According to the KC Star, Kansas City Firefighters Local 42 is set to endorse Sam Graves, with a lifetime rating of 20% by the AFL-CIO (boosted by a whopping 42% rating in 2007), over Kay Barnes in this year’s election. Why would they do something like that, you might ask? Apparently, the national IAFF wants to reward Graves for a vote on collective bargaining rights this year.

Let me get this straight. Graves, with a terrible labor record, is set to get an endorsement over Barnes, who actually led a drive to raise sales taxes as mayor to directly benefit Kansas City firefighters, because he’s slightly improved on labor over the course of one year. Talk about shortsighted. I pray that the Star’s sources are just blowing smoke here.  

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzo…

On August 28, 2008, our campaign finance world changed. In addition to lifting individual campaign contribution limits, there’s a new reporting requirement for those really big contributions:

130.044 [pdf]

“All individuals and committees required to file disclosure reports under section 130.041 shall electronically report any contribution by any single contributor which exceeds five thousand dollars to the Missouri ethics Commission within forty eight hours of receiving the contribution. Such reports shall contain the same content required under section 130.041 and shall be filed in accordance with the standards established by the commission for electronic filing and other rules the commission may deem necessary to promulgate for the effective administration of this section.”

Let’s take a look at Kenny Hulshof’s reports (the fun part!). The first, from August 29, 2008, filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Twenty-four hours after the limits were lifted:

8/29/08 [pdf]

Schnucks Markets Inc. St. Louis, MO 63146 8/28/2008 25,000.00

Metro Heart Group of St. Louis, Inc. St. Louis, MO 63141 8/28/2008 10,000.00

Southern Union Company Houston, TX 77056 8/28/2008 7,375.00

Howard Wood Bonne Terre, MO 63628 Cequel III 8/28/2008 100,000.00

L.B. Eckelkamp, Jr. Washington, MO 63090 Bank of Washington 8/28/2008 20,000.00

Lewis & Clark Regional Leadership Fund St. Charles, MO 63302 8/28/2008 50,000.00

Samuel Hais Clayton, MO 63105 Hais, Hais, Kallen, & Goldberger PC 8/28/2008 20,000.00

Stephen Notestine St. Louis, MO 63131 Quadrant Properties 8/28/2008 10,000.00

William McGinnis St. Louis, MO 63164 Nestle Purina Pet Care 8/28/2008 10,000.00

Rudolph Farber Neosho, MO 64850 Community Bank & Trust 8/28/2008 25,000.00

James McDonnell, III St. Louis, MO 63124 Retired 8/28/2008 20,000.00

James Ross Chesterfield, MO 63005 RCS, Inc. 8/28/2008 10,000.00

Boone Cnty Republican Central Committee Columbia, MO 65205 8/28/2008 13,250.00

24th Legislative District Columbia, MO 65201 8/28/2008 13,450.00

MO 24th Senatorial Committee – Republican Maryland Heights, MO 63043 8/28/2008 13,181.00

RGA Missouri 2008 PAC Washington, DC 20006 8/28/2008 600,000.00

Jerry Wells Joplin, MO 64804 Moark, LLC 8/29/2008 20,000.00

AG Processing Inc. Omaha, NE 68103 8/29/2008 10,000.00

Newton County Republican Central Committee Neosho, MO 64805 8/29/2008 13,300.00

Drury Development Corporation St. Louis, MO 63114 8/29/2008 20,000.00

Jerry Hall Monett, MO 65708 Jack Henry & Associates 8/29/2008 100,000.00

Bill Holekamp St. Louis, MO 63124 Holekamp Capital 8/29/2008 50,000.00

[emphasis added]

I believe that comes to $1,160,556.00.

