Juan Alonzo (D) is facing Chris Mollendorp (r) in an open seat race. We’ve written about the race in the 123rd Legislative District before:

123rd Legislative District – first quarter campaign finance reports

The current representative in the 123rd, Brian Baker (r) (Is he running for office somewhere?), appears to have the time and the luxury to contribute to David Pearce’s whining in the 31st Senate District race.

Party switch dogs candidate in Missouri Senate race

By DONALD BRADLEY

The Kansas City Star

…But Baker has a problem with Benjamin running as a Democrat in the same election cycle in which he was advising Republican candidates.

“It comes across as very unprofessional,” Baker said.

tiny URL

But, I digress.

Let’s take a look at Chris Molendorp’s (r) report filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission on September 4th:

Detailed Summary of Committee Disclosure Report

Committe[e]: FRIENDS OF CHRIS MOLENDORP

Report[ ]Date:

1. TOTAL RECEIPTS FOR THIS ELECTION PREVIOUSLY REPORTED $34,091.55

2. ALL MONETARY CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED THIS PERIOD $2,250.00

9. TOTAL ALL RECEIPTS THIS ELECTION(SUM 1B + 7A – 8A) $36,341.55

15. TOTAL EXPENDITURES THIS ELECTION (SUM 10B + 14A) $19,852.82

28. MONEY ON HAND AT THE CLOSE OF THIS REPORTING PERIOD (SUM 25 + 26 – 27) $15,749.90

[emphasis added]

Where has Molendorp’s money come from?:

Detailed Summary of Contributions And Loans Received

Committee: FRIENDS OF CHRIS MOLENDORP

Report Date: 9/4/2008

Missouri Assoc. of Homes for the Aging PAC Jefferson City, MO 08/25/2008 $325.00

MAPAC Jefferson City, MO 08/08/2008 $325.00

Aquila, Inc. Kansas City, MO 08/08/2008 $325.00

Coventry Management Services, Inc. Bethesda, MD 08/12/2008 $250.00

Cass County Republican Central Committee Harrisonville, MO 08/12/2008 $325.00

NFIB-Missouri Jefferson City, MO 08/23/2008 $325.00

13. TOTAL MONETARY CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED FROM PERSONS GIVING $100 OR LESS $75.00

[emphasis added]

Can’t you just feel all that grass roots magic?

What did he spend all that money on?:

Detailed Summary of Expenditures And Contributions Made

Committe: FRIENDS OF CHRIS MOLENDORP

ReportDate: 9/4/2008

Chris Molendorp reimbursement $19.49

signage supplies $37.96

Lions Club hole sponsor $100.00

Hope Haven donation $100.00

Fuel to summer caucus $91.22

Captains meeting food and beverages $36.91

Raymore Peculiar Band Boosters Peculiar, MO 08/14/2008 program ad $120.00

RS Diecast Belton, MO 08/05/2008 booth rental/sponsor $250.00

Tan-Tar-A Lake Ozark, MO 08/10/2008 HRCC Summer Caucus hotel $238.58

Golf. A lake resort. $91.22 for fuel (gas?) to drive to a resort. Hmm. How’s that $4.00 a gallon gas workin’ out for ya?

Let’s contrast that with Juan Alonzo’s (D) report filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission on September 4th:

Detailed Summary of Committee Disclosure Report

Committe[e]: CITIZENS FOR ALONZO

1. TOTAL RECEIPTS FOR THIS ELECTION PREVIOUSLY REPORTED $16,202.74

2. ALL MONETARY CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED THIS PERIOD $2,702.00

9. TOTAL ALL RECEIPTS THIS ELECTION(SUM 1B + 7A – 8A) $19,124.74

15. TOTAL EXPENDITURES THIS ELECTION (SUM 10B + 14A) $7,400.85

28. MONEY ON HAND AT THE CLOSE OF THIS REPORTING PERIOD (SUM 25 + 26 – 27) $10,274.26

[emphasis added]

Hmmm. republicans usually have a bigger money advantage.

Let’s look at who made contributions:

Detailed Summary of Contributions And Loans Received

Committee: CITIZENS FOR ALONZO

Report Date: 9/4/2008

Tyros, Inc Raymore, MO Land Holding 07/28/2008 $100.00

United Steelworkers, Local # 13 Independence, MO  07/28/2008 $100.00

…and itemized individual contributions ranging in amounts from $50.00 to $1000.00 (that one made on August 29th).

