Category Archives: elections

Bicker, Bicker, Bicker

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We begin this week at the Capitol with the State Senate trying to work out a conflict with Republican ranks on a new congressional district map.

It’s not a Republican-Democrat fight. It’s a Republican-Republican fight.  Should lines be drawn to eliminate a Democratic Congressman?  Or should the lines be drawn to protect a Republican Congresswoman?  Should Missouri Democrats have only one member of Congress?  Or Two?

Heaven help us if a district might be drawn as a swing district, where the Rs and the Ds might be close enough for a campaign to be competitive.  And interesting.  And challenging for the candidates.

Last week the Senate dissolved into bickering between Republican factions.  Should the map be 7-1 Republican or might it be 6-2 with big city Democratic enclaves guaranteed places at the table?  Neither R faction could pass the bill on its own. An alliance with Democrats might provide the margin needed but the Ds would demand a 5-3 map or one that would give them a better shot at getting a third district.

And that is a bridge too far to cross for the either faction of the Rs.

There was concern that the original proposed district lines (approved by the House) would put the Second Congressional District in jeopardy of turning blue, giving the Ds a third seat. Incumbent Ann Wagner barely has survived the last two elections, drawing less than 52% of the vote each time. Republicans might have to work hard to keep that district under the House-passed map because the Democrats surely would work hard to take it, especially given its new borders.  The ultra-conservatives in the Senate don’t want to worry about that so they filibustered until the other Rs agreed to fiddle with the boundaries and make things look better for Wagner’s chances.

It appears we are to be spared the situation after the 2010 census when the lines were drawn to make our delegation 6-2 Republican by putting two Democratic incumbents in the same district.  William Lacy Clay defeated fellow incumbent Russ Carnahan after Carnahan’s district was re-drawn to include a big chunk of Clay territory in St. Louis.  There are no incumbents running against each other this time.

Lawmakers are working hard to avoid having judges draw the lines. A lawsuit after the 1980 session led to a federal district court drawing new districts for the 1982 election, the first election since Missouri lost its ninth congressional seat.  The court’s map put forty percent of Wendell Bailey’s district into Bill Emerson’s district.   Bailey, whose home was barely inside the new district, established a residence in a new district then represented by Democrat Ike Skelton.  Republicans thought Bailey was the best possible candidate to take out Skelton, and he did run strongly but Skelton, who kept 60% of his old district won—although Baily held him to a 54% majority.

That result points to something important.

Congressional districts that are not drawn to protect incumbents provide better contests for voters to decide which competing ideas best represent them. But in practice, that is not the goal of those drawing the lines.  Protecting the dominant party is the ultimate goal when the lines are approved by a partisan body.  We’ve seen that pendulum swing both ways through the years.

Democrats have a point—that the 2020 presidential race broke 60-40 Republican. Therefore, they argue, the most representative congressional map would be one with which Democrats might be able to win another seat, making the delegation 5-3 and more representative of the overall political face of Missouri.

Republicans have a point—that the most recent legislative elections left the chambers of the legislature two-thirds Republican. Thus, the real-world Golden Rule prevails: He who has the gold, rules.

So the divided Republicans in the Senate bickered the week away last week, seemed to iron out some of the intra-partisan wrinkles as the week ended, and are likely to have a map that makes Second District Republicans more comfortable to start things this week.

Then a period of uncertainty arrives. Somebody could file a lawsuit.

And when this game goes into that overtime, the two teams (or three) that have been playing the game so far will be on the sidelines while a third team controls the scoreboard. And that’s not what the majority party wants.

The Greatest Accomplishment

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We suppose our former governors have, from time to time, been asked about their greatest accomplishments during their terms. Lately, it has become part of the regular business of wrapping up their time in office to publish a glossy, colorful booklet praising themselves.  But apart from the self-serving publications, what do past governors really think is the best thing they did.

About twenty years ago or so, Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley, published at Southeast Missouri State University, printed a letter from then-former Governor Arthur M. Hyde about “some problem of statewide interest which occurred during my administration.”  The letter was to Dr. Joseph A. Serena, the then-President of then-Southeast Missouri State Teachers College (since 1973 it has been Southeast Missouri State University).

Hyde, a Republican, had been elected in what was seen as one of the great upsets in Missouri elections history in 1920. He immediately cleaned house in then-patronage dominated state government by throwing out Democrats given jobs by previous administrations.

The demand for a modern highway system led to the creation of a State Highway Commission during his term. Public education needs led to the assessment of real estate at its true value, “thereby writing a taxable foundation under the public schools upon which good schools could be built.” He listed the purchase of state parks and putting state charitable institutions under non-partisan control as important accomplishments.

