....Since she [Robin Carnahan] also has a couple of campaign fundraisers scheduled while she's in the capital, Zakula said the campaign is paying for the trip.
Still, the president is not the most popular guy in Missouri, lately. He only had a 40 percent approval rating in the state last month, according to a Rasmussen poll.
But Zakula denied that Carnahan was leaving town to avoid sharing a stage with him.
"She appreciates the support from Sen. McCaskill and the president and she's looking forward to seeing them on the campaign trail this year," he said....
"...He only had a 40 percent approval rating in the state last month, according to a Rasmussen poll..."
....I want to stress that the only point I'm making in this post is that at least in national tracking polls, in any given timeframe, a Rasmussen poll is overwhelmingly likely to show better news for the GOP than any other poll.
To illustrate this point, I generated a series of scatter plot charts using pollster.com's index of polls. Every poll in pollster.com's index is represented on each chart by a dot, plotted horizontally by the date of the poll, and vertically by the results of the poll.
Rasmussen polls are in red; every other poll is in green. Shaded red areas on the charts represent areas where results would favor the GOP.
I think you'll see that Rasmussen polls literally stand out from all the others and they almost always deliver good news for the GOP....
You'd think the Kansas City Star might mention that. If they even knew or bothered to try and figure it out.
The pool report forwarded this evening by the White House Media Affairs Office:
Air force one landed at lambert-st louis international airport at 323 pm local time (423 east coast time).
No gaggle on the flight to St. Louis. But Reid Cherlin stopped by to chat, and says, on the record, that Robin Carnahan had already scheduled her trip to Washington when Potus decided to come to St. Louis. "Her people have asked if President Obama would please appear with her in a future event soon," Mr. Cherlin said. "We are working on that now."
417 candidates filed today for state and federal offices. 224 Republicans, 170 Democrats, 17 Constitution Party Members, and 6 Libertarians filed. A surprisingly high turnout of Constitution Party candidates (gotta find a way to describe those party members without being too long-worded or vague) and another low turnout for Libertarians on day one. Although 2 Libertarians did file for Lacy Clay's seat.
14 candidates filed for the US Senate. 3 candidates filed for Auditor. 37 candidates filed for the US House. 39 candidates filed for 17 State Senate seats. 308 candidates filed for 163 State House seats. And 16 candidates filed for Circuit Court spots.
Roy Blunt and Chuck Purgason were joined by 7 other Republicans. These Republicans include Businessman R. L. Proprotnik (who won the first spot on the ballot), unknown James Schmidt, Hector Maldonado (who is in the Army until the end of this month), Kristi Nichols (who poses in front of a flag with some text I can't read on it), unsuccessful school board candidate Deborah Solomon, small business owner Davis Conway, and Tea Partier Mike Vontz.
Two Constitution Party candidates are dueling for their nomination. Jerry Beck (who ran as a Democrat in previous elections) and contemporary furniture maker Joe Martellaro are filed for that nomination.
Taking a leaf out of the McCaskill "fiscally responsible" playbook, Robin Carnahan yesterday revealed that she was no slouch when it comes to pandering to the received wisdom about deficits:
From where I stand here in Missouri, I'm disappointed in the President's budget recommendation. Budgets are about setting priorities and it's time Washington started making fiscal discipline and tackling the long-term budget deficit higher priorities.
Carnahan even resorted to McCaskill's favorite cliche, comparing deficit spending to household finance:
Missouri families have to balance their checkbooks and our government should be no different
Problem is the comparison is not only trite, but wrong. As former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich puts it:
... If John Maynard Keynes taught us anything, it's that a federal budget is not at all like a family budget. In fact, it's precisely because families have to pull in their belts that the federal government has to let its belt out. When consumers and businesses aren't buying much of anything, the government has to fill the gap. That's the only way to get jobs and get the economy moving again. Once the economy is percolating, the government can pull back. By then, tax revenues will soar, and the long-term deficit will shrink.
