservative, but I don’t think Blunt is really worried, as he didn’t start his ad campaign until a few days ago.  If Purgason keeps Blunt under 60%, it’ll be a moral victory.

Purgason at first relied on “I’m not Blunt,” and “I could be Rand Paul/Sharron Angle for MO” as his main case, but Joe the Plumber also cut an ad for Purgason, which might help his credibility.  OTT, Purgason isn’t way too marketable because of his hee-haw voice and his Buster Brown cereal bowl hairdo.

Doesn’t matter; even though she’s down in the polls now, I don’t think there’s any denying a Carnahan in Missouri, not even this lesbo.  Especially if Blunt wins this primary, she’ll hit him hard with Abramoff.

AUDITOR-R: Tom Schweich vs Allen Icet.  Schweich is doing everything he can to hide his links to Danforth;  Icet punted on a really good opportunity to make hey by not uncovering them.  Joe the Plumber also cut ads for Icet this MO primary season.

Phyllis Schlafly has sent out a mailer to Missourians on her mail list (my old St. Louis address is somehow still on it, and her mails to it got forwarded to my Edwardsville abode), endorsing Icet, and exposing certain truths about Schewich that I didn’t know.  For instance, Schweich has nothing close to auditing experience, wrote a check to Claire McCaskill’s war chest in 2001, (while she herself was Auditor, only three years after defeating a real CPA to become Auditor, and a year before an easy cake-walk to re-election b/c the Republicans nominated a convicted felon, so it’s not like Claire Bear needed the money), said that Obama’s cabinet “held great promise” and was full of “all-stars” (one of whom is tax cheat Tim Geithner; strange thing for someone who wants to be a state auditor to say), and most importantly, John Danforth plucked Schweich out of the Bryan Cave (“Die in Cave” — According to its way overworked young employees fresh out of law school) Law Firm in St. Louis to be his Chief-of-Staff for Danforth’s Waco Investigation/Cover-Up.  (Hint:  Janet Nero commissioned the investigation.  While it turns out Waco was more Jamie Gorelick’s fault than Nero’s, she was her direct employee at DOJ).  So it might be that Tom Schweich might be the actual tangible reason why the Danforth panel was a cover-up, other than the fact that it was an elitist ruling class blue blood like John Danforth who was charged with the cover-up to begin with, by the woman who was once thought to be responsible for the actual tragedy.  Everyone knew where THAT was going.

Obviously, I’d vote Ice-T, as he’s calling himself, I guess as a tribute to the Tea Party Movement.  Don’t have any sort of read to pick a winner, except to say that Schweich has had media buys out there for months it seems.  (That’s what happens when you’ve got a filthy rich political sugar daddy.)  Winner faces incumbent Dem Susan Montee in November, and, since the incumbent Governor is a Democrat, has a good chance of toppling her, thereby becoming the first male MO state auditor since 1984.

AUDITOR-D: The aforementioned Ms. Montee has a token opponent named Abdul Akram.  A guy with an Arab name who wants to be Auditor.  Sheesh…next think you know, they’ll start thinking they can be President.

PROP C: Statewide referendum on ObamaCare.  It’s the first public vote on ObamaCare in the country;  Missouri’s 2004 vote on the definition of marriage was likewise the first of many in the country;  expect many other states to follow suit if C wins.   Obamabots tried to knock this off the ballot in court; they failed.  I would vote Yes.  If it passes, it would largely have to yield to whatever happens in the Federal courts, or beyond that, to whatever parts a potential Republican-run House can de-fund and a future Republican Congress and President can repeal.  It would probably win, as polling numbers nationally show ObamaCare a loser, and Missouri is demographically typical America.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY EXEC-R: Bill Corrigan seems to be the most credible of the two, but I don’t know enough to have a preference or make a prediction.  It’s just as well:  Dooley’s too entrenched and St. Louis County is getting way too (black and) blue.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY C.A.: Damn it — Bob “The Truth Squader” McCulloch is flat unopposed, both now and in November.  Geezo, does anybody have any memory?

ST. LOUIS COUNTY PROP 2: Would make the County Assessor an elected position if passed.  It’s a reaction to recent scandals related to the existing appointed assessor and his over-assessment of many real estate parcels in the County.  Don’t have a strong enough opinion to make a recommendation.

