Robin Carnahan (D) stays ahead of Roy Blunt (r-"I swear I had a health care plan in here somewhere") in Nate Silver's prognostication of the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Missouri:
Races are ranked in order of their likelihood of changing parties by November 2010, accounting for all factors such as potential retirements, primary challenges, and so forth...
...3. Missouri (R-Open) -- Robin Carnahan's polling has been very stable, continuing to show her with a very slight lead. That's probably because her opponent, Roy Blunt, is a rather vocal member of the sitting Republican Congress, which is losing popularity just as quickly as the Democrats in Congress are. He's the wrong candidate for this type of cycle...
Rough translation: being an obstructionist republican hack does not bode well, even in an off year election.
...And we are doing well! My administration's accomplishments speak for themselves. We work tirelessly for Alaskans...
...With this announcement that I am not seeking re-election... I've determined it's best to transfer the authority of governor to Lieutenant Governor Parnell; and I am willing to do so, so that this administration - with its positive agenda, its accomplishments, and its successful road to an incredible future - can continue without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success...
..."The habit of politicians is to remain in office, and the desire to prove oneself in the next election is strong," Blunt said. "After a great deal of thought and prayer, and with the knowledge that we have achieved virtually everything I set out to accomplish, and more, I will not seek a second term in the upcoming election," he said.
"Because I feel we have changed what I wanted to change in the first term, there is not the same sense of mission for a second..."
And their administration could include South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (r) as Secretary of State. After all, it's the international experience that counts.
The Kansas City Star has an online copy (pdf) of the lawsuit filed in Cole County by Special Investigator C.E. Fisher against Governor Matt "baby" Blunt in the e-mail destruction/obstruction case. It's kind of nice that the paper saved us a drive down to Jefferson City to get a copy. The document provided by the paper does not have the case number nor any filing stamp on the header. tiny URL
Oh, yeah. The Kansas City Star did a front page story (below the fold) in this morning's Kansas City Edition. tiny URL
Daniel Max Knust resigned Wednesday, two weeks after the former Webster County judge was appointed to help determine whether Gov. Matt Blunt's administration violated the state Sunshine law.
In a letter to Attorney General Jay Nixon, Knust attributed his resignation to criticism leveled by Gov Matt Blunt's office that questioned whether Knust, a Republican, was part of a Democratic witch hunt...
...Knust wrote in his resignation letter to Attorney General Jay Nixon, "I did not anticipate that my independence would be doubted by the Governor's staff. My parents were devout Republicans, and I have held office for 28 years as a Republican..."
[The title of the article refers to the appointment of Chet Pleban to replace Knust]
The Missouri republican party website [Eeeew!] also aimed its wrath at Knust. [I'm not providing a link, just be thankful that I went there to read it so you don't have to. Eeeew! Can't get the bad taste out of my mouth. Uck.]
The moral of the story: If you do anything that makes Governor Matt "baby" Blunt look less than saintly he will release the hounds.
On November 15th SurveyUSA released a 600 sample poll taken in Missouri from November 9th through the 11th which shows that "baby" Blunt still does not have the best of approval ratings in Missouri. The margin of error is 4.1%.
ST. LOUIS -- A former staff attorney for Gov. Matt Blunt sent an internal office memo challenging his boss' stance on deleting e-mails just weeks before the attorney was fired, according to a copy of the memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The memo's existence and content contradict public statements made by Blunt and his top officials after the attorney was fired in late September. Blunt officials have repeatedly said Scott Eckersley never challenged -- verbally or in writing -- their policy of deleting office e-mail and brought up the issue only the day he was fired....
This is a textbook case of how not to handle a political windstorm, unless...
...Democrat Jay Nixon is facing Republican charges that he broke the law by using his taxpayer-funded car for his political campaign.
Republican incumbent Matt Blunt is up to his nostrils in the Scott Eckersley caper. Eckersley is a former Blunt administration lawyer who was fired Sept. 28. Democrats and Republicans are in unison on that much....
Where to start? A young attorney who works for the governor points out that the governor's office isn't following its own written policy on archiving office e-mails. Later, that same young attorney is fired "for cause" - that is, for inappropriate e-mails which were forwarded to his state e-mail account.
The irony is astounding. Think about it. The governor's office managed to save those particular e-mails.
A former lawyer in Gov. Matt Blunt's office says he was fired last month after he raised questions about how the governor's staff was handling office e-mails and public records requests....
...."I believed I was fired for pointing to written office policy which ... contradicted how the office was handling record requests," Eckersley said....
....To back up AuBuchon's assertions about Eckersley, the Office of Administration had sent unsolicited to the Post-Dispatch, by overnight mail, a box containing hundreds of pages of Eckersley's office e-mails. The e-mails included those dealing with his father's business and the one e-mail from the sex site.
The box was sent Friday, before the newspaper made any calls to Blunt's office about Eckersley's firing....
Ah, the "baby" Blunt administration, a paragon of Missouri Sunshine Law efficiency. You no longer have to request the records, they'll just anticipate your needs and forward it all to you. Such service. Especially when it comes to self-serving damage control.
On October 24th SurveyUSA released a 600 sample poll taken in Missouri from October 12th through the 14th which shows that "baby" Blunt does not have the best of approval ratings in Missouri. The margin of error is 4.1%.
