Tag: missouri

Missouri GOP, African-Americans kill Russ Carnahan’s seat.

This could very well be the prettiest redistricting map that you’re going to see this cycle:

You see, Missouri is in an interesting place where the state is: losing a Congressional seat; just coming off an election cycle where they flipped a seat to the GOP (making the current ratio 6 GOP / 3 DEM) ; and in possession of an almost veto-proof Republican legislature. So, Missouri Republicans decided to handle the situation by creating a 6 GOP / 2 DEM district map that cut up Russ Carnahan’s district and forced him to compete in a heavily African-American district (as per the Voting Rights Act) against incumbent William Lacy Clay. They also more or less left Emanuel Cleaver’s seat alone – Rep. Cleaver does not represent a majority-minority district, by the way; this will be important later. And then the legislature sent the map to Democratic governor Jay Nixon, who promptly vetoed it.

Oddly enough, when it came to the override, four Democrats crossed over to vote for the map, thus overriding the veto! Oddly enough, all four are African-Americans (who readily admitted that they were protecting Clay’s and Cleaver’s seats)! And oddly enough, Russ is not taking it well! And by ‘not taking it well’ I mean ‘engaging in profanity-laden, bitterly sarcastic invective,’ although I’m not entirely certain that Russ can actually spell any of those words*. It’s probably not helping that the Carnahan name may be a bit… colored, in Missouri African-American eyes… by virtue of past history.

Continue reading Missouri GOP, African-Americans kill Russ Carnahan’s seat.

Missouri AG Chris Koster’s (D) cynical fight against Obamacare.

He’s not fully joining the fight against Obamacare – Koster has issued an amicus curiae brief in modified support of the Florida Obamacare lawsuit, instead of joining it – but he’s easily the most prominent Democrat on the state level to break with his party on Obamacare.  This is partially probably due to Missouri’s emphatic rejection of Obamacare last year (in the form of Proposition C), and partially probably due to Koster’s own desire to survive politically; Koster switched parties in 2007, when it looked like the promised forty-year dominance of the Democratic party in America might actually last, well, forty years.  As it stands, Koster is up for re-election next year, and as it’s promising to be a bad year for Missouri Democrats who like Obamacare… well.

Do read the brief, as it represents the Democratic party’s somewhat frantic desire to resolve the problem that they’re having with Obamacare right now.  To wit: the individual mandate is clearly unconstitutional, given that it requires people to engage in commerce, whether they want to or not.  Unfortunately, the same Geniuses From Beyond Space And Time that put that provision into Obamacare also neglected – willfully – a provision that explicitly stated that the various parts of Obamacare are severable from each other; so if the individual mandate goes it’s well within the court’s purview to declare the whole thing unconstitutional as well.  That would be… problematical for Democrats, given that they wasted a year on Obamacare in the first place.

 

Continue reading Missouri AG Chris Koster’s (D) cynical fight against Obamacare.

Missouri redistricting hurts Russ Carnahan.

The below is being floated as a potential redistricting map for Missouri:

I’ll summarize the changes as follows: Missouri loses a district, thanks to the 2010 Census. On the Republican side, Vicki Hartzler is liking this map least: she had some R areas taken away from her and given to Emanuel Cleaver, and has been given some D areas from Luetkemeyer.  On the other hand, on the Democratic side Cleaver’s district is now somewhat less urban.  This is not necessarily a disaster for Cleaver: he’s that rarity, a Democratic African-American that white Democrats will vote for anyway.  But the really nice news?  Russ Carnahan’s district was chopped up like a chicken for the stewpot: half of it went to Jo Ann Emerson (who didn’t break a sweat winning last year with 65% of the vote) and the rest looks like it’s in William Clay’s (majority-minority).  Bottom line: I am not an expert on Missouri county vote totals, but it looks like Missouri’s going to go from 6R/3D to 6R/2D. Continue reading Missouri redistricting hurts Russ Carnahan.

Sen. McCaskill: “We have paid every dime of our taxes.”

