Two Worlds

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The General Assembly is spending this week on its annual spring break, a few days to relax, unwind and reload. And to do a little campaigning or campaign planning perhaps.

They’re back in the real world this week.  For those who haven’t seen their other world, the differences are hard to understand.

When a member of the Missouri General Assembly steps through an entrance of the Missouri Capitol, that person is stepping into a small, confined, hot world with little respite that tends to consume even the best of people for most of the first five months of the year before it spits them back out into the world from which they came.

And they’re glad to come back seven months later to step out of their comfortable home world through those doors and back into the collision of wills, the competition of ideas, and the fight over the words yes and no.

They move from a world of service to others into a world of demands from others. And the demands are unrelenting, sometimes with consequences implied if the demands are not met.

They might be active at home on issues of poverty, food shortages, spouse and child abuse, veterans needs, church work, homelessness, and other social issues that can’t afford high-powered influence in the hot little world that is the Missouri Capitol. And as they deal in the capitol with pressures from those that can afford to apply them, it might be hard to think of their gentler work at home.

Imagine lives lived in fifteen-minute segments, each segment featuring someone who wants something, or a world of one or two-hour meetings to listen to proposals pleasing to those in the Capitol hallways, and days of increasingly long sessions arguing about the propriety of answering demands and which ones to answer.

Imagine all of this far from the comfort of home, family, friends, and co-workers with whom they share their streets, or coffee, or church pews.

It is hard to remember in those eighteen weeks or so who is more important—the people they meet on the street back home or the people they meet in the hallways of the State Capitol.

Seldom is there time or opportunity to think about things in depth, to study issues in depth, to look for pitfalls in legislation in depth. The pressure to take what they are given, often not knowing all that is within the proposition, is enormous. Sometimes the pressure squeezes out reason, leads to action counter to what is best to those back home, and demands action without burden of thought.

This is the world of unrelenting movement, of unrelenting asks and demands, a world far detached from the freedoms enjoyed where they live.

Furthermore, it’s more than consuming. It’s addictive.

Plaques on the office wall from those whose bidding they have done. Checks in the campaign account to encourage or reward a vote.  Intense seeming friendships today that disappear when the last vote is cast that can benefit a person, a group, a cause.

This is the other world of the people we send to represent us in Jefferson City. As individuals, they return home the same people.  As a group, however, in the capitol they become “government,” an enemy to many.

Is there is a way to improve this system?

Ideally, yes.  Sometimes it’s a matter of those sent to Jefferson City to show courage in the face of pressures, to question more closely the things asked of them. But sometimes it’s the case of those who vote to send others to represent them in this small stone world we call the Missouri Capitol meeting a citizen’s responsibility to pay attention to issues that are not always “my backyard” issues.

Government does not take place only in the Capitols of our country.  Its roots are in the home towns of those who are sent forth. And the folks at home need to care, to pay attention, and to hold accountable those who are to speak for them in that hot little world.

 

Sports: Racing, etc.

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But first: Stick and ball news—

We now enter the busiest time of year for stick and ball sports.

The first players showed up during the weekend at spring training sites in Florida and Arizona, ending an extended winter of discontent in baseball.  Opening day is less than a month away. There will be 162 games with day/night doubleheaders making up for games previously cancelled.

College basketball tournaments are underway for men and women but the main focus, although not the exclusive province of great basketball, the NCAA Tournament, begins tomorrow afternoon.

The USFL is back after a 37-year absence.  Old-timers might remember it played three years, 1983-85 and had grand plans to compete head-to-head with the NFL in the fall of 1986.  But it collapsed before that season could start. The league filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL and won treble damages.  The jury awarded only $1 in damages, which was tripled to three dollars which didn’t do much to offset the $163 million dollars theleague lost.  The planned move to the fall was led by the majority owner of the New Jersey Generals, Donald J. Trump, who thought it would provoke a merger with the NFL.  The new United States Football League owns all of the trademarks of the original league but has no other connection with it. But that’s why we’ll see some names that might ring a bell with those who remember the original.