The expenditures:

Detailed Summary of Expenditures And Contributions Made

Committe: CITIZENS FOR ALONZO

ReportDate: 9/4/2008

Meals $68.00

Newspaper ad $57.50

Belton Star Herald Belton, MO 07/25/2008 Advertisment $157.50

My Campaign Store Jeffersonville, IN 08/26/2008 Campaign Materials $425.10

Raymore Chamber of Commerce Raymore, MO 08/29/2008 Golf Tourny Sponser $200.00

Golf. What is it with golf? Advertising. Campaign chum?

This ad, hitting McCain for saying yesterday that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”, will begin airing in Missouri and other swing states today!

Last winter, when the St. Charles Central Committee was debating on whether to tap Tim Swope or Mindy Primm to run for the House seat Tom Dempsey had vacated in HD 18, they leaned toward Swope because they thought Primm, who is pro-choice, would be too radical for a district just teetering near the edge of turning blue.

They opted for Swope, the safe bet because he is a former Republican sheriff recently turned Democrat.

The downside of that choice, aside from running someone who finds it convenient to say he’s a Democrat, was that Swope wasn’t dependable. Time after time, even before the committee settled on him for the nomination, he had failed to show up at events he’d said he would attend, thus losing opportunities to network with people whose help in fundraising and campaigning would be valuable and necessary. In fact, one political insider took to undermining Swope, when party regulars complained about still another absence, by joking, “Oops, Swoped again.”

Nevertheless, he got the nod, and his campaign, if you could call it that, was as anemic as his performance last winter. He had  raised just under $16,000 as of September 4th, and his idea of contacting voters was to call his buddies and ask for their votes.

So it’s not surprising that Swope, who had been working part time, is citing lack of time now that he’s taking a full time job and has decided to back out of the race altogether. Now that it’s too late for any other Democrat to have a shot at the seat.

There are a few honest and decent conservatives out there who have drank neither the neocon nor the know-nothing kool-aid.  There just aren’t enough of them.

As far as I can determine, these rarest of birds are limited to the staff and readers of The American Conservative magazine.  

Pity, that.  We might have actual honest discourse in this country if there were more of them and fewer Freepers, but I’ll take what I can get.  And this week, they give me Ward Connerly’s hypocritical head on a platter.

I have gone after him a couple of times on this blog.  Last winter I warned readers not to sign a deceptive petition he was circulating and this spring, as the deadline for signature collection loomed large, I wrote about his desperate last-minute attempt to gather signatures by importing hatemongers-for-hire by bringing in Minutemen to collect signatures.  At least one of his out-of-state goons was wanted for voter fraud in other jurisdictions.  

Connerly, for those who may not know, is a (black) California businessman and anti-affirmative action zealot who decries the practice of mandated level playing fields, while cleaning up thanks to them.  (It’s the republican way!)

American Conservative put it this way:

The Right’s point man on affirmative action doesn’t need political successes to be a success. While his plans sputter and his former achievements are overturned, Connerly is still being handsomely rewarded. Once he received favored status from the conservative movement, his future was guaranteed. As an activist, Connerly has made millions opposing affirmative action. As a businessman and consultant, he has also made hundreds of thousands in large part because of it.

Between 1999 and 2005, Connerly’s nonprofits, the American Civil Rights Institute and the American Civil Rights Coalition, didn’t challenge a single affirmative-action law. Yet donations climbed to almost $2 million per year. The share that Connerly paid to himself, or to his private for-profit consulting firm, Connerly and Associates, also dramatically increased. In 1998, 22 percent of his nonprofits’ revenue was paid to Connerly in salary or to his firm. By 2001, Connerly’s salary and the fees charged by Connerly and Associates ate up 49 percent of the nonprofits’ combined revenue. Most of the money paid to the firm was listed on tax forms as “speaking fees.” In 2006, when Connerly took up a concrete goal in political activism-ending Michigan’s affirmative-action policies-the cut of nonprofit revenue paid to him and his firm rose to 66 percent of total receipts, nearly $1.6 million.

Connerly’s nonprofits employ him for 30 hours a week and two others full time. The nonprofits then hire him from Connerly and Associates to make speeches. In 2003, ACRI and ACRC paid him $314,079 while he managed two people. By comparison, that year the National Action Network, which receives about $1 million in public funds, only paid Al Sharpton about $4,000. The Claremont Institute, a neoconservative think tank in California, paid its top executive $132,000, and its staff is 9 times the size of Connerly’s. The Heritage Foundation paid its president $292,000 to manage a staff of over 180. The primary financial responsibility that Ward Connerly had at his nonprofits that year was paying his firm over $400,000 for Ward Connerly the consultant, Ward Connerly the speaker, Ward Connerly the political maven-and occasionally a security detail to guard him.

