Category Archives: elections

A Decision

Posted on by
3

I have pretty well made up my mind how I will vote in 2022.  I have decided because I remember.

—I remember November 22, 1963 when I had returned to my apartment house in Columbia after student-producing the noon newscast at KOMU-TV, during which we reported President Kennedy had gone to Texas to assure Texans he was not going to dump Lyndon Johnson from the ticket in 1963, and one of my housemates shouted down the stairs as I came through the door, “You better get up here. The President’s been shot.” I was drawing a paycheck from KFRU Radio as assistant news director under Eric Engberg (who went on to a long career as a CBS correspondent) and immediately went to the newsroom where we started gathering reaction stories to put on the air when ABC Radio broke for local coverage. It never did, not for three days.

—-I remember April 4, 1968 when a phone call to my apartment told me Martin Luther King had been shot, and another call later that he had died. I was in my first months as news director of a radio station that used to do news in Jefferson City. It was a daytime-only station and I had to wait until the next morning to report the story. And a few days later I was inside the Jefferson City News-Tribune building when Lincoln University students turned violent outside the newspaper’s doors when the editor refused to retract an editorial run a few days earlier critical of Dr. King.  A flying piece of glass came within inches of hitting me in the eye.

—-I remember June 5, 1968 when another call came to my apartment, early in the morning. “Kennedy’s been shot,” said the newstipper.  “Which one?” I asked because just a few days before handsome, young Ted Kennedy had strode into a room at the Holiday Inn to speak on behalf of his brother. “Robert,” said the caller.  The morning newspapers that had gone to press the night before were reporting that RFK, as he was being called, appeared to have won the California Democratic Primary. He was shot at 2:15 a.m., our time. Radio news people like me delivered the shocking news heard by those having breakfast that Kennedy was in critical condition.

—I remember June 6, 1968, when the phone rang again in the darkness.  “Kennedy has died,” said the caller.  He died at 3:44 a.m., our time.  The newspapers that morning reported he was still critical.  I joined other broadcasters breaking terrible news for a second straight morning to thousands of people again having breakfast.

—I remember September 22, 1975 when the national networks’ evening newscasts were interrupted by word that a woman had tried to assassinate President Ford in San Francisco. We later learned that the first of two shots she fired from only forty feet away had missed the president’s head by only five inches.

—I remember March 30, 1981. It was just before 1:30 in the afternoon in the newsroom of The Missourinet when the UPI wire machine bells began ringing with the bulletin that President Reagan had been shot and others had been wounded.  Throughout the afternoon, we were reporting reactions from our people in Congress as well as our state leaders, knowing no more than most other reporters how close we were to losing another president.

I remember these events vividly, maybe more vividly than many because, as a reporter, I was instantly and intensely involved in telling the stories to others.

I remember fears, especially in the 60s, of where our country was headed, fears that were rekindled in 1975 and in 1981.

They were nothing like the fears today.

Nothing, because the fear did not originate within the government.

Yesterday I watched the United States House of Representatives censure Republican Congressman Paul Gosar for his Twitter video showing an animated attack on Democratic Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and an attack—with swords—on President Biden.  Majority Democrats forced the action after Republican leaders in the House refused to publicly say one critical word about Gosar’s action.  His “apology” during discussion of the censure resolution was no apology and was instead an attack on Biden administration immigration policy.

Only two Republicans voted for the censure resolution, which also takes away Gosar’s committee assignments: Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who will leave the House at the end of this term, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, whose courage in standing against the “Big Lie” has led the Wyoming Republican Party to say it no longer recognizes her as a Republican.  Kinzinger had argued that failure to hold Gosar accountable “will take us one step closer to this fantasized violence becoming real.”  It is difficult to disagree with that fear as we continue to watch the violent rhetoric that dominates one side of our political spectrum today.

Gosar reportedly told his caucus he doesn’t support political violence. He said he had not seen the Tweet and he pulled it from his account when he learned about it.

So far we have not heard any of the leaders of Gosar’s party express any misgivings about his video or disagreement with their former president’s comment that “it’s only natural” that some of those storming the capitol in January wanted to “hang Mike Pence.”

The failure of party leaders to show any spine in the face of intentional and ongoing stoking of barely-latent fires of violence and their groveling at the feet of a man who is a stranger to honesty, empathy, courtesy, respect, and other Christian values leaves me with no choice.

In normal elections my votes are scattered on both sides of the ballot. As of now, I will fill in the little box next to only one Republican’s name next year.