HOUSE-2-D: The only person in the race is one Arthur Lieber, someone who I just happen to know of in a second-hand fashion.  His official bio on the P-D doesn’t say this, and I only know this through a cousin of mine, but he once taught ethics and similar classes at both Metro High and Crossroads High, both in the CWE, the former being the best public high school in the state, thanks to its selective admissions.  Crossroads is a private high school about the same size as Metro (i.e. small), and almost as prestigious as Metro.  (UPDATE:  It also came back to memory that he actually co-founded Crossroads.)  Mr. Lieber, while politically left of center, is very reasonably so, according to my particular source.  Too bad Akin’s gonna clean his clock — if Mr. Lieber is serious about a political career, I would like to see him try in a State Rep. or State Senate seat occupied by one of the really repugnant black or white liberal types.  Funny, b/c if my cousin’s memory serves, Mr. Lieber lived in the CWE (partly MO-3, partly MO-1) during his teaching days at Metro and C-Roads, but his bio says he lives in Creve Coeur now.  Of course, I’ve had enough experience with U.S. House campaigns to know that you don’t have to live in a Congressional district even on election day; you just have to “move” there sometime between winning the election and swearing-in.  OTT, there are plenty of really vile liberal types in the State House or Senate that I’d like to see Mr. Lieber challenge and possibly topple.  Running this kamikaze mission in MO-2 just might get him the name rek to make it possible in the future.

HOUSE-2-R: It’s time for a public vote in the state of Missouri and/or the City of St. Louis, so you know Bill Haas is on the ballot somewhere, and that he’ll do his usual losing.

HOUSE-3-D: Russ Carnahan vs two nobodies, one of those, Edward Crim, is running ads on KMOX and KFTK touting himself as a “responsible Democrat.”  That’s going to seem oxymoronic in a year like this.  He’s about two to four years late to the party.

HOUSE-3-R: The Carnahan World Empire is facing challenges from two different people linked to former Gov. Matt Blunt.  SOS Robin “Mrs. Antolinez” is facing off with his father, and it is likely that Congressman Russ will face with his one-time Chief-of-Staff, Ed Martin, who is favored to win this primary.  I highly doubt Martin’s chances in November, though, b/c Matt Blunt didn’t leave Jeff City on such great terms, and MO-3 is probably gerrymandered too badly for any R to win.  As for the primary itself, I would probably vote for John Wayne Tucker, because his media buys sound the most conservative.  (I don’t think Martin has done any media buys yet, but he has a bunch of yard signs (blue, go figure) out in South City and County already; AMAF, I’m seeing a lot in areas where I’d never thought any Republican yard sign.  Maybe he does have a chance.)  But I think there was some minor scandal relating to Tucker, or maybe it was the other candidate in this race, whose name escapes me.

HOUSE-9: Blaine Leuktemeyer barely beat his D-opponent to replace Hulshof in MO-9 two years ago, yet no Democrats are running.  I guess they think it’s a hopeless cause.  Remember when Democrats had hope?

Democrats.  Tee Hee.

CITY PROP S: SLPS wants a 150 megabuck bond issue in order to get the same amount of Obamabucks in order to do 300 megabucks worth of capital improvements.  If the SLPS were accredited, meaning its students couldn’t go to St. Louis County schools (on the SLPS’s dime, without any regard to the county districts’s finances and enrollments, thanks to the State Supreme Court), I might have voted for it.  But that’s not the case, so I would vote no.  It will probably win.

CITY CIRCUIT CLERK: Mariano Favazza has a challenger.  With whom he will wipe the floor.  (As it turns out, the challenger, Jane Schweitzer, is the daughter-in-law of one-time City Sheriff and all-around pretty good guy Gordon Schweitzer. AMAF, one “Gordon Schweitzer” is listed as Jane Schweitzer’s campaign treasurer, but that might be her husband Gordon, Jr., the long-time Sheriff being Gordon, Sr.)

OTHER CITY ‘COUNTY’ OFFICES: McMillan, Carpenter and Daly are flat unopposed.  Since St. Louis City is also a county, the elections for “city” circuit court clerk, assessor, license collector, collector and recorder of deeds are Aug/Nov elections, just like every other MO county.  FYI, Jennifer “The Truth Squader” Joyce was last up in 2008, so she won’t be up again until 2012, unlike her partner in Federal civil rights violations, Bob McCulloch, who is up this year but unopposed.

STATE SENATE: The big action is in SEN-4:  That’s Jeff Smith’s old seat, and while he’s away getting buggered in Federal prison, the appointed (?) fill-in, Joe Keaveny, is facing off with SLPOA-endorsed 35-year SLPD vet, James Long.  Normally, that would be enough to get me to vote Long, but the Ethical Society of Police, the black SLPD officer answer to the SLPOA, (except the SLPOA has more black members than the black-oriented ESOP), plus Local 420 of the AFT (SLPS Teachers Union) is also endorsing Long.  So I have no clue here.  I guess he’d be better than Keavney on the margins, so that would probably get me to vote for him.  I only wish Derio Gambaro had the energy for another run.

STATE HOUSE: Nothing much to report.  I’ll fill in this blank later if anything going on in the State House tickles my fancy.

JUDGES: In Missouri counties that don’t observe the Plan Nine from Outer Space, R and D judges will be on their respective primary ballots.  Can’t tell you anything about anyone.  St. Louis City and County trial-level judges, appellate level judges and Supreme Court justices that are under the Plan Nine will only be on the November ballot, for Retain/Reject voting.  I’ll have a few recommendations then, but you’ll sooner find teeth on a hen than a judge is turned out of office under Plan Nine.