That is, McCaskill said that she did, back in 2006 (via Hot Air Headlines):

For those who don’t remember the initial controversy mentioned in the ad, McCaskill’s husband was linked to some extraordinarily poorly-operated Missouri nursing homes at the same time that McCaskill herself had oversight over Missouri nursing homes as Missouri State Auditor.  As you can see, back in 2006 McCaskill vehemently denied any wrongdoing, just before she declared that she paid her taxes.

Which she actually did not do in 2006; and has continued to not do since then.  Iknow that this is just repeating Bill S. ‘s excellent post from yesterday, which is why I would like to point out an old Tom Daschle campaign ad below. You may remember it: it’s the one where he bragged about driving his own car to work.

Continue reading Sen. McCaskill: “We have paid every dime of our taxes.”

Did Sen. McCaskill (MO) backstab Gov. Perdue (NC)?

(H/T: Say Anything) having St. Louis for the 2012 Democratic convention, on the rationale that having the convention in Missouri would be the equivalent of painting a big electoral target on her back for all those awful, awful Tea Partiers. Which is… interesting. First off, I’m pretty sure that Missouri Republicans – which had a decent-to-good run last year (cemented control of the state legislature, held off Caranhan in the Senate, kicked Ike Skelton to the curb) don’t really need the excuse of a national convention to focus their attention on Senator McCaskill.

Second, at last look Sen. McCaskill is looking at an average 43.2%/46% approval/disapproval rating right now… which is, well, awful.  But it’s still better than Gov. Perdue’s, which is currently at 36.6%/47.2%.  For that matter, North Carolina Republicans are cheerfully aware that all they need is a win in 2012 to take full control of the state government (they flipped control of the state legislature in 2010): so if McCaskill’s (alleged) argument that the DNC’s a lightning rod is correct, shouldn’t she have taken the hit for Team Jackass?  After all, Jay Nixon’s popular enough, and that’ll probably be a help for McCaskell next year…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Missouri updates.

It’s been an interesting week for Missouri, so I thought that I’d look at the races that matter on the federal level (all of the Republican-held House seats in Missouri are pretty much safe at this point).  In order:

  • MO-SEN: It would seem that Robin Carnahan’s desire to distance herself from the President is hurting her with a critical segment of Democratic voters: African-Americans, who do not see why a Democratic candidate should distance him- or herself from a Democratic President – and particularly this President.  Mind you, the way the race is improving for Roy Blunt, at this point we’re just seeing how far the rubble bounces anyway. Continue reading Missouri updates.

Connecting the dots on the Missouri wind farm payoff.

The video is largely self-explanatory, but here is the time-line, with links.

Meet Vicky Hartzler (R CAND, MO-04).

This would have been up yesterday, except that YouTube rather spectacularly melted down when it comes to updates. Vicky is running against Ike Skelton, who has been less and less successful in pretending to be a conservative over the years; Vicky is doing her best to resolve this dilemma for the incumbent.

Vicky’s site is here. The race is considered competitive, which is pretty impressive right there.

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

#rsrh Who is insulted more? Carnahan, or Fisher?

The question raised by this WJS correction is a real head-scratcher in that regard:

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat, is running against Republican Rep. Roy Blunt for U.S. Senate. Lee Fisher, the lieutenant governor of Ohio, is running for the U.S. Senate in his state. In some editions Tuesday, a front-page article about political spending for Republican candidates incorrectly said that Rep. Blunt is running against Mr. Fisher and that Mr. Fisher is Missouri’s lieutenant governor.

Ach, well, it’ll be academic starting next January anyway.  For both of them.

#rsrh Carnahan cuts and runs on GZM.

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers. Note that I got sent this (via email, which is why no H/T). Also note that the Carnahan firebombing is looking like an inside problem. And welcome, PJTV viewers.

Amusing video of the day: Russ Carnahan (D, MO-03) runs away rather than answer a simple question on whether or not he supports the Ground Zero Mosque.

Yup, that’s some impressive leadership we’re seeing here in MO-03. Sheesh, you’d think that he’d at least admit that he has an opinion. Unless he really and truly doesn’t? You get the impression that Carnahan’s current job bores him so.

Moe Lane

PS: Ed Martin for Congress.