The National Hockey League still has about six weeks to go before it begins the long, long second season. The Blues are in good shape for the playoffs, second in their division, not likely to catch the Avalanche but hoping to hold off the Wild.

The National Basketball Association, which has former Missouri Tigers Jordan Clarkson and Michael Porter Jr., is a few days less than a month away after which it will compete with the NHL with its long, long second season.  Missouri has not had an NBA team since the Kansas City/Omaha Kings (the former Rochester Seagrams, Rochester Eber Seagrams, Rochester Pros, Rochester Royals, Cincinnati Royals) left town to become the Sacramento Kings in 1985.

And of course there’s golf and tennis and soccer.  And before too long the ground will be warm enough in Missouri for some sand volleyball in our city parks.

Now:  Racing

(NASCAR)—A three-lap shootout with four of NASCAR’s young guns at Phoenix has gone to Chase Briscoe, driving a car owned by his childhood hero, Tony Stewart, and sporting Stewart’s old number—14.  Briscoe had to survive three late-race restarts to get his first Cup win. He finished about eight-tenths of a second ahead of Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick, and Ryan Blaney. Two of the oldest drivers on the circuit, Kurt Busch, 43, and Kevin Harvick, 46, filled out the top six.

For those keeping track of such things, Briscoe also became the 200th driver to win a Cup Race in NASCAR’s almost-75 year history.   Harvick’s finish was his 18th top ten at Phoenix. Only two other drivers in NASCAR history have matched that consistency.  Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr., had eighteen straight top tens at North Wilkesboro, which no longer hosts NASCAR’s top series. Harvick has another streak going that he’d prefer to break sooner rather than later. He hasn’t won a race since September 19, 2020.

The win was an emotional one for last year’s series Rookie of the Year. “I was crying the whole last lap,” he said later. “Just seven years ago I was sleeping on couches, volunteering at race shops and was literally driving home to give up.

Next up for NASCAR is the first race on the newly-redesigned track at Atlanta which has been repaved since last year with progressive banking in the turns.

(INDYCAR)—The second race of the year for America’s premier open-wheel series is this coming weekend at the Texas Speedway.  It will be the first high-speed banked oval run for six rookies.  INDYCAR set up a nine-hour test last week for Kyle Kirkwood, David Malukas, Romain Grosjean, Devlin DeFrancesco, Christian Lundgaard, and Callum Llott.  Grosjean was there voluntarily. He’d done his oval testing last fall at World Wide Technology Raceway across the river from St. Louis. But he took the opportunity to get acquainted with a bigger, faster track.

A quasi-rookie in the race will be seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, who ran only road courses last year.  Most of his NASCAR career was on ovals and he expects to do better than his career-best 17th place finishes on road courses. Johnson won 83 Cup races, 82 of them on ovals. He’s confident of better things in the five INDYCAR oval races this year after testing on the ovals at Texas and Indianapolis last year.

One of INDYCAR’s hottest young talents has landed a Formula 1test driver job with McLaren. F1 rules allow teams to use one of last year’s cars to test young talent.  If Colton Herta is impressive enough he could land an FP1 opportunity.  Formula 1 requires rookie drivers to have at least two FP1 sessions  before they can race. FP1 lets new drivers get accustomed to the current car in test sessions held before a race with the first session (FP!) focusing on car setups.  FP2 gives experience in simulated long race runs. FP3 lets them work on qualifications laps and more setups. Herta plans to fit those sessions in between his INDYCAR races this year.

(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 has wrapped up the last pre-season testing with three days on the track at Bahrain. The top rivalry, a carryover from last year’s heated championship run, is still Red Bull vs. Mercedes.  Mercedes turned the most test laps at Bahrain but was short of the top of the speed charts.  Red Bull had the only laps below 1:32. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, who lost his chance for a record eighth championship because of a controversial race administration issue last year, says Red Bull looks “ridiculously fast” but he says Mercedes is still the better team.

Red bull driver, defending champion Max Verstappen thinks Mercedes wasn’t showing its full capability during the tests.

The season opens Sunday on the Bahrain circuit.

