Niangua's Loss Will Be K Street's Gain

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Roy Blunt, Missouri’s junior United States Senator, a native of Niangua, Missouri, will have been a resident of Washington, D.C. for twenty years come next January.  But by the time Ol’ Roy got to our nation’s capital in 1997, he already had a long and crusty career as a county and state politician that stretched back a quarter of a century.   The erstwhile Blunt is a man who enjoys life at the public trough – and makes a nice living out of politics – thank you very much!

Roy Blunt hadn’t been in Washington very long when he divorced his wife of thirty-five years – the mother of his grown children – and soon married Abigail Perlman, twenty years his junior.  The new Mrs. Blunt is a lobbyist for Kraft Foods.   (Abigail Perlman Blunt was recently described by “The Hill” news magazine as being one of the thirty-five most effective lobbyists on Capital Hill.) 

Roy and Abigail own a modest condo in Springfield, Missouri, which they seldom use, but it does give them claim to having a home in the state that Roy is paid to represent in the Senate.  Their actual home is a seven-bedroom, four-and-a-half bath affair in a nice suburb of Washington, D.C. that is reportedly valued at $1.6 million.

In addition to the senator’s wife being a federal lobbyist, all three of the adult Blunt children also lobby at either the state or national level.  Having friends in high places pays a bunch of Blunt family bills.

Life has been good to Ol' Roy Blunt and if he wakes up next Wednesday to the news that he has lost his place at the public trough to whippersnapper Jason Kander back in Missouri, things will still be okay - because Pappy Blunt will slip quietly out of the Senate and into a cushy lobbying job on K Street.   He will still live in the same big house with the same pretty young wife - and he will keep on hob-knobbing and playing golf with the same people that he's been cultivating for two decades in Washington, D.C. 

Ol' Roy may win re-election to the Senate on Tuesday, or he may lose.  Nothing in life is certain.  But either way, win or lose, the chances that Roy and Abbie will ever move back to the Great Midwest are exceedingly slim.  The closest Ol' Roy is likely to get to coming home will be watching late night reruns of Hee-Haw on his television machine.

Roy Blunt's heart and his welcome mat are in Washington, D.C.  That is his home.

Niangua has lost its allure.