Only one.  Because I am so terribly disappointed in those for whom I might otherwise vote in their reluctance to stand for the values I thought they had.

I remember 1963.  And ’68 and ’75 and ’81. Never then was I so fearful for our freedoms as I am now. Never have I had so little faith in those I should trust to be servants of the people.

They cannot be servants of the people if they are slaves to one who demands their obedience and countenances every vulgarity that stems from his gross failures of character.

I am but one voter and I am easily dismissed.  But I doubt that I am just one.

I desperately hope that I am not just one.

 

 

Why didn’t you go with them? 

Posted on by
Reply

You promised you would.  Remember you said during  your pep rally, “We’re going to walk down—and I’ll be there with you—We’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down.  Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women….’

You said “we” five times, and you promised to “be there with you.”

But you didn’t go, did you?   You just turned them loose then and you strolled back to the warmth of the big white house.

Sure was a funny way to lead.

Kind of like Jimmy Doolittle.  Remember how he watched fifteen B-25s take off from the security of the bridge of the Hornet?

And we’re all familiar with General Patton, commanding the Third Army from his bunker in London as his soldiers swept across France and into Germany.

George Washington, relaxing by the fireside at Mount Vernon, received regular reports on the fine living conditions at Valley Forge.

The examples are so numerous—-

Some of us are old enough to remember Martin Luther King telling his marchers who had traveled with him from Selma to Montgomery Alabama, “The battle is in our hands. And we can answer with creative nonviolence the call to higher ground to which the new directions of our struggle summons us. The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. But we must keep going.”  And I’m sure you remember that Dr. King, after speaking words somewhat more eloquent than yours, got into his long black Cadillac and drove back to Selma where he waited for reports of what happened in Montgomery.

Actually, the leaders in these and other situations never said, “I’ll be with you.”  But they were.  They were with those they commanded.

What might have happened if you had been a man of your word that day?  Could you have spoken to the crowd of “peaceful tourists” and urged them not to break windows, break down doors, assault security officers, vandalize offices, and force members of the House and the Senate to flee for their lives?

Would you have tolerated a noose and a sign that said, “Hang Mike Pence,” or would you have encouraged more respect for a man carrying out the constitutional duties of the Electoral College?

Could your calming presence have saved the life of Ashli Babbit?

Could you have prevented the arrests of more than 600 “tourists,” many of whom face significant time in prison or in jail while their families wonder what’s to happen to them if you had said as the crowd surged toward the doors and windows, “Wait!  We’re just here to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.  Go back out behind the fence and demonstrate out there.”

Oh, if only you had kept your promise.

“I’ll be there with you,” you said.

You’re no Jimmy Doolittle. Or George S. Patton.  Or Martin Luther King.

Or any number of other great leaders who led from the front instead of retreating inside their  nice, warm, safe quarters where they could do as you did(according to some accounts),  joyfully watch what you unleashed.

You expressed some concern a few days ago that the September 18h celebration of the January 6 insurrection was intended to make you look bad. What looked bad was the small number of people who gathered to celebrate the day,

Too bad you weren’t with them, either. Be comforted by the fact that you could not have looked worse on September 18th than you did on January 6.

But, once again, you weren’t in the front ranks. Others took all the risks and you watched it all on television. Again.

Once again you’re the man who wasn’t there.

Yesterday, upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there again today.

Oh, how I wish he’d go away.

—or maybe, walk away.  You’re good at that.

Moderates-in-waiting

Posted on by
Reply

President Trump heard something a few days ago that he hadn’t heard before. He was booed by an audience he had called to hear his latest, uh, whatever.

Boos at a Trump rally?

Who else was listening?

Who else in the Republican Party was listening?

Maybe we’re reading too much into the event. But there have been, all along, questions about how tight Donald Trump’s grip on the party will remain the longer he is out of office.

It’s doubtful many people left the rally and left Trump because he suggested it might be a good idea for people to get their COVID shots.  It was only a tepid endorsement but it was the first time he had encouraged his followers to do what he had secretly done before leaving the White House.

Boos.  At a Trump rally.

And on this quiet street, these thoughts quietly began to emerge.

The competition for Roy Blunt’s to-be vacated Senate seat has drawn several Republican early entrants, the biggest names of which seem determined to prove they are the most like Trump. They are betting Trump will be the dominant force in the 2022 elections that he claims he will be.

But there are some other Republicans who are holding their counsel.  And it might be wise for them to do so. August, 2022 is a long ways away, politically. The world can take a lot of turns in the next twelve months.

But beside that there’s the issue of mathematics.