Nothing exceeds like excess…

9/1/08 [pdf]

KCS Rail State PAC Kansas City, MO 64121 8/30/2008 25,000.00

Peter Herschend Branson, MO 65616 Silver Dollar City 8/30/2008 10,000.00

Platte County Republican Central Committee Kansas City, MO 64152 8/30/2008 13,450.00

[emphasis added]

9/4/08 [pdf]

Platte County Republican Central Committee Kansas City, MO 64152 9/2/2008 13,450.00

34th Republican Senatorial District Committee Weston, MO 64098 9/2/2008 13,450.00

29th Legislative District Republican Committee St. Joseph, MO 64501 9/2/2008 13,450.00

9/5/08 [pdf]

MO 29th Legislative District Republican Committee Saint Joseph, MO 64503-2834 9/5/2008 13,450.00

129th Republican Legislative District Committee Joplin, MO 64802 9/5/2008 8,000.00

129th Republican Legislative District Committee Joplin, MO 64802 9/5/2008 5,350.00

Edith C. Cunnane Saint Louis, MO 63141 Retired 9/5/2008 10,000.00

William Bush St. Louis, MO 63124 Bush O’Donnell 9/4/2008 10,000.00

129th Republican Legislative District Committee Joplin, MO 64802 9/4/2008 9,000.00

9/7/08 [pdf]

Herzog Contracting Corporation St. Joseph, MO 64502 9/5/2008 25,000.00

David Humphreys Joplin, MO 64803 Tamko Building Products/CEO 9/5/2008 100,000.00

Ethelmae Humphreys Joplin, MO 64801 Tamko Building Products/Chairman 9/5/2008 100,000.00

Sarah Humphreys Atkins Arlington, VA 22207 Tamko Building Products/Quality Consultant 9/5/2008 100,000.00

[emphasis added]

9/9/08 [pdf]

Roy Pfautch Saint Louis, MO 63108 Civic Service Inc. 9/8/2008 10,000.00

Positronic Industries Inc. Springfield, MO 65801 9/8/2008 10,000.00

Hunter Engineering Company Bridgeton, MO 63044 9/8/2008 50,000.00

3rd Congressional District Committee St. Louis, MO 63127 9/9/2008 13,450.00

7th State Senatorial District Republican Committee St. Louis, MO 63146 9/9/2008 13,450.00

128th District Republican Legislative Committee Joplin, MO 64801 9/9/2008 13,450.00

[emphasis added]

9/12/08 [pdf]

Right Choice Managed Care, Inc. Cincinnati, OH 45206 9/11/2008 10,000.00

Blue Cross Blue Shield of KC Kansas City, MO 64108 9/11/2008 10,000.00

3rd Congressional District Committee St. Louis, MO 63127 9/12/2008 13,450.00

PPG Properties Springfield, MO 65804 9/12/2008 15,000.00

Integrity Home Care Springfield, MO 65804 9/12/2008 15,000.00

Ken Suelthaus St. Louis, MO 63124 Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus PC 9/12/2008 10,000.00

7th District Congressional Republican Committee Springfield, MO 65805 9/12/2008 13,500.00

9/16/08 [pdf]

Remanufacturing Sales Corporation Springfield, MO 65802 9/15/2008 10,000.00

9/17/08 [pdf]

The AGC MO PAC Jefferson City, MO 65102 9/16/2008 10,000.00

Emerson Electric Company St. Louis, MO 63136 9/17/2008 30,000.00

Pettis County Republican Committee Sedalia, MO 65301 9/17/2008 25,000.00

[emphasis added]

I never thought I’d see the day that I’d consider a $10,000.00 campaign contribution as cheap.

It’ll be very interesting to look at those committee reports when they get filed in October.

An article in the Thursday Post-Dispatch titled “‘Soft money’ takes new shape” says that because the FEC cracked down after 2004 on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and even on a couple of liberal political advocacy groups, such independent groups have morphed into new variations. One such new group, the conservative American Issues Project, shows that the change isn’t for the better:

The AIP was set up earlier this year as a nonprofit, “social welfare” organization that is subject to even less disclosure than the Swift Boat-style groups.

Ed Martin, looking for a new gig since he had to skedaddle out of the governor’s office over the e-mail scandal, eagerly boarded this new Swift Boat vessel.

