MISSOURI GROUND REPORT
Dear HillBuzz,
Not a lot to say about the state of Missouri, but here’s my little contribution.
It’s boring over here. I live in West St Louis County and I’ve seen very little political activity which is strange this close to an election. Usually about a quarter of lawns have some sort of sign on them, occasional doorbell ringers and at the very least, getting letter bombed with snail mail political spam. Being normally a swing state, we’re usually inundated with phone calls, electronic polling. In the last election cycle, the phone calls came all day long. I’m talking 5-7 per day with the beginning of the primaries. Now I’m only getting a handful in total and most of them from conservative groups.
I’ve seen one lawn sign for a state representative and that is it. It’s like Robin Carnahan or Roy Blunt don’t exist out here except for the same smattering of ads being run on local television. I have received exactly one piece of literature on my doorstep, and that was for a proposition. I’ve received three pieces of Blunt snail mail, lightly slapping Carnahan. Not a single bit of anything from any venue about Carnahan.
I normally avoid reading the St Louis Post Dispatch but for this exercise, I did it. Saw a single article regarding the Blunt/Carnahan race on the front page yesterday, and most of the comments were about slamming Carnahan. That is unusual since the STPD is a far left publication. Very little coverage about the election and it was very active last go round. Even if you go deep under ‘politics’, there’s a whole lot of not much there. Local television coverage has shown more ads about a local alderman than about the senate race.
People are not randomly discussing this in every day life in public. I overhear nothing in my daily wanderings, from retail outlets, restaurants to grocery stores. Again, like I said, it’s like there isn’t even an election in this state. Or perhaps one could take it as folks think that this is a done deal and MO is going red. Blunt is running about 10 points ahead in the polls and that has been consistent since July. It’s obvious we’re going Republican in Missouri in the Senate race.
I don’t know what this means for voter turnout, but I’ll report back in if I see anything to add.
JkR in MO
© 2010, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
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Am assuming JkR that you’re in Mo 2nd dist., which is very Red. The quiet would make sense, since we’re about to have an R blowout. I’m in the 3rd, which the Donks have had a stranglehold on for years. But maybe not this time — I’m getting tons of big color postcards in the mail from Blunt and both Carnahans. Not many signs. But Tea Party is active here, too.
Yup, but even being ‘red’, there is usually a lot more action during the election period, or at least that has been my experience over the past few years. They’re not even trying over here…
I think the Dems gave up on Carnahan long ago and she probably isn’t getting that much funding. And, since Blunt has been so far ahead for so long, the RNC has no need to spend resources slamming us with phone calls and mail. Hooray for that, at least!
I’m in MO-5 district. My current rep is the “most honorable Rev. Emanual Cleaver” of the infamous “spittlegate” incident. He’s the black congressman who repeatedly claimed he was spat upon and who led an officer back down the steps to fingerpoint the spitter. Problem is, there are plently of video which shows that while he may have gotten some spit on him from getting to close to someone’s mouth, he was not spat upon.
The latest news is that the beyond safe democratic district has been moved to ‘lean democrat’. The talk on the radio is that his challenger, Jacob Turk is closing the gap and there are polls showing them tied. If Cleaver loses, it would be the second major earthquake to hit Missouri.
Turk could use donations. He is not taking money
My bad. Meant to say that he has promised not to take money from PACS, so could use all the funding from us he can get.
http://www.turkforcongress.org/
OH GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!
I forgot about Cleaver!! Crap! I could have been campaigning against him this whole week. Just called Turks offices and asked if they have yard signs, they have a few left. I’m going to try to get one and display it proudly in my yard.
Love Turk! A very genuine guy. I’m in MO-5 and rooting hard!
This is almost the exact ground report I was preparing to send. I live in Columbia, and with the university here in town, we are one of the most liberal cities in the state. So, the dearth of yard signs around town means more for the democrats than the republicans. There are two lots here in town that I have seen crowded with the big signs for every republican on the ballot, as well as conservative ballot initiatives. One of them is on a very major street just south of the football stadium. The only signs I’ve really noticed for any democrat are the ones for Chris Kelly who is running for re-election to the Missouri House of Representatives. He’s a local favorite.
There are still plenty of television ads. Almost every commercial break during Jeopardy in the afternoons has a Blunt ad followed by a Carnahan ad, or the other way around. They’re like wolf spiders; if you see one, you’re bound to see its mate. My U.S. Rep, Blaine Luetkemeyer (9th) doesn’t even have a democrat opponent this cycle, so I haven’t heard a word from him at all. However, Ike Skelton’s district is in my TV viewing area, and he and his opponent, Vicky Hartzler, seem to have quite the race going on. They don’t show up on my television quite as much as Blunt and Carnahan, but they are in second place.
Along with the lack of signage, my biggest tell of this cycle is the conversation around the water cooler. I’m a teacher, and although I’m luckily in a fairly conservative building, it has become even more so recently. One of my co-workers is in his late 50′s and has been a life-long registered democrat. He even held an elected county position for a number of years. He too realized on May 31st, 2008 that his party left him. He is now one of the biggest voices for kicking the democrats out lock, stock, and barrel. It’s been great.