Let’s go back to the 2016 presidential primaries. We wrote just before Missouri’s primary that year that earlier state primary voters “seem to favor ANYBODY BUT” Trump with the ABT vote through Super Tuesday that year looking like this:

Iowa   76% Anybody But Trump

New Hampshire  65

South Carolina  67

Nevada  54

Alabama  57

Alaska  66

Arkansas  67

Georgia  61

Massachusetts  50 (although in the total vote, he lost by about 20,000 out of 631,413 cast)

Minnesota  79

Oklahoma  72

Tennessee  61

Texas  73

Vermont  67

Virginia  65

Kansas  77

Kentucky  64

Louisiana  59

Maine  67

Hawaii  58

Idaho  72

Michigan  64

Mississippi  53

Trump had cracked the 40% support level only six times in 22 opportunities up to that time. By the time of the Missouri vote, only four GOP candidates remained in the running.  Eight candidates on the ballot had dropped out but their names could not be removed.  In 2016, Trump got 40.84% of the Missouri votes.  Ted Cruz got 40.63 (and he did not ask for a recount).  John Kasich and Marco Rubio combined for 16.2%.  The rest was scattered among the withdrawn candidates or for “uncommitted.”   The fact is that in Missouri, as in the other states, the majority opposed Trump.

We now have five big-name candidates trying to convince voters they have the shortest political umbilical cords linking them to the former president.

Might there be a moderate Republican or two just quietly watching the internecine warfare among the COTs (Children of Trump)?  And might we see a moderate Republican candidate step forward about the first of the year who can win the Republican primary with 35% of the vote while the five (so far) COTs divide the 40%—assuming Trump still has a solid-enough 40% following in the party by then?

COTs go 25-20-10-5-5% and the moderate polls 35% and moves on to November.

Memo to the COTs in the aftermath of the Alabama boos:  Be nervous. Somebody not like you might be lurking.  And one person who looks good to the 60% can beat the five of the 40.

Or maybe we’re just reading too much into that rally the other day.

 

 

 

To a friend thinking of public office;

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about this topic with you.  Or perhaps we never have. This note is addressed to no one in particular in this season of domino-candidacies triggered by the pending retirement of Senator Roy Blunt.

You’ve thought about running for public office someday.  Your business has been successful enough that you can step away from the fulltime obligations. You are motivated to help other people.  You see problems that you think you can help solve.  You’ve been discussed by people in the political party with which you seem to be identified.

Your member of Congress has decided not to seek re-election next year, perhaps to run for Blunt’s seat in the U.S. Senate. Perhaps your state representative or state senator has decided to run for Congress. This is the perfect time to become a member of the U. S. House of Representatives and you have the name recognition and would have party identification on your side to compete, too.  And once you’re in the House, there might be doors to greater opportunities.

If you don’t go now, you’ll have to challenge the new incumbent or wait several years for that person to step aside.

You will be courted, cajoled, urged, and begged to get into a race.  But it won’t be because of what you might bring to the House; it’s because you’re well-known, can attract campaign donations, can pass the litmus test(s) of the party.  Your ideas are secondary.

Be wary of becoming a figurehead, and an empty one, because your party thinks your name is all it needs in its search for power.  Consider if the party’s quest for power is more important than your desire for service.  If service is secondary, have the integrity to say, “No.”

And what are your ideas?  Are they yours or are they ideas—-and you are intelligent enough to know the ones that are flawed and sometimes dishonest ideas—advocated by a figure who seems to have—or claims to have—life or death power over potential candidates?

Do you really know the issues you will face or are you just willing to go with the party flow?

Frankly, we don’t need people like you if that’s the kind of candidate and Congress-person you will be.

What we need in these troubled times is candidates who know themselves, who trust themselves, and who have the courage to BE themselves in working through the problems of our state and nation.  Cookie-cutter candidates incapable of seeing beyond party orthodoxy, dictates, and dogma cannot be servants to the public—the general public rather than the narrower public that you hope will cast the most votes for you.

Are you ready to think your own thoughts? Have you studied issues from a variety of viewpoints so you understand that answers to major problems are seldom simple because problems affect people and people come in more varieties than you can count?  Will you have backbone enough to reject the narrow, the prejudicial, the inhumane solutions you will be asked by party and well-oiled interests to support.

Remember you are not alone if you undertake this candidacy.  Remember your family because your family comes with you, spiritually if not in person.  Remember that anything you stand for, anything you say, anything you do can bring questions to your school-age children from classmates, or comments to your spouse from some stranger standing in line at a check-out counter.