(Photo credits: Bob Priddy)

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The Whirlwind

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This year is the thirtieth anniversary of two major decisions made by Missouri voters.  One has proven itself to be a disaster for Missouri’s political system and the other has led to proof of the fallibility of the first.

Missouri voters hypocritically approved legislative term limits with a 75 percent favorable vote on November 3, 1992.

On the same day, Missourians went 62 percent in favor of what was then called “riverboat gambling.”

These two events have become a toxic political brew in our system of government.

In today’s discussion we are going to look at term limits.  Later we will discuss casino gambling.

The Old Testament minor prophet Hosea, a contemporary of more important prophets Isaiah and Micah, warned metaphorically of the downfall of Israel for its various sins—lying, murder, idolatry, and covetousness, along with spiritual and physical adultery, these latter two characteristics personally experienced by Hosea and his wife Gomer.  Gomer carried on with another man.  The faithful Hosea accused Israel of spiritual adultery.

He warned that Israel and Judah would fall:

“They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour.”

Term limits was the wind.  We are reaping the whirlwind in the Missouri General Assembly—most particularly in the Missouri Senate.  But the term limits whirlwind is not just blowing in the Senate which heads towards its spring break at the end of this week with only one bill approved in weeks of division, derision and disrespect. It is felt less in the House where its impact is less visible because it is more controlled.

It rages in the Senate where unlimited debate among the 34 members is still considered a virtue—as it should be if members respected it more than they abuse it.  The House has rules that are necessary in a chamber of 163 members to limit the time a member may speak on an issue.

The public, which has little interest in the more subtle or arcane factors of lawmaking, bought the idea that politicians should be limited to a maximum of eight years in the House and eight in the Senate because politicians are basically—

Crooked.

—Except for their own representative or senator.  While voting to limit House members to four terms and Senate members to two terms, many of those 1992 voters were electing their Representatives and Senators to terms five or three in many districts.

The voters voted to restrict their own right to vote when they for term limits.  This year, voters in will be prohibited from considering whether five of their Senators deserve a third term. In most of those cases, those Senators will never again have the privilege of representing their citizens on the floors of the House or the Senate.  Voters in 1992, most of whom do not live in those senatorial districts, decided these five are no longer fit to serve regardless of how distinguished their work might have been.

But terms limits is more dangerous than that.

Those of us who voted in that election were warned that term limits would destroy the institutional memory that is vital to lawmaking. Senior lawmakers who knew the value of respecting the other side of the aisle, of knowing that today’s enemy is tomorrow’s friend, who understood that collegiality benefitted the people of Missouri more than hostility, disappeared.  With no one to teach newcomers the importance of legislative control of the lawmaking process, that control passed to outsiders.

I watched the first crumbling of the legislative process.  The first piece fell the first time I heard the sponsor of a bill ask a colleague offering an amendment, “Have you run this past so-and-so in the hall?,”  clearly an indication that a blessing from a lobbyist (lobbyists are not allowed within the floor of the chambers during debate) was necessary for acceptance of the amendment.

Later as cell phones became more ubiquitous, I watched debaters with their cellphone in their hands checking for text messages that influenced the debate.  Technology has put the lobbyists in the chambers.

There also have been other indications that much of the power of lawmaking has shifted from the bests interests of constituents being argued on the floors of the House and Senate to the best interests of those in the hallways being transmitted into the discussion from outside.

I watched the disappearance of lawmakers capable of amendments written by hand during the debate, replaced by pauses in debate so a legislative staff member could write what he or she was asked to write—the origin of the amendment sometimes in a text message from outside.

In the entire first half of this legislative session, only one bill has been approved by both chambers and sent to the governor. Just one.

The wind the voters sowed in 1992 is the whirlwind of 2022 and in the splintered and often dedlocked Missouri Senate, at least, (and in the Congress as well) “The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour.”

And legislative bodies—Congress and state assemblies alike—seem unwilling to prove they serve above the low regard the public has for them.

 

“We should look for common honesty”

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He signed his letter, “A Voter,” which many newspaper editors would not allow today and rightfully so. Whether you let off steam or offer calm advice, the writers of letters to the editor should have the courtesy and courage to sign their names.