Don't believe me? Think about Herbert Hoover and the great depression. Then think about the prosperous, post-war years when Keynesian theory was given its head.
The Keynesian formula has worked well in the past, and can work well again - even the itty, bitty stimulus program (relatively speaking) that was put into place last spring has had positive effects. But it will only work again if we stop allowing our media and politicians to indulge in irresponsible rhetoric about "irresponsible" spending. At all costs, we should certainly hold our Democratic representatives accountable for more than leadership by slogan - al least when the slogan is demonstrably, disastrously wrong.
Via TPM, we learn that Roy Blunt has gotten a little post-Scott Brown bump: he now polls 49% to Carnahan's 43%. Will Carnahan's damage control take her down the McCaskill path, or will she stand up and fight for the Democratic base?
I share the opinion of the Erstwhile Conservative that Ed Rendell puts the case for doing the latter as well as anyone I have heard over the last two days:
It's too late for McCaskill; we can only hope Carnahan listens to the stand-up branch of the party.
A group of veterans from recent wars, starting with the Gulf War, kicked off a bus tour on Tuesday at Washington University in St. Louis. Their purpose is to highlight the national security implications of ignoring our dependence on foreign oil. Their literature quotes General Anthony Zinni, former CentCom Commander:
"We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today ... or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives.
Tuesday's event started with a short speech from Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. She would agree with Zinni, except that she stressed the potential for the U.S. to use this shift in energy usage to position itself economically in the coming decades.
She was, as usual, articulate and unpretentious. (Please excuse the fact that I missed the first few words of her first sentence. She's talking about how much oil we buy from countries that sponsor terrorism.)
Find out more about Operation Free from Michael Bersin, who plans to cover their Thursday event in Warrensburg.
In a news article about the race between Roy Blunt and Robin Carnahan, Claire McCaskill had this to say:
She faces challenges in terms of keeping the base enthusiastic and passionate," McCaskill said of Carnahan. "In Missouri, the side that is most motivated is the side that has the edge.
Well ... duh! Does this mean that McCaskill thinks she herself has been effectively motivating her base? If so, she may be in for a surprise.
Charlie Cook: "I suspect a Republican gain of between four and six seats [in the Senate], predicated on Democrats being unlikely to beat any Republican open-seat Senate candidate or being able to unseat any Republican Senate incumbent."
Roy Blunt: "Charlie Cook, the respected independent, non-partisan analyst predicts our campaign will win"
If you can't rely on a prediction made 11 months out, what can you rely on?
Blunt's campaign also showed reason for optimism in the poll's finding that President Obama had a 47 percent approval rating among the 500 Missourians who participated in the telephone survey.
For those of you haven't heard State Rep. Jake Zimmerman (D-Creve Coeur) speak, let me see if I can recreate the experience. He begins discussing a topic by sounding like an Ivy League math professor. Then gradually, almost without you noticing it, he morphs into ... a NASCAR announcer. Yes, definitely. But with wit. And a grin.
At the West County Dems meeting on Monday, he started his analysis of the race for Bond's U.S. Senate seat in the measured tone of a Harvard professor--with only the name he gave an imaginary Republican candidate belying his seriousness:
This is likely to be, as we discussed before, a not so hot Democratic year, right? Let us engage in a thought experiment. Let us say that the Republicans had found some random fill-in-the-blank Republican to run against Robin Carnahan. They went to Missouri's heartland, okay? They went to one of those places named after an exotic foreign land, which is where you find all the good Republicans. They went to Warsaw, MO or Versailles, MO, maybe even to California, MO, Cuba, MO. Possibly they went to Houston, MO, which is by the way in Texas County. And once there, they found Eldridge McGrinchypants. And Eldridge McGrinchypants sits on the back of his tractor and dispenses homespun wisdom with just a hint of Paul Bunyan style tall tales. And old Eldrige doesn't have much money in the bank, but by God, Eldridge McGrinchypants knows a thing or two about common sense. Let's suppose that they had found Mr. McGrinchypants and they had invested a couple million dollars in him, which they found from their big donors. They're Republicans. They're good at finding a couple million dollars when they need to.