What makes you think you can go from private citizen to Congress is one big leap?  Or from private citizen to the state legislature in one smaller leap?

What do you know about representing large numbers of people, each person with his or her own morals, ethics, social and economic needs, hopes, dreams, and fears?  What do you know about high-stakes discussions with others that result in policies you and all of those other people will have to follow?  How can you interact with them, take their pulse, act in their best interests if you’ve never held a public position of any kind?

I’m not saying, ‘Stay out of it.”  But I am saying, “Know what your responsibilities will be and know to whom you REALLY are responsible and respect them.  There will be dozens, maybe hundreds of people between you and your constituents if you are elected.  How prepared are you to deal with those in-between people while keeping in mind the people at home?”

What do you really know about the Constitution?  If you think reading it and doing what it says is the answer to the nation’s problems, you are woefully ignorant.  If you think the Bill of Rights is absolute, you don’t know your own rights.

Study. Study. Study.  Read and talk to people outside your partisan circle.  You are allowed to agree with them.  Not on everything, but it’s not a sin (despite the apparent political climate) to understand the other side and see that sometimes it has a better ideas.

Know history.  Not just the cleansed history this or that segment finds most beneficial to itself.  Understand that our history has warts.  Recognize them but do not tolerate them no matter how they are disguised. Think of George Santayana’s comment, “We respect the past; it was all that was humanly possible.” But that past might not be “humanly possible” or “humanly human” today. You will not erase the past by correcting its flaws that remain with us. Your public service must be focused on a future that abandons those flaws.

Congress?   The Missouri General Assembly?  The U. S. Senate?  Give serious thought to whether it’s right for you, your neighbors, and your family to go from zero to 100 mph all at once.

Maybe at your age you don’t think you can afford to wait. But there is virtue in patience and in learning.  There is a reason many of those in the offices being dangled in front of you started as members of a city council, a school board, a county commission.  They learned whether they liked to campaign.  They learned how to relate to constituents not just during the campaign but later while service those constituents in elective office.  They learned how to support and oppose ideas on their merits, how to argue with an opponent today who they need as an ally tomorrow, how to support something that is for a greater good rather than carry out the wishes of their particular constituency.  They felt the pressures of those who expected favorable votes, sometimes on unfavorable issues. They learned that personal community visibility has nothing to do with the gritty business of establishing broad community policy.

For some, the city council is satisfaction enough. For others, it just whets their desire to greater service—because they have learned how a system can work and how to make it work well.

If you have a young family, think of local office before you think of something higher.  You’ll learn politics and public service and you’ll spend you nights with your family in your own home. As you grow in understanding how things work, your family will grow in understanding them too, and will grow in understanding how your public service affects their daily lives.

Jump into the shark tank if you wish. Just don’t kid yourself or let others flatter you into thinking the jump is easy or can be painless.

Perhaps you might refresh your memory with the first eight verses of the Bible’s book of Ecclesiastes, one of the Old Testament’s “Wisdom Books,” which it says, in part:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven… 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak…

Be wise in making your decision.  Better yet, should you win, be wise in your actions—

—-for wisdom, now so profoundly lacking in our national dialogue, is critical to our future.

 

Crisis

Posted on by
Reply

If this is the best we can get, the best we can hope for, God help us.

“America is in crisis. Our country is at a critical point in its history.”

“The Democratic Party has been taken over by socialists. Our Republican leaders don’t stand up for truth and …they don’t put the good of our country over their own political ambitions.”

“(The Democratic Party) is endangering our security, bankrupting our nation, killing our jobs, fueling inflation, harming our children, defunding our police, shredding our freedoms, and rewriting our history.  (The Republican Party is promoting) dangerous conspiracy theories and attempts to overturn the election helped lead to a deadly insurrection, and (party leaders are) too weak to speak out.”

“They are destroying the country you and I love, and they must be stopped. (We need people) who promote truth, not conspiracy theories. And equality, not hate.”

I’ve come across some campaign statements from people on both sides who want to replace Roy Blunt.  Each of the above paragraphs takes statements from the Republican Party side and from the Democrat Party side.

There is no doubt our country is in trouble.  On any number of matters.

But neither side seems to have anything useful to say.  As an old joke says, it’s just BS, MS, and PhD.

We pray for candidates who will offer us more, who can do more than mouth standard partisan verbiage. It would be such a relief to hear people on both sides of the aisle discuss our crisis, our critical point, with a degree of intelligence that doesn’t degenerate into hackneyed descriptions of the other party.