But hear the voice of “A Voter” from a time when our state was but three years old and the first presidential election since Missouri joined the Union was only weeks away.  He wrote to the editor of the Missouri Intelligencer, our first outstate newspaper—published in Franklin. The words in the June 5, 1824 issue are valid today.

It is…common, in all governments, for those who seek for offices, to woo the power that can bestow them; and, in our government, the man who cannot, or who will not, flatter the people, may content himself in private life…

To facilitate his design, the first object of a candidate is to discover our hobby; and when found, mount it and ride without mercy…My heart misgives me every time a new circular is announced, or whenever a fresh candidate mounts a stump, lest the poor jade should not be able to hold out to the end. It is thought, however, if a candidate rides gracefully, he will do…I cannot suppose that this is a general belief—but some, we know, have more confidence in vicarious power than others.

The time is approaching when we shall be called on to exercise that inestimable franchise of free men, the right of suffrage, to its full extent. And, as all power is primarily in the people, the right of suffrage is not only a privilege, but a duty obligatory on all; and to him that is remiss in this duty, the sin of omission may be fairly imputed.

In performing this duty, then, it is incumbent on us to deliberate before we act; and before we give our voices to any man to perform any of the functions of our government, if he has not passed the ordeal of a public trial, let us first, if possible, ascertain if he is the man he professes to be. 

I am aware of the impracticability of personally knowing every man who offers his services. But every man who is constitutionally eligible to important trusts under our state government is known by some in whose probity and impartiality others may justly confide. And, where we cannot obtain personal knowledge, the information of men of integrity and who have had opportunity to possess that knowledge, may be relied on.

I admit that it is vain to look for perfection in man…We should not look for great talents and splendid acquirements to fill every office.  But we should look for common honesty and if a man possess no other qualifications but such as would entitle him to a diploma from an academy for horse-jockeys, I think he is not entitled to any post of trust or profit under our government.

A lot of words are thrown around during election seasons, as we saw in 2020 and will see again this year, some irresponsibly and some sincerely. “Common honesty” might be a high goal, but it’s one we should demand of those who want our votes. To fail to do so is to sell ourselves cheaply.

Outgrowing Ourselves

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Picked up a copy of The Pathway the other day to read while I was having lunch at Chez Monet, which has moved back into the capitol basement to run the cafeteria.  The newspaper is a publication of the Missouri Baptist Convention.

The lead story told me that a bill in the state senate “threatens the First Amendment rights of Missouri Christians.”  Since I consider myself one of those, I thought I should learn about this threat to me.

The bill is the Missouri Non-Discrimination Act. It would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. “It masquerades as equal treatment for all, but it results in unequal treatment for people of faith like Colorado baker Jack Philips and Washington florist Baronelle Stutzman, Christians in business who seek to live out their faith in the marketplace.”

The article is critical of MONA and its federal counterpart, the Federal Equality Act, by extending prohibitions against discrimination in hiring or lodging based on race, national origin, and age.

The publication complains the bill would “penalize and discriminate against everyday Missourians for their beliefs about marriage and biological sex.”

This is a ticklish area because there are those who suggest non-Christians are behind such words. Then there are Christians who believe they MUST be behind those words.

The conflict results in some proclaiming that others can’t be Christians if they don’t support this kind of language. Or that some can’t be Christians if they DO support it.

And then there are some who question the Christianity of those who would argue about that.

—which bring us to a fundamental question of whether Christianity is an inclusive faith or an exclusive faith, a Big Church Faith or a Little Church Faith.

The article says, “MONA’s implications threaten our core convictions based on Scripture about our Creator God…..”

I confess that I sometimes wonder how to balance an omnipotent Creator God with a God who seems to make a mistake in creating someone who is gay or someone who does not identify with their birth gender.  Isn’t an omnipotent God immune from making such mistakes?

Or are we really all God’s children?  How can all of us be God’s children if some of us are gay and gay people are to be treated differently by Christians because it turns out not all of us are God’s children after all, or so they suggest.

I gave you only part of the sentence a minute ago.  The full sentence says, “MONA’s implications threaten our core convictions based on Scripture about our Creator God, family, marriage, sexuality, community, decency and religious liberty.”