Rasmussen, 12/15/09, 500 likely voters
Robin Carnahan (D) 46%
Roy Blunt (r) 44%
Other 4%
Undecided 6%
Favorable ratings: Robin 51%, Blunt 50%
Job approval ratings*: Nixon 63%, Obama 47%
Health Care legislation: 40% For, 57% Against with a 50/50 split on a "government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option" that drops after a push poll question.
It's still effectively a draw, 11 months out.
(Edit: * - Rasmussen's "strongly approve"/"somewhat approve" methodology could be inflating job approval ratings. Although i'm pretty sure that Obama's job approval rating in Missouri according to Rasmussen is higher than his national job approval rating according to Rasmussen, which is confusing)
One issue is that of money. Representative Mark Parkinson's comment was helpful for pointing that 40,000 Blue Books are published for a cost of $490,000. Quick math shows that is a high cost of $12.25 per Blue Book.
The Missouri right wing is revving up its attack on Robin Carnahan by creating a website that attempts to tie her to (cue spooky music) ACORN. Dig that turned up collar on the second picture of her. Does she look like someone the CIA would target, or what?
But the conspiracy the website breathlessly proclaims doesn't exist. The site yaps about close ties between Carnahan and ACORN:
Over the years, Robin Carnahan has maintained close ties with the embattled liberal organization ACORN - furthering their goals and whitewashing their record of corruption and fraud. So the Missouri GOP requested all email correspondence between Carnahan's office and ACORN to determine just how cozy their relationship really is. We received more than 1,400 documents.
Ooh. What a shocking, hair-raising allegation, that the Secretary of State has been in frequent e-mail contact with a non-profit organization. But, as those who created the site must know, the correspondence mainly concerned ACORN's successful lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Social Services (DSS) for violating the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. That law requires state social service agencies to provide low income residents with the opportunity to register to vote or to change their registration address when they visit the agency's office. The Missouri DSS had been failing to comply and, in a lawsuit that spanned more than a year, ACORN sued over that.
Since the Secretary of State's office is the repository of voting records, including registration records, of course ACORN was constantly in touch there with records requests. Many of those 1,400 documents were something to the effect of "thanks for sending that document we requested." You know, common civility in the course of everyday business dealings.
So duh. Of course there are 1,400 documents.
Here's the bottom line on the reason for the new GOP Carnahan/ACORN conspiracy website: help Roy Blunt as well as the entire Republican ticket by going after the top of the ticket in an off year election.
Blunt started his campaign pitiably weak. (In the second first quarter, Carnahan doubled him up in fundraising.) But by now, national Republicans realize how important this seat will be, and they've got lobbyists forking it over big time for their boy. He's leading Carnahan in fundraising, and the two are neck and neck in the polls.
The man who "guaranteed" he would come up with a health care alternative to what the Dems were offering (When? In the year 2525?) can't exactly run on his record of achievement. So it's time to stir up the frenzy in the base. He is stirring up their hatred, using ACORN as the poker. Never mind that there's no substance to the charge. In off year elections, the commitment of the base is hugely important. The more committed they are, the higher their turnout at the polls and the greater their volunteer activities.
Thus the lame website with the lame name. Glenn Burleigh of St. Louis ACORN said it took him about three seconds to come up with a snazzier title for it: Acornahan. Anybody running that site up for a little plagiarism?
The last day of the third fundraising quarter of 2009 (whoa, time really flies!) is tomorrow. Our Democratic candidates for Senate - including Missouri's own Robin Carnahan - need to make as big a fundraising splash as possible in the third quarter to help refute the growing conventional wisdom among the traditional media pundits that 2010 could be a Republican year. And Missouri will be a high-profile bellwether.
Please, please, please consider making a contribution today to Robin Carnahan and our other Democratic candidates for Senate via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page. Robin is more than three-quarters of the way to $1,000 on the page.