Unfortunately, gut politics seems to appeal to a public whose expectations have been lowered so far that thinkers cannot be heard above the rumblings of political bowels.

With more than a year to go before voting, does anyone feel good about what is likely to be before us?

 

 

What You Drive and How You Vote

Posted on by
1

This has been crowded out of our discussions since before the November, 2020 elections but there’s enough breathing room to bring it up now.

Next time you go to a polling place, look around.  See if you can figure how your precinct will go at the end of the day, based on the vehicles you see in the parking lot.  We’re going to give you some hints.

Last October, Forbes columnist Bill Howard suggested the vehicles we drive might indicate our voting preferences.  For example, he wrote, “Many Honda and Subaru drivers are more likely to lean Democratic…On the other hand, full-size pickup drivers lean heavily Republican.”  He draws his information from Strategic Vision’s 2020 New Vehicle Experience Study that was shared with the Forbes Wheels column.  The findings were based on more than 46,000 responses.  Strategic Vision is a company that dives into “value centered psychology” that determines behavior” to determine what motivates people to make the choices they make for the vehicles they drive.

Strategic Vision President Alexander Edwards told him, “Democrats outnumber Republicans in the sedan segment and they are more likely to drive hybrids or EVs. Republicans lead in trucks, luxury, sporty and family vehicle categories>”

The company split its findings into 12 different vehicle segments, 250-plus car models and a baker’s dozen political categories.

The biggest difference in partisan vehicle tastes lies in ownership of heavy duty pickup trucks.  For each of those bought by a Democrat, eight Republicans buy one.

Democrats are more likely to buy used cars “because they skew younger” and buy used (think back to your younger days. Could you afford to buy something new?  We sure couldn’t.). The study finds younger people also are more likely not to have a vehicle and opt instead for car- pooling or public transportation. They’re more likely to keep a car longer than Republicans.

The study says Democrats are more likely to want something that is economical and “cool” and friendly to the environment. Republicans want something prestigious, powerful and rugged.  Independents?  Sensible.  Reliable.

The study of the top six vehicle preferences showed Democrats liked three Honda models, a Subaru and a Nissan sedan. The “Liberal/Progressive” people’s top choice was the Tesla Model 3, with a couple of Hondas, a Toyota small SUV hybrid, a small Chevrolet SUV and a small Kia sedan.

Five of the top six for Republicans are pickup trucks, two by Dodge, one by Ford, two by Chevrolet/GMC and a Ford SUV. Conservatives without a party affiliation like three Ford pickups, a Kia Sedan, a Jeep SUV and a Honda minivan.  Independents list two Hondas and a Honda small SUV, a Nissan sedan, a Dodge muscle car, and a Toyota SUV.

The lists actually are longer than the six vehicles we’ve listed here. If you want to read the whole thing, go to https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/what-your-car-might-say-about-how-you-vote/.

The Strategic Vision webpage is at: https://www.strategicvision.com/

ABG and the BP/M8B Poll

Posted on by
Reply

It’s time for the first, as of this writing, poll of the 2022 United States Senate race in Missouri . We have gone back to a polling organization we used many years ago.

Bear in mind that this is quite early in the campaign and many things can happen that can change the election equation. Polls are only snapshots of a particular moment and it might be foolish to place too much value in today’s answers as tomorrow’s final outcome.

We have consulted with M8B, a firm created in 1950 by Abe Bookman and Albert C. Carter, two men you are unlikely to have heard about. They use a technique known as the “Icosahedron” that evaluates twenty possible responses to polling questions. The technique might be faulted because it tends to tilt toward positive responses, while rating negative or neutral proposals lower.  In the end the weight given negative and neutral responses combined equals the weight given positive responses.

Therefore, it appears, a neutral or negative response seems likely to be more significant because either is less than the weighted positive tilt, meaning responses rated “positive” are twice as easy to obtain as those in the other two categories.  Positive results, as we understand the system, are therefore softer than negative or neutral responses, and should be considered so.

That’s a complicated explanation but it results from decades of experience in evaluating polling questions and results.

If you have doubts about the results that we present here in the first public poll of the 2020 Missouri campaign for U. S. Senate, you also can consult with M8B for a reasonable fee and ask more sophisticated questions than we have asked.

The first question in the first BP/M8B poll during this campaign was test question for which we already know the answer. “Will Roy Blunt seek re-election in 2022?” The answer reflects the public knowledge of Missouri politics (some people follow them closely and others don’t have a clue).  M8B’s response boiled down to, “Don’t count on it,” meaning the overall result conforms to what the public knows, limited by uncertainty from people who have not been following Missouri politics much.

