Senate Seat Opens in Missouri: Send in the Clowns

by Pa Rock

Missouri Voter

Apparently his duties in the US Senate have taken too much time away from the lucrative business of lobbying, and Missouri's senior senator, Ol' Roy Blunt, has announced that he will be retiring from his day job at the end of his current term in 2022.  Blunt, who is married to one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, DC, Abigail Perlman, and whose three adult children are all lobbyists, will no doubt slither on over to K Street on the day his Senate replacement is sworn in.  Lobbying appears to be a major virus in the Blunt bloodstream.

Now the attention begins to focus on who will replace Ol' Roy in the Senate.  Mitch McConnell will no doubt try to guide Missouri Republicans in their choice of a replacement since, of the five GOP contenders who have announced so far, at least two would likely be highly unacceptable to the national (corporate) Republicans who want to insure that the seat stays in reliably Republican hands.

Currently the list of declared candidates from the Republican Party to replace Ol' Roy include four white males and one white female.  The lady candidate, Congressswoman Vicky Hartzler, is out outspoken opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, voted against renewing the Violence Against Women Act, and is stridently anti-abortion, so she has little in the way of gender baggage that might hinder someone challenging a Missouri good ol' boy.   Hartzler has also made a name for herself by opposing LGBTQ initiatives and is an outspoken critic of gay marriage.  The former home economics teacher should be a formidable presence on the ballot.

Another Missouri congressman announced last week that he, too, will join in the push to replace Blunt at the Senate hog trough.  Congressman Billy Long, an auctioneer from Springfield, won a crowded primary to replace Roy Blunt in Congress when he moved to the Senate in 2010.  When Long announced on Tucker Carlson's Fox television show last week that he was running for the Senate, he seemed to make the point that since he had replaced Blunt once, it was only logical the he be the one to replace him again.  Long also used that television appearance to get his campaign off on the wrong foot by announcing that Roy Blunt and Missouri's other senator, Josh Hawley, were the "honorary co-chairs" of his campaign.  He apparently did not clear that claim with either senator, and both quickly denied having affiliations with any of the primary candidates at this point in the race.

A third congressman, Republican Jason Smith, is also making noises about getting into the crowded Republican primary.   Smith, who claims to be a farmer, has proven his skill over the years at milking corporate lobbyists, and he reportedly has a campaign war chest in excess of a million-and-a-half dollars.

Other announced GOP candidates include a lawyer from St. Louis who made a few headlines when he and his wife, also a lawyer, stumbled out into their yard waving guns at BLM protesters who were marching nearby, the state attorney general who tries to stay to the political right of Hermann Goering and Donald Trump, and the state's most recent GOP governor who was forced to resign after it was revealed that he had duct-taped his naked mistress to a piece of exercise equipment in his basement, and then photographed her and threatened to reveal the photos if she ever blabbed about their sexual tryst.  Most polls show ex-governor Sleaze Bag in the lead.

With that ridiculous field fighting for the Republican nomination, this should be an easy pick-up for the Democrats - that is IF they had a contender with a high, positive name-recognition who could run a winning race.  Of the Democrats fitting that description, , former two-term senator Claire McCaskill has said that she will never run for elective office again, former two-term governor Jay Nixon has said he will not run, and former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, the Democrat who almost beat Blunt in 2016 when Trump was walloping Clinton in the state, is apparently also not interested in running again.

So Missouri may be a laughingstock now with Senator Fist-in-the-Air representing our state in the nation's capitol, but in January of 2023 we could sink even lower when he is joined by Senator Duct-Tape.

Of course, it's still a long time until filings close, but this 7th-generation Missourian remains pessimistic.  The quality of political candidates in the Show-Me State has been caught up in a mudslide over the past few decades, and there does not seem to be much on the horizon which would reverse that trend.  I would like for my Republican friends in the state to know that if the Democrats fail come up with a candidate who looks capable of winning, I will join them in voting a Republican ballot in the August primary to help in the actual selection of our next US Senator.  It's the most I can do.