Is it possible for a family with a gay child to really be a Christian family?  Can a gay or transgender person practice Freedom of Religion or does their gender identity impair their ability to be followers of the Christ?  Are they, at best, second-class Christians if they are Christians at all?

There have been times in our history when good Christian black and white people could not marry and even to be seen together was risky because others subscribed to “convictions based on Scripture.”  It offended Christian decency and was some kind of an insult to a community (small “c”).

Maybe there’s something wrong with me when the simple words of a hymn many of us sang as children keeps going through my head.

“Praise Him, praise Him, all ye little children, God is Love, God is love; Praise him praise Him all ye little children, God is love, God is love.”

When the Disciples rebuked Jesus for touching infants that had been brought to him, he told them, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of God.”

He also told the disciples, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Given a chance to follow their natural impulses, children of all races, creeds, and nationalities will play together without judgment.  One might grow to be gay. Another might grow up to be transgender.  But that makes no difference when they are children involved in the innocence of play.

It’s too bad that we have to grow up and require laws that make us play nice together—or to separate us on the basis of some exclusive righteousnss or other.

Sometimes I think we are born as children of God.

And then we outgrow it.

What to do with him

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It surely has occurred to many people watching investigations from Georgia to Washington and New York that criminal charges against former President Donald Trump are growing more possible.

There is no joy in writing that sentence or in contemplating the issue we address today.  But the issue cannot be ignored.

What is to be done if a president or a former president is charged and convicted of serious crimes?

Based on almost daily reports that a new rock is turned over and something disappointing crawls out from under it, there is no avoiding the possibility that the former leader of the free world, as we like to think of our president, could be found guilty of an offense that could mean imprisonment.

We have witnessed first-hand several public officials at the state level being sent to prison. It hasn’t been that hard to watch it happen without concern for or about them.

But if it’s a former President of the United States?

The mental image of a man whose dark suit and red or blue tie are so familiar trading those clothes for an orange jumpsuit is jarring.

If the betrayal of public trust is so severe that not even a Gerald Ford/Richard Nixon-type presidential pardon can be contemplated, where does he go?  Does he become part of the general population, even if it’s a so-called “country club prison” some think disgraced public officials occupy?

Inmates do have rights within a prison. They aren’t left in a bleak cell 24 hours a day. But what kind of cell should an ex-president occupy? A cell/suite?  Or the same kind of cell occupied by the state official doing time for campaign embezzlement?

Would he take his meals in the same room with the other inmates and at the same time—even if surrounded by guards because someone might want to become infamous by doing him (possibly fatal) harm?

Should restrictive house arrest be off the table?  Depending on the severity of the offense(s), should any be proven, should the ex-president be allowed to stay at Mar-a-Lago? Being punished by staying in the big house and not being allowed to play golf has a ludicrous aspect to it.

Should an ex-president be given a job in a prison?  Kitchen work.  Janitorial work.  Tending to the prison garden.  Mopping bathroom floors.  Working in a prison industry (making furniture for example).  Should he be allowed to attend a class and earn an associate college degree?

We know, of course, that if things get this far, thousands and perhaps millions of people will feel that the justice system is more rigged than they think the most recent presidential election was.  How should justice be meted out in the face of that kind of conspiratorial thinking that could produce widespread civil unrest?

With courage, we think.  Our court system knows it must operate despite any mob behavior.

None of this is something any of us wants to think about.

But we should.

Just in case.

 

Sports—Racing: Firsts for Larson, McLaughlin

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(NASCAR)—Defending NASCAR champion Kyle Larson has charged from the rear of the starting field to notch his first win of the year, hanging on to a late lead to lead oncoming Austin Dillon by just under two-tenths of a second.

Larson was sent to the back because of unapproved adjustments to his car and needed 167 laps to surge into the lead, past Joey Logano, with only 33 laps left.

Tyler Reddick had dominated much of the race but a flat rear tire on the 152nd lap dashed his hopes.  He led 90 of the first 151 laps but finished a lap down in 24th place.