Can you help us raise just $238 for Robin Carnahan in the next 48 hours?
Please click on over to the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and make a contribution to help stop ongoing Republican obstruction in the Senate. Need some motivation? Imagine having to say Senator Roy Blunt! Scary, right? Every contribution makes a real impact whether it's $100 or $25 or $10 or, well, any amount. Want to rebel against multiples of five and contribute $63 or $39 or $27, knock yourself out!
Remember, the fundraising quarter ends tomorrow, so please contribute today if you can. Thank you SO much!
Your $50 or $25 or $10 contribution right now can help nudge her past the $500 mark. That would be awesome. Thanks SO much in advance if you're able to chip in.
...I just wanted to spend a couple of minutes 'cause we've got a lot of speakers tonight and, and tell you a few things that are just sorta on my heart. Ya'll know that I'm running for the Senate next year and... [applause] Thanks. And I'm doing it because I think we're in a real turning point in our country's history. You know, I was with the U.N. Secretary-General not too long ago and he, he spoke and he said, "You know, in Chinese the same symbol for the word 'crises' is the symbol the Chinese use for same word 'opportunity'." Isn't that interesting? Crises and opportunity. And you know, it's just kind of a reminder of what we're going through right now, isn't it? That we all know we have this crises in the economy, a crises in health care, we know we have to do something about energy independence and our national security. And yet we know this is a great opportunity as well. And you know I grew up in a place down outside of Rolla and I still manage our family cattle farm down there. And so, you know, it strikes me that we need to have folks in Washington and in government that kind of think more like every day people think...
....These are interesting times. That's the old Chinese curse, "may you live I interesting times." We're in uncharted waters. Two major conflicts in the Middle East, a recession that's touching so many families, uncertainty, and yes, as Robin [Carnahan] mentioned a few minutes ago, fear. But we can't lose sight of who we are and where we came from.
Robin, I can't thank you enough for your wonderful, wonderfully kind words. I might tell you I have know the Carnahan family well through the years. Robin was my very first Carnahan friend. We met and froze together at an inauguration long before your daddy's, if you remember. And she became my good friend then. I'm extremely proud of her. You're a great Missourian, you'll make a great Senator. [applause]
I think things are looking up. We're still having a financial challenge but the experts are telling us that the bottom might be near and starting to climb back up. But we will get there. But what we have to do is remember who we are. We're Americans. And speaking about history, as you look at the history of our country we have faced major challenges through the years and we've come out on top of them. The one strain of thought that has never left our country is the strain of optimism....
....[on Franklin Delano Roosevelt] And there's something about that man, I remember as a boy my mom and dad talking about him, that raised hope and kept hope alive in America when we were in the depths of the depression and the horrors of the second World War. People believed in him, not just as a President....
....[on hope] but he also gave this to the nation. That's what we must keep alive. Is the hope for our country and the optimism of our country and the fact that we're getting better and we're gonna come out on top. We have challenges that we've really never had before all combined at one time. But we can do it. We can do it. We pull together, lay this partisanship aside, work for the betterment of our neighbors, love our country, be proud of our country, and move forward. That's what we need to do.
Hope is the by word. Let's leave here tonight with that thought in mind....
....Well, as I say, these are interesting times. We will experience a challenging election. It will be a tough election. I want to continue to represent you. But I'm telling you you will undoubtedly see across our state one of the nastiest elections you've ever seen. Let's not fall into that trap. Let's be positive, let's win, let's win big, and show 'em that if you're positive good things can happen. [applause]...
A billboard along U.S. Highway 50 in LaMonte, Missouri. "...[O]ne of the nastiest elections you've ever seen..." has already started.
The Fourth Congressional District Democratic Committee held a dinner this evening at the Warsaw Community Center to honor Congressman Ike Skelton (D). There were approximately 250 people in attendance.
Cass County Presiding Commissioner Gary Mallory (D) (left) with Congressman Ike Skelton
Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D) chats with folks before the start of dinner.
