Trudy Busch Valentine for the US Senate

 

by Pa Rock

Missouri Voter

The race for the open Missouri seat in the United States Senate clarified with the Missouri primary election earlier this month.   The contest to replace retiring US Senator Ol' Roy Blunt, a Republican, will feature Eric Schmitt, the state's current attorney general, on the Republican ticket, and Trudy Busch Valentine, a political novice and an heiress to the Busch Beer fortune, as the Democratic nominee.   The race to succeed Blunt will also feature a nominee for the Constitution Party, one for the Libertarian Party, and four independent candidates including John Wood who recently served as an attorney with the House January 6th investigative committee and who is being promoted and bankrolled by former Missouri US Senator Jack Danforth.

Over the past twenty years Missouri has become a reliably red state, and the race will be Schmitt's to lose. But, a loss for the Republicans is possible.

Schmitt, a right-wing Republican, has taken a lot of criticism for spending much of his time as attorney general actively campaigning for the Senate seat - and for focusing on efforts to curb women's reproductive health care rights.  

Eric Schmitt's fealty to Trump and Trump's attacks on democracy seems to have been the prime motivators to cause Jack Danforth, a millionaire heir to the Ralston Purina fortune, to seek and promote an independent conservative alternative to Schmitt.  Danforth's PAC, "Missouri Stands United," has indicated that it may spend as much as $20 million promoting John Wood in the race.  Danforth and Wood are residents of the Liz Cheney wing of the Republican Party, and Wood, in fact, worked with Liz on the January 6th committee.

Trudy Busch Valentine, the newly anointed Democratic nominee for the open Senate seat, is, in addition to being Gussie Busch's daughter and a well-established St. Louis socialite, also a licensed nurse who can point to a history of actually working with some of the average people whom she is running to represent.  She is a proponent of women's reproductive and health care rights and not bashful about saying so.  Busch Valentine understands that her stance on that issue aligns with the majority of Missouri voters.  (Republicans have been slow to recognize that electoral fact, and now they find themselves entangled in the anti-abortion rhetoric of the past several years - some of which has become increasingly difficult to defend as public attitudes have begun coalescing against the recent Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v Wade.)

Yesterday Trudy Busch Valentine took another policy leap that her major Republican opponent - Schmitt - is unlikely to follow.  She announced that she would be supporting a Missouri constitutional amendment that will legalize the use of marijuana for recreational purposes by adults in the state.  That amendment will be on the state's November ballot - the same ballot that will be determining the Show-Me state's newest United States Senator.  Trudy Busch Valentine is a cautious political novice, and she undoubtedly had a good look at the polls before stepping into the field of recreational weed.

Trudy is with the people on women's reproductive and health care rights, and she is with them on the legalization of recreational marijuana for adults - and those are both places where Republican candidates still fear to tread.  Trudy is in it to win it - and she might just do it.

While I firmly believe that the United States Senate already has too many millionaires, I will be voting for Trudy Busch Valentine in November because she has been out and worked with ordinary people, and she seems committed to supporting the needs of the common people of Missouri and of the United States - and her major opponent seems committed supporting Donald Trump and weakening democracy.

Trudy Busch Valentine for the US Senate in 2022.  It's an easy decision!