The first actual poll question was asked in two forms and the answer was positive both times.  We twice asked, “Will Eric Greitens be Missouri’s next Senator?” An analysis of both responses is positive.  The first response was “As I see it, yes.”  The second time the response was “Most likely, ” less than certain but it is early in the campaign.  HOWEVER, when we modified the question to ask, “Will Eric Greitens be Missouri’s next U. S. Senator?” the answer was “cannot predict now,” indicating his success is less guaranteed when the issue is more clearly defined.

Attorney General Eric Schmitt is the second announced major candidate on the Republican ticket.  So we asked, “Can Eric Schmitt beat Eric Greitens in 2022. “My sources say No,” reported M8B.  When we asked the same question a second time, M8B responded, “Ask Again Later,” indicating a certain level of uneasiness about the first answer.  We waited until the end of our series of questions to come back to this issue and rephrased the question to have more specificity: “Can Eric Schmitt defeat Eric Greitens in the Missouri primary election for U.S. Senate in 2022?”  Our pollster returned to the first answer, “My sources say no.”  Not a definite “no,” but the answers clearly indicate Schmitt has an uphill road to travel if he is to win.

Knowing that a crowded field of candidates could lower the threshold for victory (the more candidates, the lower percentage of the vote necessary to win), we asked, “Will there be more than five Republican candidates for U.S. Senator from Missouri?” and the response was, “Most likely.”  We interpret that to mean that Schmitt might pull votes from Greitens, but Greitens could be strong enough to win when Schmitt and three or more candidates in the primary divide the “anybody but Greitens” vote.  We asked about that later.

But could a Democrat win the general election?  When the first round of questioning on the issue produced a “concentrate and ask again” response, we concentrated and asked again and M8B clearly engaged in lengthy analysis before finally responding, “Outlook good.” This is an issue we might have to explore in later M8B surveys as the Democrat candidate list becomes more defined.

Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz has announced he’s thinking about getting into the race. M8B said it “cannot predict now” when asked if he could win the nomination, perhaps a reflection of Schatz just thinking about running but not placing himself in the race this early in the campaign.

How about Ann Wagner, who is starting her fifth term in Congress from St. Louis County, a former ambassador to Luxembourg, and former chair or co-chair of the state and national Republican parties. Will she run?  The result was “hazy” and we were asked to try again. On the second try the answer was definitive: “It is decidedly so.”

How about southeast Missouri Congressman Jason Smith, also in his fifth term in Congress, after more than four terms in the Missouri House? “My sources say no,” said M8B.

Billy Long, the auctioneer from southwest Missouri?  He’s in his sixth term in Congress. We asked about him twice and the results seem certain. “Outlook good,” was the first response. “It is decidedly so,” was the second.

Whether Donald Trump will be the factor that he says he will be in 2022 is far from certain. M8B results might reflect the uncertainty of Trump’s personal as well as his political future. We asked the question five times because he is so insistent that he will be a factor.  “It is decidedly so” was the first answer but then M8B follow-up responses were definitely less decisive: “My reply is no,” “very doubtful,” “Reply hazy, try again,” and then when we did, M8B twice  said, “ask again later,” which we will do as we get closer to 2022. But on balance the findings indicate Trump’s influence is likely to wane.

Our final question was whether a strategy of “Anybody but Eric Greitens” would be a winning strategy among the Republican establishment that has never found any substance to him.  Perhaps because the campaign is still so young that “anybody” has not yet been defined fully, the responses were understandably mixed: “Most likely” then “Don’t count on it,” Signs point to yes,” “My sources say no,” and finally, “Ask again later.”

In light of the uncertainty we read into the results of the final question, we certainly will ask again later.

You can ask the same questions we have asked in the BP/M8B Poll in your own living room.  M8B’s services are available for a small investment at your local toy store in the purchase of a Magic 8 Ball. In case you have ever wondered how they operate:  An Icosahedron is a polyhedron with twenty faces, each with an affirmative, negative, or neutral statement. Ten of the faces are affirmative. Five are negative, and five are neutral. The thing floats in alcohol died blue.

Is this poll accurate?

Ask again later.

 

If It Ain’t Broke—the other view

Posted on by
1

As we noted in last Wednesday’s entry, there is a “comments” box at the end of each one that for those who agree or differ with what is said. This is the first time we have published comments as a stand-alone entry.  But the issue of elections and voting is so central to our system of government that when the sponsor of the bill we questioned called last week with concerns about some of the things we had written, we decided that the comment, or response, should get more than space in the “comment” box that, having been entered after the original piece was published, would not get the attention the issue deserves to have.