Larson teammate Chase Elliott challenged him for the lead but Larson moved up the track while dueling with Joe Logano and pinched Elliott against the outside wall.  Larson said on his radio he didn’t know Elliott was there.

Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez rounded out the top five.

Austin Cindric, the rookie winner of the Daytona 500 a week earlier, started on the poll and was 12th at the end.

(INDYCAR)—Scott McLaughlin, a driver from down under has started the INDYCAR season atop the INDYCAR World.  McLaughlin, in his second full season for Penske after winning three championships in Australian V8 Supercar racing, started from P1, led almost half the laps on the St. Petersburg (Florida) road course and took the checkered flag half a second ahead of defending INDYCAR champion Alex Palou. The win is his first in the INDYCAR series.  Teammate Will Power got the last podium spot.

McLaughlin averaged almost 97 mph on the fourteen-turn 1.8-mile temporary street circuit.

McLaughlin, a New Zealand native whose family moved to Australia when he was 9, began his racing career at the age of six, driving go karts. He won his first championship three years later. In his first full season in INDYCAR last year, he had five top tens in sixteen races, with a runner-up finish at Texas his best result. He was the Indianapolis 500 rookie of the year.

The race was the first February INDYCAR race since 2003. INDYCAR has sixteen more races to run but won’t run its second race until March 20, at Texas. Another three-week layoff will lead to the third race of the year, at Long Beach, California.

(Photo Credit: Bob Priddy, McLaughlin at World Wide Technology Raceway)

 

 

 

I Mourn for the Missouri Senate

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I was talking to one of our state senators a few days ago in one of the side galleries when he said, “I think I’m witnessing the death of the senate.”

If so, it has been a long and agonizing death.

If this is what the Missouri Senate is to be, he’s correct. And it hasn’t been just a death. It’s been a slow suicide. The life-blood of the body has slowly seeped away, leaving a once-deliberative and respectful lawmaking chamber splintered and dominated by a self-centered, small but power-hungry, group that has brought the place to near anarchy.

Make no mistake: the senate has been the scene of some fierce battles, even wars perhaps. But respect for its customs, traditions, and its famous unwritten rules has imposed an inner discipline that has served it well.

The increasingly painful decline and drift away from those characteristics seem to have two points of origin.

The sacrifice of public responsibility represented by the adoption of term limits is one of the points.  The rise of those I call Gingrich Republicans is the other.

Term limits is the disaster its opponents warned us it would be. Voters willingly but hypocritically gave up their rights to vote for someone who had earned their confidence and in doing so laid the groundwork for the sad spectacle we have seen in the senate for the past three weeks, a situation that is a tyranny imposed by a minority.

A small group of senators demanding a new congressional district map that serves the purpose of political power more than it serves the purpose of fair political representation has stopped almost everything else from moving with actions that disrespect the very thing in which they are engaged—the filibuster.

The filibuster historically has been a tool that forces two disagreeing sides eventually to find some acceptable middle ground, assuming the two sides have a modicum of good will. Sometimes no agreement is possible.  The losing side, while not getting some or any of its wishes, nonetheless recognizes that it has at least aired its grievances and allows the process to move ahead despite the differences so the process can serve the people’s needs on other issues.

That has not been the case in the senate this year. A small group has decided it must have a map drawn its way to expand the power of one party or the people at large who are expecting the makers of law to take actions that protect and serve them are out of luck.

The attitude has irritated colleagues of both parties, has aggravated a bipartisan group of women senators, and has gotten on the nerves of the senate leadership.  When one of the contentious crowd violated one of the unwritten decorum rules by wearing bib overalls on the floor (even with a coat and tie) and was called on it by the President Pro Tem, he instead of quickly leaving and returning properly dressed argued about it.  For elevating what should have been a small issue into a larger public one, he was penalized with the loss of most of his committee assignments—which led to another extended period of reading from a book instead of publicly apologizing to the Senate.

Parents sometimes have to deal with a defiant child by taking away some privileges. The same holds true in a public body of government.

How does term limits fit this situation?

