Untangling the Missouri Senate Race

 

by Pa Rock

Missouri Voter

Missouri's senior US senator, Ol' Roy Blunt, is retiring this year so that he can work full-time in his family lobbying enterprise, and the scramble by ambitious politicians to replace him is starting to resemble an old-fashioned cattle stampede, or pig push.  As of now it looks as though the ballots of the two major parties will contain a total of thirty-two names for the position, with a few other independents and members of various minor parties also vying for a place at the government trough.

The Republicans somehow managed to field twenty-one candidates in their effort to keep Blunt's senate seat in their column.  Of the twenty-one, only four stand any serious chance of winning the nomination in the August primary election:  Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, Congresswoman Vickie Hartzler,  Congressman Billy Long - a true "long" shot, and former (disgraced) Missouri Governor Eric Greitens.

The Democrats will have eleven candidates on the August primary ballot, but only two have a real chance of securing the nomination:  Lucas Kunce, a former combat marine and who promotes progressive causes and has built a formidable campaign war chest on small donations from individuals - and Trudy Busch Valentine, a beer heiress who entered the race on the last day of filing and appears to be the "safe" candidate of Missouri's establishment Democrats.

The four major Republican candidates are all Trump "Big Lie" supporters with fascistic tendencies, and each of the four would be roughly equal in their unacceptability for the office. But it is Missouri, and each of the four could also win a general election.  In fact, the expectation is that a Republican will win, and the national Democratic Party has played into that expectation so far by largely ignoring the Missouri Senate race.

But there is a plausible scenario in which the Democrats could win.

Former Republican Governor Eric Greitens was forced to resign from office after it was revealed that he had duct-taped his naked hairdresser/mistress to a piece of exercise equipment in his basement and then photographed her and used those photos in an attempt to blackmail her into silence over their affair.   Greitens' wife subsequently took the kids and left him, moving out of state, and now they are in court in a custody battle in which she is alleging serious domestic abuse.

And - get this - Greitens continues to lead in GOP polling for the senate race - and he is beatable - and the state Republican Party is fearful that he will be their eventual nominee and could possibly lose Blunt's seat to the Democrats. 

 (If only Chuck Schumer was smart enough to reach that same logical conclusion, he might spend some of the party's money in the "show-me" state.)

But Schumer aside, some Democrats are beginning to figure out that the race, given the right circumstances, is winnable.  Lucas Kunce, the progressive former Marine who grew up on a Missouri farm, had the field essentially to himself for several months as the national Democrats ignored the race, and Kunce used his time to build a strong internet grassroots campaign that raised a barn-load of small donations. However, as the reality of a potential race against the reprehensible Greitens began to materialize, the Democratic establishment suddenly looked around and realized that their lead horse was a progressive who was spouting proposals and ideas that were outside of their comfort zone.  

On the very last day of filing for the August primary (March 29th) a new Democratic candidate threw her hat into the political ring.  Beer heiress and political novice Trudy Busch Valentine launched an obviously well-prepared campaign for the senate seat, and former state senator and establishment Democrat placeholder, Scott Sifton, dropped out in favor of Ms. Busch Valentine. It appeared to be a well-engineered attack by the Democratic establishment on the progressive populist campaign of Lucas Kunce.

In the two months since Missouri's filings for office closed, Lucas Kunce has continued to barnstorm across the state never backing down from the opportunity of giving his hard-edged opinions to anyone who will listen, and Trudy Busch Valentine has been uncomfortably standoffish and evasive.  Her continued reluctance to wade into the issues and share her passions with the state's voters lead to the perception that she is being "handled" by a professionals who feel the safest approach to the election is to keep her speaking in generalities and not allow the candidate to wander into the political weeds.   It's a "first we poll and then we talk" approach, and it tells us far more about her campaign style than it does about who the candidate is as a person or what she actually believes.

One aspect of Trudy Busch Valentine's campaign that is grating, at least to this Missouri voter, is the noblesse oblige attitude that she seems to be imparting onto her campaign.  As one of several children of the late Gussie Busch, candidate Trudy grew up on Grant's Farm and has a personal wealth somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars - a nice neighborhood, indeed!  To her credit she did earn a nursing degree and worked in the medical profession, but she is also seems to be acutely aware of her immense wealth and tries to justify her run for the senate with the "from those who have been given much, much is expected" sentiment.  That almost feels like "I may not really want this job, but I owe it to the people of Missouri to do it anyway."

I'm not sure that I can be comfortable someone who deigns to serve us because she feels obligated to do it.  I also consider the preponderance of millionaires and billionaires in the US Senate to be problem that ultimately works against the best interests of ordinary people.

At this point I am not even certain that I will vote in Missouri's Democratic primary.  I may opt to take a Republican ballot and vote for disgusting Eric Greitens, knowing that he will be the easiest for the Democratic candidate to beat in November.   It all depends on what the final polling looks like before the primary.  Regardless of which ballot I take in August, Democratic or Republican, I will be supporting the efforts of Lucas Kunce.   As of this week I have sent his campaign a donation, not a lot, but a significant amount for an old fart on a fixed income, and I will have a Kunce sign in my yard and a Kunce bumper sticker on the Kia.

I don't need the Democratic establishment to tell me how to vote.  I've been around quite awhile and I know what's what - and what needs to be.

And whichever Democrat wins the August primary will have my support and vote in November's general election.  (I may be obstinate, but I'm not completely stupid!)

I'll be voting - you should, too!