I work in Columbia. You are right, there is not too many signs out…I think a lot of people are holding their nose when they are voting for Blunt.
I’m a member of a Tea Party Coalition who presented Mr. Blunt with a “Contract for Missouri”. He refused to even discuss it with the Tea Party members. But, we realize that he is the only choice we have. He is taking the Pork King Bond’s spot. But I have a feeling that his cycle as Senator is going to be very different for him. The Tea Party is going to be on him like glue. Watching every move he makes.
I know I’ll be holding my nose when I shade in the Blunt oval. I’ll be so happy when we’re finally done with all of the Blunts and Carnahans.
In 2004 when Matt Blunt ran for governor we had a mock vote at school. All of the democrats, including John Kerry, won in a landslide, except for governor. The students thought the name Blunt was so cool and apropos for them that Blunt smoked McCaskill.
The Hartzler/Skelton district is just outside all the central/western Missouri metro areas so you just don’t see their signs as much. But driving down rural highways I see lots of Vicky signs. We’re gonna do it!
I’m in MO-3 where we’re trying to dump Russ Carnahan (Robin’s brother). I have seen zero signs for him but a number for his Republican challenger Ed Martin. This district has been Dem since 1954, so hopefully this will be the election to change things.
I’ll hold my nose and vote for Blunt, but I haven’t run into anyone too excited about him. As a student its interesting to me how few young people are voting, unless they’re a fired up conservative. The job situation is awful, so hopenchange isn’t looking to great right about now even if you were a diehard Dem in 08.
To clarify:
US Senate seat (open/GOP) will go to Roy Blunt, a Washington insider who voted for tarp I w/ the Bush admin when he was in the US House. Indeed, we will watch him closely (but we didn’t have much luck preventing him from going w/ Bush on Tarp I).
He will win against Robin Carnahan, a Soros Secy of State, who is the daughter of popular D governor Carnahan, killed in a plane crash while in office. His wife took the next turn.
Robin is an Obama yes woman and tied to ACORN.
In the 3rd US HOUSE race her brother, Russ Carnahan easily took over the seat from a wildly popular Dem who’d held it for decades. Russ is w/o personality and even Pelosi, when visiting last year, spoke of his “low maintenance” and how well he followed her.
Russ Carnahan’s seat upset will be HUGE. He is in very hot water; a scandal just broke w/ him paying someone to slime his opponent (but denied it initially).
He also has behaved terribly at the few open forums he had; with one he allowed SEIU members to enter through a side door to fill 2/3 of the auditorium while 1500 people waited outside in line. After the forum 2 SEIU members beat a street vendor and called him the N word (he was Black).
His challenger, Ed Martin is the Tea party backed candidate and is looking as if he’ll pull out the win, potentially.
In St Louis county there will be no changing the minds of the “Latte Liberals” whose singular issue is abortion, but there has been a large “working class” presence of Independents and Democrats at the very well attended Tea party events.
Russ Carnahan – Kenneth Gladney
That meeting you spoke about is the one where Kenneth Gladney was beaten up by SEIU thugs.
Russ Carnahan – Ed Martin
The story that was used to slime Ed Martin was one concerning the Catholic Archdiocese. The authors of the hit piece were two award winning journalists.
In that piece they tried to associate Ed Martin with shifting around “pedophile” priests, which is ridiculous because civilians never have a role in the postings of priests.
Ed Martin held a press conference and with him was a woman, a Democrat who worked with the Archdiocese and who had worked closely with Ed Martin. She made a very strong statement on the matter. The other person at the conference was a Baptist pastor who endorsed Ed Martin.
As a Catholic I am so proud of that Baptist pastor for his upright manner in defending the good name of Ed Martin.
These two issues are huge, especially the fact that the Attorney General failed to prosecute the SEIU members who beat up Kenneth Gladney, and Gladney is still waiting for justice in the matter.
Should also add that Gladney’s brother was fired from his dog catcher job after the incident.
Seventh District here. Blunt’s home area near Springfield. The Republican candidate for the House of Representatives, Billy Long, should win easy against his opponent (Blunt’s old seat). I have not watched TV so I do not know how bad the commercials are – the radio stations, that I listen to, are non-stop on all of the political commercials.
No home phone so no calls (yeah for me). But I have received about 3-4 large postcards a week in the mail (almost all for Blunt). I am like most here – holding my nose when I darken in the little oval for Blunt. He was part of the problem with the House – now we are just moving him to the Senate – but hey he’s better than Claire Bear. 2012 is the year we say “GOOD-BYE, You are … the weakest link” to Claire Bear and Obama.
Alternate theory (of the crime) of why little activity: Since the Dems pulled the money out of the MO campaigns, perhaps the Dem side is too successful at teaching their supporters to only work if they are paid. Meanwhile, the Reps have actual volunteers who don’t need money to throw their blood sweat and tears onto the Altar of Freedom. Even so, each Rep has only a finite amount of time to take away from their families and give to the election.
I lived in Chesterfield 63017 for 13 years before moving to Annapolis MD. I love St Louis, and my Nick Schaevers Mysteries series of Novels is set there. I hope to launch the new novel at The Big Sleep bookshop in the CWE in the Spring.
Love The Big MO!