A deliberative body such as the Senate must have within its being a deep traditional sense of respect for the chamber, the processes, and the members. The saying, “Everybody is a Senator” is more than a statement recognizing an elected title.  It is a proclamation that all participants in the senate process are equal and will be respected as equals, that the title is greater than the individual. Respect for the title and the mutual recognition of shared courtesies required for progress are essential and those who disregard those responsibilities and therefore disrupt the work of the senate for their own purposes are subject to discipline.

These are qualities of service in the Senate that once were taught to new members by those who had served for years, perhaps decades, and knew from life experience that respect for individuals and the system were the keys to responsible lawmaking.

But term limits have robbed our legislative bodies of that valuable institutional knowledge and have left them liable for disruptive actions that undermine responsible lawmaking. And the situation has deteriorated so badly that some wonder if the Senate can ever recover enough of those values to be the effective body it once was.

The second factor that has led to the present debacle was the advent of the Gingrich Republicans in the early 1990s.  The take-no-prisoners style of politics was almost immediately disruptive of the deliberative process that was the culture of the Senate.  The early small and disruptive  element increased as years went by. Increasingly, filibusters increased and a small dissident group learned how it could hold the floor for hours and passed along that knowledge so that the filibuster became less of a tool of compromise and more of a sledgehammer of force.

Distressingly, what we are seeing in Missouri is not uncommon in other states and is on flagrant display in our national politics.  Some have suggested term limits are needed for Congress.

Congressional disarray is already frightening enough.  What has been happening in Missouri should be a warning of the danger to democracy that term limits in Washington would bring.

Where we are in the state senate has been a long time coming.  Those who have watched the  deterioration of the chamber and who cannot see an end to this distressing set of events wonder if deliberative and respectful government can be returned to our capitol—and to our nation.

You and I, dear readers, are the ones who hold that future in our hands.

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The Pariah and the Statesman

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The Hill, a Washington D. C. political newsletter, put out a story last Sunday that, “Republicans are struggling to coalesce around a single alternative candidate to former Gov. Eric Greitens in Missouri’s open Senate race, elevating worries that they’ll be saddled with a baggage-laden candidate in a contest that should be a slam dunk.”

We recall, we hope correctly, that when Greitens ran for Governor in 2016, a lot of Republicans were concerned and some questioned whether he fit the definition of “Republican.”  At the time, we wrote that if Eric Greitens wanted to call himself a Republican, he was within all of his rights to do so.

The party is correct in worrying that his regrettable time as governor and the reasons for his departure might not be enough to dissuade his dedicated populist supporters from supporting him in 2022. Whether those supporters find any value in Josh Hawley’s endorsement of Vicky Hartzler or Ted Cruz’s endorsement of Eric Schmitt is something we won’t hazard to guess.

But in getting desperate in keeping him from getting the nomination, the party seems to be acting in a way in Missouri that it refuses to act nationally.  Eric Greitens might be an albatross around the GOP neck. But so is Donald Trump.  Both came along about the same time and in many ways appealed to the same base of voters.  Those voters might be unappreciative of the party’s falling out of bed with either man.  What those voters might do is beyond the capabilities of our crystal ball.  But if Trump endorses Greitens—well, that seems from this lofty position to be a genuine Republican muddle.

The Hill reported that a leaked poll by “an unknown group” shows Greitens leads a Democrat in early general election sentiments, narrowly.  The fact that the Democrat candidates’ name recognition in the general public mind is nowhere near the name ID of Eric Greitens is gratifying to Greitens fans but a concern to his critics.  If relative unknowns are that close, without campaign advertising that brings them more to the fore and attacks Greitens’ past behaviors that diminish him, there is legitimate Republican concern that the voters could put that seat in the D column again.

Frankly, the world will not come to an end either way.  What’s distressing is that so much of our national politics is seen through the lens of power rather than with a vision of service.

Greitens advantage is the same one that Trump had in the 2016 primaries. His core of true believers (somewhere between 20 and 30 percent, say polls) will stick with him while his several opponents will split the majority of anti-Greitens votes and leave him the last person standing.  Trump won a lot of delegates in 2016 by getting 35% of the primary votes while six or seven or eight candidates divided the other 65%.