[H]e noted that Democratic soft money groups have traditionally had an edge on their GOP counterparts, so this was a chance to even out a “lopsided debate.”

“The liberal-leaning groups have made very clear … that they’re going to spend tens of millions of dollars on advocacy for their issues and to influence the discussion in the fall,” Martin said, citing campaigns by the Service Employees International Union and Planned Parenthood, among others. “So our goal is to be pushing into the public discourse some conservative ideas.”

Oh, you mean conservative “ideas” like linking Obama to William Ayers, a one time member of the Weather Underground”? That kind of “idea“? Because that was AIP’s debut on the political ad scene. One question about that ad, Ed: where’s the idea in that idea? I don’t call a groundless ad hominem attack an idea.

Far as I can tell, though, when liberal advocacy groups air attack ads, they actually do feature factual information about relevant issues. The United Food and Commercial Workers, for example, has its Wake Up Wal-Mart campaign, which informs us that Wal-Mart makes $21,000 profit a minute and expects to fare even better than that in a sour economy. Yet McCain has proposed $1.5 billion in tax breaks for Wal-Mart. That ad comes several light years closer to being an idea.

MoveOn’s been pushing its philosophy as well. It is airing a radio ad against Roy Blunt that lists how much money Blunt and McCain have taken from Big Oil and then mentions how they voted to give Big Oil tax breaks. The ad complains about the Republican “failed energy policy written by Big Oil” and urges Blunt to “jump out of the pocket of Big Oil.”

(By the way, attacking Roy Blunt is just an excuse in Southwest Missouri to go after McCain. Blunt’s Democratic challenger William Tharon Chandler had, as of June 30th, raised no money and spent no money. Whatever. The ad still has actual ideas in it.)

MoveOn’s active on TV too:

Announcer: “When John McCain says . . .” John McCain: “My friends, my friends, my friends, my friends.” . . . Announcer: “You know who he’s talking about? The 177 lobbyists who have ties to his campaign. More than a dozen lobbied for oil companies. McCain got more than $2 million from energy companies. And he didn’t support the measures we need to get cleaner, cheaper fuel. So when it comes to gas prices, John McCain won’t be taking care of you, he’ll be taking care of . . .” John McCain: “My friends, my friends, my friends, my friends.” Announcer: “MoveOn.org Political Action is responsible for the content of this advertising.”

The idea there is that it’s dishonest to call yourself a maverick when your campaign is stuffed with lobbyists and your voting record shows you voting against the interests of ordinary Americans in favor of those lobbyists.

I’ve yet to see mere character assassination coming from the Democrats. No, that’s the Republican stock-in-trade. Democrats have to scramble to defend themselves against Swiftboat lies; they don’t initiate the same sort of scummy tricks from their side. And the wonder is that much of the voting public hasn’t noticed that difference.

So don’t talk to us about conservative “ideas“, Ed. You’re just putting lipstick on Swiftboaters.

Photo of Ed Martin courtesy of Fired Up!

Again, we have been assured by Brett Penrose that no Alaskan moose were injured in the production of this ‘toon.

Any suggestions?

In Virginia:

GOP Rally Reaches Out To Minorities

By Amy Gardner

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, September 17, 2008; Page B01

Northern Virginia Republicans, realizing they need to improve their appeal among the region’s large ethnic population, will stage a “unity” rally Saturday that they say will draw 1,000 people…

…”We confront a perception problem, which we have to fight every day — that the Republican Party is not for working people or immigrants,” said Jim Hyland, a rally organizer and chairman of the Fairfax County Republican Committee…

One of the scheduled speakers is George Allen.

The republican party is irony impaired.

Hat tip to Oliver Willis.

American Research Group released a poll of 600 “likely” Missouri voters taken from September 11th through the 15th. The margin of error is 4%.

If the general election were being held today between John McCain for president and Sarah Palin for vice president, the Republicans, and Barack Obama for president and Joe Biden for vice president, the Democrats, for whom would you vote – McCain and Palin, Obama and Biden (names rotated), or someone else?

