Ol' Roy Blunt to Retire from Senate

by Pa Rock

Missouri Voter 

Missouri's senior United States Senator, Ol' Roy Blunt, surprised a few political prognosticators yesterday when he announced that he would not seek re-election to a third term in the Senate when his current term expires in 2022.   But many senate watchers and even some of the voters back home seemed to sense that Blunt was losing his edge as well as his interest in serving in the Senate, especially after it began its steady descent into the sewage of Trumpism.  Blunt is an old-school senator:  show up to work, avoid controversy, make strong political connections, and stuff your pockets.  Trump's slash-and-burn politics were not his style.

Roy Blunt has done very well for himself in the senate, establishing strong bonds with other senators that have served him and his state well over the years - and will likely continue to serve Blunt well once he leaves office.  Over the past several years almost every picture taken of then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell featured Roy Blunt standing close-in behind him.  Right now it remains unclear whether McConnell will know how to navigate the corridors of the Capitol without Roy Blunt's hand on his ass.  Only time will tell.

Blunt, a member of GOP senate leadership through his role as Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, also was featured prominently at Joe Biden's presidential inauguration this January due to his position of being the Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.

One news account that I read this morning said that Ol' Roy would be leaving Capitol Hill in 2022, but nothing could be further from the truth.   During his entire time in the Senate Roy Blunt has been as much (or more) of a de facto lobbyist as he has a senator.  When his seccessor takes the oath of office on a cold January day in 2023, Blunt may leave for a couple of hours to have a nice lunch with his lobbyist wife, Abigail Perlman, but that same afternoon he will be back in the Capitol lobbying his old colleagues in the interests of businesses which will now be openly paying for his connections.

(Abigail Perlman is recognized as one of the preeminent lobbyists in Washington, DC, and Blunt's three adult children are also lobbyists.  His family profits well off of the interactions between business and government.)

Although the Missouri state primary elections for 2022 are still seventeen months away, the state's political circuitry is already ablaze with speculation about who will run to succeed Roy Blunt in the Untied States Senate.  Former two-term Missouri US Senator Clair McCaskill, a Democrat who lost her seat to Josh Hawley two years ago, quickly announced that she would not run to fill Blunt's position - and added that she never planned to run for office again.   And Jason Kander, the young Democrat who almost defeated Blunt in the Trump Missouri landslide of 2016, also said that he would not be running to fill Ol' Roy's senate seat this time around.

But the Republican Party is a different story - because a bunch of those goobers appear to be chomping at the bit to get to where the graft and the grift are greener.  The state's former Republican governor, Eric Greitens, who resigned in disgrace following public revelations about sexcapades that he had with his hairdresser, was already threatening to primary Blunt before the senator's big announcement because Greitens felt Blunt was not submissive enough to Donald Trump.  The complete slate of GOP statewide office holders, with the exception of Governor Parson, also seem to be heading toward the starting gate. as are at least two of the state's six GOP members of congress, with some of the other four likely to jump into the race as well.

The next senator from Missouri is very likely to be decided in the state's GOP primary election a year from August - and because this Democratic voter wants to have some say in who represents him in the Senate, it is almost a certainty that I will be voting a Republican ballot in that primary - and I suspect that many other Missouri Democrats will as well.   We can always seek absolution by turning around and voting for the Democrat in November!

Good luck with your next career move, Roy - give 'em hell on K Street!