Is this illegal? The IRS makes clear in its statute that nonprofit organizations cannot be used to enrich one individual or company, but few of these cases are prosecuted. In 2006, during the heat of Connerly’s Michigan push, Congressmen John Conyers and Charles Rangel asked the IRS to look into his dealings. An IRS spokesman said that he could not comment on a case under investigation. Connerly defended himself by saying that he avoids any trickery on his IRS forms and dutifully pays taxes on all the money he receives.

Not long after the Sacramento Bee and the House members began inquiring about his compensation, Connerly changed procedures at his nonprofits. They now have a board that reviews his salary. He says, “It’s based on a formula that is devised by our auditors and accountants-a base salary of $300,000 and then compensation for speeches and things.” Connerly no longer has his private company invoice his nonprofits: “I pay Connerly and Associates for those services out of funds I receive for ACRI, so they [Connerly and Associates] in fact became a sub-contractor to me.” If this explanation seems convoluted, that’s fine by Connerly.

In Missouri, we got the word out and he and his minions skulked away with their collective tail between their neutered hind legs, and some of us have been bugging the hell out of our state representatives and senators ever since to get a common-sense statute on the books that anyone collecting signatures for ballot initiatives in Missouri be registered voters in this state.  

We are, thankfully, a stubborn lot, no matter what our political leanings, and don’t like outsiders meddling in our “family bidness,” so to speak. Case in point: One of my relatives agreed with the sentiment of the initiative but refused to sign the petition because it didn’t originate with Missourians.  “If Ward Connerly wants to move to Missouri and pay taxes here, I’ll think about signing his damned petition, but not until,” was the standard mantra he told the signature collectors who approached him.  

Here is hoping that the American Conservative starts a groundswell and Connerly falls out of favor, if not off the face of the earth.  But on the meantime, lets hit the ground runnong in January and get a petition gathering law through both chambers for Governor Nixon to sign.  We may not dodge the next bullet he fires at us.  

Carly Fiorina, who is inexplicably a top McCain economic advisor after being fired as CEO of Hewlett-Packard (the company halved its market share and shed a lot of jobs during her tenure) was on Saint Louis radio today. According to Fiorina, Palin does not have the experience to run a major company.

“Do you think [Sarah Palin] has the experience to run a major company, like Hewlett Packard?” asked the host.

“No, I don’t,” responded Fiorina. “But you know what? That’s not what she’s running for.”

Listen to the audio here.

H/T Sam Stein.

Blaine Luetkemeyer can’t answer a simple question from a reporter:

When asked whether he supported allowing the Medicare program to negotiate with prescription drug companies, Luetkemeyer’s campaign sent out a release criticizing Baker for voting against a push last year to strip away taxes on Social Security benefits.

“I believe that the hard-working people of the 9th Congressional District especially our seniors should be allowed to keep more money in their pockets rather than turn it over to Judy Baker’s liberal friends in Congress with a knack for funding pork barrel projects,” Luetkemeyer said in a statement. “There is a clear contrast between my dedication to fiscal responsibility and Judy Baker’s tax-and-spend approach to government including her unwillingness to give Missouri seniors a tax break.”

So we still don’t know where Luetkemeyer stands on making prescription drugs more affordable. We do know that Luetkemeyer stands for “fiscal responsibility”, which apparently means giving away billions to pharmaceutical companies.

Let’s back up a second. In a time when all Americans, particularly the elderly, face rapidly rising health care costs, and the federal budget deficit spirals out of control, you’d think candidates for federal office would get behind commonsense solutions that tackle both problems at the same time. In the race for the 9th Congressional District, Judy Baker is the only candidate who’s taking on this challenge.

In 2002, Pharmaceutical companies managed to extract a major concession from Congress in the massive legislative wrangling over the addition of prescription drug coverage to Medicare. The federal government would subsidize the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, but would not be permitted to use the power of bulk purchasing to negotiate the price of the drugs. Which is insane. It’s the only part of the government restrained from doing just that (the VA actually negotiates prices for prescription drugs for veterans), and private companies from insurance firms to Wal-Mart negotiate lower prices using the size of their purchases. Wal Mart even does it for prescription drugs for its pharmacies.

Negotiating for lower prescription drug prices could save consumers (and the federal budget) billions of dollars, which is especially relevant at a time when the economy is stagnating and the federal deficit is over $400 billion a year. But Luetkemeyer seems to think that bleating “fiscal responsibility” over and over again and closing his ears will get us past the problem.

My guess is that he’ll keep silent, because there’s no way he can win a debate with a health care expert like Judy Baker.

Really?

UPDATE: I shouldn’t mock McCain. Here’s evidence from an old magazine that McCain did indeed create the Blackberry.