Representative Peggy McGaugh’s background on election issues is considerable. She worked for 32 years in the Carroll County Clerk’s office, almost 24 of those years (six four-year terms) as the County Clerk.  She is a past-president of the Missouri Association of Counties and a former member of the Secretary of State’s Voter Integrity Task Force.

In response to your “If it ain’t broke” blog, find below a few answers from my view as one of the sponsors of the consolidated election bill going through the General Assembly this year.

This bill is a culmination of bills passed out of the House Elections committee with the involvement of the Mo Secretary of State’s office and the Missouri Association of County Clerk’s/ Election Authorities (MACCEA)  who do Resolutions each year for proposed changes to improve the law and better the process for Missourians.

*limiting changes to six months before an election would prevent nefarious or bad actors from pushing a specific narrative to change the outcome of an election.

 

*the ability to select election judges and poll watchers from outside of the boundaries of a jurisdiction was a request from MACCEA who have difficulty filling the positions in areas where one party dominates another when following Chapter 115 of equal representation of parties at the precinct.

 

*the direct recording electronic devices (DREs) are the electronic equipment being phased out in the bill.  The three counties that currently use them will move to a system that will include some type of paper ballot hand marked by the voter and counted by an electronic tabulator as you described.

 

*absentee voting by mail or in person will still occur six weeks out from any election using the same excuses as in the past.  This bill allows a registered voter to appear in the election authority’s office three weeks out from any election, apply for and receive their ballot without using an excuse and then thread the ballot through tabulator. This assures them that their ballot was received and counted without having to fib to get the convenience. 

 

*ballots will be considered cast when received in the election authority office if postmarked on or before election day and the drop boxes will be swept and gathered for counting up until the close of the polls on election day.

Thank you for bringing the merits of this election bill to your readers.

Keeping Missouri as a model of free, fair and transparent elections is our goal in the General Assembly.

I look forward to answering any other questions you might have.

Representative Peggy McGaugh

Proudly representing Ray, Carroll and Chariton Counties   

    

We appreciate Rep. McGaugh’s thoughts. Her page on the House of Representatives website contains contact information should anyone want to send her an email.  If you do, please follow the same guidelines you follow them when writing to us—be kind, be courteous, be respectful.

-0-

I respectfully beg to differ

Posted on by
Reply

(We live in a time when disagreements seem unresolvable, when disputing forces seem more interested in fighting than serving, when disagreeing is, to use a term we wish had never come up, weaponized. Dr. Crane reminds us that disagreement can be a positive part of our existence, if respect is part of it, as he asks—-)

ARE YOU ON OPPOSITE SIDES?

Doubtless each of us knows someone in his circle of acquaintances who is intellectually contrary. Such as one delights on every occasion to take the opposite side.

If he is within a religious community he will take his stand firmly for atheism.  If he is one of the scoffers, he will argue just as valiantly for the church. He is a standing minority report. He is a crooked stick that will not lie in the woodpile. Like Goethe’s Devil he is the spirit who constantly denies.

This type of person is the steady, normal crop in the field of humanity. We would not get along without them. They keep the kettle of thing stirred, which otherwise would settle and spoil. These are they that keep the course of social life pure as a running stream and prevent it from becoming like a green stagnant pool.

They supply ginger for political campaigns. They are the party out of power. They are the watchdogs of progress. Without them religion would harden into a cruel tyranny of superstition, falsehoods would be crystallized into power, and ancient fraud live forever.

They harass mankind into being honest.

If it ain’t broke—

Posted on by
1

Break it.

We have a place at the end of each of these musings for you, dear reader, to straighten out the author on points in which his thoughts obviously and erroneously vary from the truth.  In your opinion.

Feel free to utilize that space, especially with this entry because your worthy author seems to be missing badly the whole point of the legislative effort to rewrite some of our election laws.  Those doing the rewriting say our election system is flawed and need to be made better. Others  think the re-writers are limiting rather than enhancing voting rights and opportunities.

We must be missing something.  Big.

—because Missouri’s Secretary of State has offered zero complaints, as far as we know, about last year’s elections. We have heard zero complaints of voter fraud here.  No federal lawsuits were filed in Missouri contesting the outcome(s).  In fact, our Attorney General, who was so vigilant at spotting fraud and shortcomings in several other states’ elections, has offered not one legal peep about things here.  The two-third majorities were maintained in both chambers of the General Assembly, so it appears there was no nefarious plot to undermine the lawmaking structure of our state.