“To my mind, however, the matter of greatest public import was the ‘cleanup’ of the Republican party,” he wrote. What he next wrote about the Republican Party of his time is applicable to either of our major political parties today.

“Á political party justifies its existence only when it offers itself to the people as an instrument or a tool which the people may use to bring about necessary reform, or to accomplish political results.  All political problems are reflected in party action. All matters of governmental action are political matters.  A carpenter cannot use a dull or an “unset” saw to do fine work.  The people cannot use a corrupt or a selfish party to achieve needed political changes. That the realignment within the Republican party was used by the people to accomplish great results is proved by the recitals of the early part of this letter. That realignment is forcing changes within the opposing party.  What a happy day for Missouri when the people have two effective instruments with which to work, when party campaigns are contests as to which party has best served the State, and which offers the most constructive program for the future.”

We offer Hyde’s words less as a commentary on present situations and concerns than as an observation that both of our major political parties are required to do significant soul-searching from time to time if they are to be “effective instruments” to best serve the state or nation and offer “the most constructive program for the future.”

What a happy day it will be, indeed, if we ever reach Hyde’s ideal that the appeal for power must be based on two instruments offering the most constructive service to the people.

(photo credit: 1921 Official Manual of the State of Missouri)

 

Let’s take a breath

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—and count to ten before we blurt out a heated response to something someone has said.

I have a friend who says he hasn’t paid attention to the news for several years.  He seems at peace with himself.  Uninformed, but at peace.

Unfortunately, uninformed people who are at peace with themselves are the kind of people despots take advantage of.

Responsible engagement is a friend of freedom.

But responsible engagement should require thought, not reflex.

Unfortunately, we are living in a time of reflex, encouraged by those who want to take advantage of unthinking reaction for their own political benefit. Mischaracterization too often goes unchallenged on both sides of the spectrum.

God gave us a brain to think with.  God gave us a stomach to digest things with. Too many folks, from our lofty standpoint, have forgotten what is between our ears and seem to believe the thing that fills our bowels with waste is the thinking apparatus.

Case in point (and we’re going to get crucified by some of you for doing this): Mitch McConnell’s statement last week, “If you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”  The comment, in answering a reporter’s question about Republican opposition to the Voting Rights Act, became Twitter cannon fodder within minutes.

There is no doubt that throughout our land, a lot of nerves are on the outside of people’s bodies. McConnell, a lightning rod for those who think his party leadership would be better for the country if he focused more on service than on power, hit those nerves hard.

From the beginning, we wondered if he would be pilloried for what could have been a clumsy use of the English language. While understanding many would take his comments as racist and an expected attitude toward someone whose party is perceived as favoring limits Black voting, we also wondered if the intent of his remark was that African-American voters are as involved in elections as much as everybody else.

McConnell, instead of apologizing for making his point awkwardly, has given a gut response. He calls the criticism of his comment “outrageous.” He accused some of his critics of spouting “total nonsense.”

After lashing out at critics, he said he meant was that “African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as (all) Americans.”

He cited his record in civil rights issues including the Martin Luther King march on Washington in 1963, his mentoring of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is black, and that he has “had African American speechwriters, schedulers, [and] office managers” throughout his political career.

In a time when such defenses would be seen as condescending, he might have chosen to verbalize his defense better.

Kentucky U. S. Senate candidate Charles Booker, who is Black, accused McConnell of thinking “it’s fine for him to block Voting Rights because he has black friends.”

Two points:   First, in earlier times, this instant prairie fire might have burned itself out. But today, social media is a mighty wind that increases the flames.

Second, there were times in our reporting days when someone we were interviewing said something that didn’t seem right the immediate follow up question became, “Are you saying—-?” which either gave the person a chance to dig a deeper hole or a chance to be more clear. Somebody should have asked the question when the original remark was made.

In a time when an inarticulate comment can become a social media hand grenade, it would do all of us well if our public figures allowed a second or two of silence after a question before they say what they mean to be heard. We are so awash in intentionally harmful speech that it is essential that people in McConnell’s position as a political symbol as well as a political leader be more careful in what they say.

It also is more important for those listening to ask, “Did you mean—?” if they can. And it is important for the health of our Republic for those who are quick to condemn to ask if what was said is what was truly meant.

Blurting is not a national virtue.

However, taking a breath is what keeps us healthy.

A Decision

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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? 

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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

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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;

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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

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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

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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

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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.