McCain – 50%

Obama – 45%

Other –

Undecided – 5%

We’re going to be seeing a lot of polls in Missouri on the presidential race leading up to the November general election. The good folks at FiveThirtyEight have a nice statistical rating system on pollster introduced error. Just for the purposes of comparison.

Tuesday evening canvassing turned out to be the night of the undecided voter. I ran into five households in a row where both husband and wife were undecided. I asked each of those people what they were waiting to hear, what issues mattered to them.

Nancy told me that the economy, of course, was her concern, and she went into some detail about how the current market is damaging her retirement account and how the housing market keeps her from selling the house she had been living in before she moved to our neighborhood. I think I’ll drop a copy of the script for an Obama ad into the mail for her:  

In the past few weeks, Wall Street’s been rocked as banks closed and markets tumbled. But for many of you – the people I’ve met in town halls, backyards and diners across America – our troubled economy isn’t news.  600,000 Americans have lost their jobs since January. Paychecks are flat and home values are falling.  It’s hard to pay for gas and groceries and if you put it on a credit card they’ve probably raised your rates. You’re paying more than ever for health insurance that covers less and less.  This isn’t just a string of bad luck.  The truth is that while you’ve been living up to your responsibilities Washington has not.  That’s why we need change.  Real change.  This is no ordinary time and it shouldn’t be an ordinary election. But much of this campaign has been consumed by petty attacks and distractions that have nothing to do with you or how we get America back on track. Here’s what I believe we need to do.  Reform our tax system to give a $1,000 tax break to the middle class instead of showering more on oil companies and corporations that outsource our jobs. End the “anything goes” culture on Wall Street with real regulation that protects your investments and pensions.  Fast track a plan for energy ‘made-in-America’ that will free us from our dependence on mid-east oil in 10 years and put millions of Americans to work. Crack down on lobbyists – once and for all — so their back-room deal-making no longer drowns out the voices of the middle class and undermines our common interests as Americans.  And yes, bring a responsible end to this war in Iraq so we stop spending billions each month rebuilding their country when we should be rebuilding ours.  Doing these things won’t be easy.  But we’re Americans. We’ve met tough challenges before. And we can again.

Maybe that message will resonate with Nancy, but I don’t know what I can do to persuade the other voters I talked to, because Nancy was the only one of the five who told me specificallly what she will be looking for. The other four either didn’t know or weren’t willing to open up. Two did offer that what they didn’t want to hear was “lipstick on a pig” diversions. What frustrated me was that they saw McCain and Obama as being equally culpable for that nonsense. Bob told me that if Obama would just ignore those attacks, they would die on their own.

I said that John Kerry had found that wasn’t true. He ignored the Swiftboat attacks in 2004, thinking surely no one would believe such nonsense about a decorated war hero, but the nonsense–unanswered–took hold. Some people believed it; others saw Kerry as too lily-livered to defend himself.

Bob’s body language told me that I had not scored any points with that answer, that he didn’t like being contradicted. Perhaps I needed to preface my response with something conciliatory like “You would think so, wouldn’t you?”

Of course, what I really wanted to say was: Did you ever notice that it’s usually the Republicans who start that nonsense, leveling half truths or outright lies at Democrats. The Dems are only guilty of defending themselves. But I suppose there’d be no quicker way to get myself written off as a whiner than to use that line.

Whether to respond and how, whether to just listen for the most part: who knows? Perhaps I’ll just follow the advice I got from a local Obama field organizer. He told me that one of the most effective tools of persuasion is to tell someone my personal story of why I’m out there canvassing. I believe him. I’m still working on what I want to say and how I’ll phrase it so it doesn’t sound like “Come to Jesus” proselytizing.

Are there any general guidelines or useful anecdotes those of you who’ve been canvassing would like to pass along?

According to Brett Penrose no writing utensils were injured during the production of this ‘toon.