More than three-million people voted, the first time that many people took part in a November election. It beat the 2.9-million who voted in the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. The raw number might have been a record but the percentage of eligible voters fell short of projections and short of the 78% vote when Bill Clinton was elected over George H. W. Bush, who had the worst performance for a Republican since Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Bush was hurt because Ross Perot had the best performance for a third party candidate here since John Bell Williams, also in 1860.

So what was broken last year?

Why is there a provision saying no change in voting laws can be made within six months of a presidential election?  Just last year the legislature made a change in response to a pandemic that was making many people nervous about going to polling places.  Mail-in ballots were allowed but they are outlawed in this bill. We have not heard any loud yelling, seen any frantic arm-waving, and heard of any lawsuit filed complaining this system generated anything but greater opportunity for citizens to exercise one of our most cherished rights, especially during one of our greatest health crises in history.

The good thing is that this is just a statute.  And this ban on changing laws within six months of an election can be repealed, just as the bill repeals mail-in ballots.  And we wouldn’t be surprised to see a repeal of the repeal if the party makeup of the legislature ever happens.

Present law allows the election authority—the county clerk or the metropolitan election authority—to appoint two judges from each major party to serve at each polling place. The proposed law says the political parties will recommend potential judges but says they don’t have to live within the jurisdiction of the election authority.  So the election authority, which is given the power to throw out people it deems unqualified to be judges, instead of going back to the parties can instead appoint somebody from outside the voting area—namely the county or the city?  Could the election authority, for example, dismiss local election judge candidates (we see nothing in the bill allowing an appeal of that action) and install, let’s say, a perceived looney advocate for a national candidate instead?

Please tell us we have just hatched a conspiracy theory.  We hate conspiracy theories and have no desire to be associated with one.

Another section allows the chairman of each county political party committee to designate a watcher for each place where votes are counted (that’s present law).  But the new language says the poll watcher does not have to live within that jurisdiction.  See the above question.

Are we reading another section of the proposed election law changes to say that we are doing away with electronic voting machines?  And going back to paper ballots?  We must have missed all of the complaints about how voting machines corrupted the elections in Missouri in 2020.

As we understand it, (from section 115.237—please pardon the technical language) the bill refers to “direct-recording” machines but not to electronic COUNTING machines. When I voted last November, I used a pencil to filling a little oval on a voting card and then fed the card into an electronic tabulating machine.  That’s okay but anything of a higher technology is not to be allowed.  Correct?

Absentee ballots can’t be cast until three weeks before the election and can only be cast at a designated location—seemingly a further limitation on mail-in voting—and require a photo identification (Did I miss anything about absentee voting by the military far overseas?).  BUT the bill does eliminate lying about the reason for voting absentee.  Last year Nancy and I voted absentee, citing our age which made us especially susceptible to the virus. Had we been required to say we were going to be out of town that day, we would have sworn that we would be and would have driven outside the city limits, turned around, and come back, thus being honest.

Should we be bothered by a provision that absentee ballots that do not arrive by the time polls close on election day will not be counted?  They “shall be deemed cast when received prior to the time fixed by law for closing the polls on election day.”  This applies to absentees mailed from halfway around the world as well as absentees left in a drop box.  This is kind of an awkward issue, isn’t it? We have heard for years discussions about the timing of sending out absentee ballots to our military in time for them to be voted and returned within proper time limits to be counted and we don’t know that there has ever been a system that guarantees every vote case before election day is counted whenever it arrives home. Given the mess our postal system is in today (we are never sure when we’ll get our mail anymore), maybe it makes sense to be a little more flexible than the bill allows.  As for drop boxes—-what is to keep an election authority from waiting for two hours past poll-closing to empty drop boxes in areas inclined to vote against the election authority’s wishes?   Doesn’t sound as if those votes will be counted even if they went into the box the day before election day.

In the days when we were in the chambers listening to debates or in the hearing rooms when bills were considered and justified or attacked by sponsors and critics, we might understand better the motivations behind this bill.  But we’re just another old guy on a quiet street—who is a voter—and we don’t have that kind of access.

So we wonder what all the fuss is about in making these changes after three million of our 4,338,133 registered voters found a way—-with the bipartisan help of the 2019 legislature—to cast ballots in a 2020 election that produced absolutely none of the bombast, accusations, and conspiracies that were generated in other states, usually by people who don’t live in those states.

Let us know.  This obviously isn’t Twitter. You can use as many helpful words as you wish.