But nobody is bailing out of the Republican senatorial primary.  They’re all waiting for Trump’s expensive imported loafer to drop.  Then they have a new problem.  If it drops Greitens’ way, do they attack him because he has Trump’s endorsement? Or will the egos and ambitions of others let them step aside, leaving, say, Hartzler and Schmitt to carry on the fight?

The Hill says those concerned might not get much help from “Washington power players.”  The National Republican Senatorial Committee says it’s not going to play favorites. And so far the Senate Leadership Fund, closely tied to Mitch McConnell, has shown no enthusiasm to dive in, either.

Greitens seems not to care. His campaign manager has referred to “false narratives peddled by DC swamp creatures.”

That’s speaking the language a lot of Trump/Greitens loyalists understand.

Another influential voice that is speaking up is former Senator John Danforth, who is suggesting that a center-right independent candidate could save the day. Danforth has all but promised some big checks to support the person filling that bill.

But a sad question that speaks to the sadness of our political times hangs over such a hope. Have our politics reached such a low that John Danforth’s opinion doesn’t count for much?

Once a man whose integrity was a standard for political office-seekers to follow (although some on both sides of the aisle have never forgiven him for supporting Clarence Thomas’ Supreme County nomination), what influence does he have over what his party has become?

Danforth vs. Greitens/Trump.

Does hope still flicker?

 

SPORTS PAGE RETURNS:  Rookie Daytona 500 Winner Kicks off NASCAR Season

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(We reserve Tuesday for sports, usually sports that involve brightly-decorated cars going by very fast. Occasionally we might mention stick-and-ball sports, too)

(NASCAR)—Rookie Austin Cindric displayed a veteran’s cool in a two-lap overtime shootout to win the Daytona 500 Sunday night. Only fifteen of the forty starting cars completed the race and many of those cars were battered in one or more of the five major crashes that Cindric avoided.

One of those battered cars was driven by Bubba Wallace, who came within 37-thousandths of a second (about three feet) of winning.  It’s the second time Wallace had come within a few feet of winning NASCAR’s most prestigious race.

The win was a double celebration for team owner Roger Penske, who observed his 85th birthday Sunday.

Cindric is the son of the Tim Cindric, the president of Team Penske, and has grown up in the Penske culture. He’s well spoken and seemed to modulate the emotions of winning the Daytona 500: “To be able to say that I’ve been able to accomplish this, there’s nothing more important to me than racing. There’s nothing more important to me than being part of this sport. And to think that I’m a Daytona 500 winner, you can’t take that away.”

Cindric inherited the #2 Penske ride when Brad Keselowski left to become part owner and driver of what is now Roush-Fenway-Keselowski racing.

Keselowski had help from Cindric who pushed him into the lead on the first lap, the first of 67 laps he led in the race.  But Keselowski’s luck varied throughout the race. On the 61st lap he was pushing rookie Harrison Burton down the backstretch when Burton’s car went sideways and flipped onto its roof before rolling back on its wheels. The crash collected seven other cars. Keselowski pushed Ricky Stenhouse’s car too hard with five laps left, triggering another multi-car wreck.  He finished the race ninth after a collision with David Ragan and Michael McDowell racing for the checkered flag.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR opens its season next Sunday on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. All 26 drivers and teams got in their last pre-season tests last week at Sebring. The series has five former champions in the field including Alex Palou, who took home the big trophy last year, six-time champion Scott Dixon who wants to tie A. J. Foyt’s record of seven titles, Joseph Newgarden who will shoot for his third season championship, along with Simon Pagenaud and Will Power, who have won once each.

Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves will be in a Meyer-Shank car for the entire season. Also in the series is two time 500-winner Takuma Sato along with Alexander Rossi, Power, Pagenaud, and Dixon, who have won the big race once each. The Formula 1 contingent has grown to four—Marcus Ericsson, Romain Grosjean, Sato, and Rossi.  And back for his second season, this time on ovals as well as road courses, is seven-time NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson.

(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 doesn’t start its season until next month.

(photo credit: Getty Images/NASCAR)