While praising MO Republicans, Senator Kit Bond and Joann Emerson of Cape Girardeau for bucking party leadership to vote in favor of the SCHIP compromise bill, the SLPD (10/4) states that:
Just about everything the President and his surrogates have said about the bill is wrong. It does not cover illegal immigrants and upper income children. It is not designed to get families to drop private insurance and, instead get a free ride from a public program. Nor is it a "socialized type medicine"…as Dana Perino said last week.
To be perfectly clear, SCHIP was never intended to insure "poor" children, or kids living below the poverty level. It was developed to insure children of parents who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid and too little to purchase insurance on their own.
Perino's socialized medicine argument, is rendered moot by the fact the several months ago, the Decider himself received, in the form of a colonoscopy performed by government
employed physicians at government run hospitals, a piece of the finest socialized medicine in the world. Indeed, as the SLPD states, "Mr. Bush will qualify for this same socialized health care for the rest of his life."
And about the covering of children of illegal immigrants, Dennis Kucinich, the most liberal democratic presidential candidate voted against the compromise bill because he thought it should have covered the children of legal immigrants.
Finally the cost issue, as Eugene Robinson of the WaPo puts it so succinctly:
The cost of covering an additional 4 million children was estimated at around $35 billion over five years. That's a lot of money. But in the context of a $13 trillion economy -- and set against Bush's history of devil-may-care, "buy the house another round" spending -- it's chump change.
The Decider, feeling a chill from the Hill, has offered to throw a little more money into the pot and call that a compromise. But Harry Reid has said that "We are not going to compromise" while calling The Decider's offer to "add a little extra money" to the program an insult. Reid is not alone in standing firm. Recent polls show that 68% of Americans know that Bush vetoed the SCHIP compromise bill and 72% support the bill.
Any changes that may come to the bill in the area of overall cost or eligibility apparently will come only after a failed override vote. And to according to Republican, Phil English (R-Pa), "The changes necessary to get more Republicans on the margins are actually fairly modest". And how about this from your good friend and mine, Roy Blunt who states bluntly "Five billion is not enough!" Charles Grassley sputters on and Orrin Hatch states the President has received bad advice. Right on pragmatic ones!
But wait! Here comes MO's nattering nuisance, Sam Graves, with a KC Star op-ed published on 10/03 in which he holds forth:
This legislation that President Bush vetoed Wednesday would make it easier for illegal immigrants to get taxpayer funded health care. …would wipe away the current requirement for multiple sources of identification and require merely a name and a Social Security number to apply for benefits. The only safeguard would be a single statement that says no illegal immigrants can get benefits…
What does he want? Tattoos! Todd Akin is on this talking point also, referring to "little hidden gizmos" in the bill.
Sam Graves should be excused from the House in order to spend more time tilting at windmills, although I daresay the original tilter was an honorable man with good intent, while Graves may be somewhat short on knightly virtue. Ditto, Todd Akin. Kit Bond is looking somewhat firmer and Roy Blunt seems not at all convinced about anything. Maybe he's just scared. Some gentle rallying outside his office could work to some good. Opinion is divided on whether or not Congress will override. We have two weeks to call, to rally, to make a difference.
Not to be overlooked, Dennis Kucinich's vote against the compromise bill. I am sure his reasoning is correct, however he needs to vote to override the veto taking care not to end up siding with Bush.
On September 20th SurveyUSA released a 600 sample poll taken in Missouri from September 14th through the 16th which shows that "baby" Blunt and dubya (separate reports) do not have stellar approval ratings in Missouri. The margin of error is 4.1%.
If you're going to appoint someone to fill a vacancy on the Missouri Supreme Court, why ask that question?
It appears that Missouri Governor Matt "baby" Blunt probably hasn't read the U.S. Constitution, or the Missouri Constitution, for that matter. When it comes to the Missouri Supreme Court his "activist" agenda trumps everything else.
The United States Constitution states in Article VI:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Section 5. That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; that no human authority can control or interfere with the rights of conscience; that no person shall, on account of his religious persuasion or belief, be rendered ineligible to any public office or trust or profit in this state, be disqualified from testifying or serving as a juror, or be molested in his person or estate; but this section shall not be construed to excuse acts of licentiousness, nor to justify practices inconsistent with the good order, peace or safety of the state, or with the rights of others.
On August 17th SurveyUSA released a 600 sample poll taken in Missouri from August 10th through the 12th which shows that "baby" Blunt does not have a stellar approval rating. The margin of error is 4.1%.
Matt "baby" Blunt knows some people in Texas with lots of extra cash. The Missouri Ethics Commission shows the very large contributions made to Blunt's 2008 campaign after January 1, 2007.
It's become quite clear that one of the republican wedge issues for the 2008 election in Missouri will be an assault on an independent judiciary spun as a crises concerning "activist judges".
Governor Matt "baby" Blunt, through his office, and the fringe political right in Missouri have recently made it clear that they are very unhappy with the ideology of the three finalists for the recent Missouri Supreme Court vacancy.
It has widely been reported in the media over a period of years that Missouri's non-partisan court plan has served as a model for a number of other states.
The Missouri judiciary has placed the astonishing correspondence between the governor's office and the Appellate Judicial Commission (which selected and forwarded the the finalists for the Supreme Court vacancy to the governor) on its website.