Unlike other events this week in Missouri with Democratic members of Congress there were no astroturf teabaggers trying to shout down the proceedings. The temperature was in the high nineties outside, with high humidity. Go figure.
There were two twenty-somethings hanging around outside one of the entrances. Someone mentioned that they were republican "trackers". I went outside to take a look. They were both sheepishly trying to look nonchalant, but appeared somewhat worse for the wear due to the heat and humidity. I didn't bother photographing them.
Missouri Congressman and republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Blunt (r - lobbyists) gets it bass ackwards (as usual) on Twitter:
I also offered my amendment to require Members of Congress to participate in the new government health care plan. 8:42 PM Jul 31st from mobile web
Uh, Congressman Blunt, we don't want you to have our health care system. We want the one you have now [pdf].
[September 2007]...Members of Congress and retired Members are entitled to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) under the same rules as other federal employees. Members meeting minimum enrollment period requirements who are also eligible for an immediate annuity may continue to participate in the health benefit program when they retire. For an additional fee, incumbent Members can receive health care services from the Office of the Attending Physician in the U.S. Capitol; in addition, Members may purchase care from the military hospitals using their FEHBP benefit. Members must also pay the same payroll taxes as all other workers for Medicare Part A coverage...
Last week, Fired Up Missouri found Roy Blunt on conservative talk radio claiming that it would have been best if the federal government had never created Medicare or Medicaid. (Incidentally, the interview was with Mike Ferguson, whose interview with Senator McCaskill contained some bombshells about her views on cap and trade.)
There's still an election to hold (two elections, if any serious challenger jumps in the primary) but if history is any guide, this was supposed to be yet another close race, and you just can't dig a giant hole for yourself and expect to win. Let me put on my Nate Silver hat and show you just how stark the numbers are.
There's no exit poll data for 2002, but in the last Senate election in 2006, Claire McCaskill eked out a 49,000 vote win over incumbent Talent. In that race, Talent actually won voters 65 and over by a margin of 50%-47%. At 17% of the electorate, and with such close margins among the overall electorate, it would have been only a matter of pushing it to a 60-40 split to swing the election the other way.
Missouri's results in the 2008 presidential election give us an even more dramatic example of how the race could flip. McCain finished with a lead of less than 4,000 votes. But he carried voters over 65 by 56% to 43%, making McCain's lead among senior voters approximately 49,350. If Obama were able to constantly run clips of McCain saying he didn't think Medicare was a good idea, it's not hard to imagine McCain losing his lead among seniors, evaporating his slender lead in the total electorate.
As for the salience of Medicare as an issue for seniors, well, in at least one poll, Social Security, another stalwart government program mainly benefitting seniors, outpolled homeland security in Missouri in 2002! And while Medicare isn't heavily polled nowadays, polling surrounding the 2003 Medicare expansion to cover prescription drugs for seniors indicated a higher level of support by seniors for a stronger Medicare and more anxiety by seniors that the federal government would not go far enough.
I would love for Blunt to try to prove us all wrong by openly running against Medicare. But alas, he's already tried to claim that his remarks were taken out of context, and on Twitter, he tried to play the victim:
Expect to see false ads from Robin Carnahan and her allies about cutting government programs.
3:56 PM Jul 10th from mobile web
Well, I fully expect to see Robin Carnahan ads attacking Blunt with the audio taken straight from that interview, but just because they're attacking Blunt doesn't make them false. A steady drumbeat of Blunt describing, in his own words, his opposition to Medicare might as well be the sound of hammers nailing together a pine box for his political career.
Taking a leaf out of the McCaskill "fiscally responsible" playbook, Robin Carnahan yesterday 
For those of you haven't heard State Rep. Jake Zimmerman (D-Creve Coeur) speak, let me see if I can recreate the experience. He begins discussing a topic by sounding like an Ivy League math professor. Then gradually, almost without you noticing it, he morphs into ... a NASCAR announcer. Yes, definitely. But with wit. And a grin.
