Missouri Politics

The news from National Public Radio wakes me up every morning. This morning it really woke me up, and the war hoop that I let out probably rocked a few of my closer neighbors out of bed as well! The big news was that Missouri’s wunderkind governor, Matt Blunt, had decided not to run for re-election.

Missouri, my home state, has a constitutional limit of two terms for governors, and young Mattie, currently thirty-seven and just beginning the fourth year of his first term, would seem to be a no-brainer for at least trying to get a second term. However, after striving hard to become one of Missouri’s worst governors ever, Mattie realized too late that his corporate masters were not going to be able to pull him out of the hole that he was still digging. (Examples of his governing style include shameful Medicaid cuts and a scandal revolving around missing emails from the executive branch.) His complete disregard of the needs of his state and his constituents has ended what was once a promising political career.

Governor Blunt is the son of U.S. House Minority Whip Roy Blunt. Roy represents my old district, Missouri’s 7th, which includes Joplin, Branson, Springfield, and all of southwest Missouri. Ol’ Roy is a family values Republican who, when he got to Washington, promptly divorced his wife of thirty-five years and married a tobacco lobbyist. His other son is also a tobacco lobbyist. It’s a small wonder that young Mattie turned out to be such a soulless lackey of the privileged class!