If you were really all that, would you be afraid to stand up for what you represent? FiredUp! points out that Roy Blunt not only didn’t respond to Robin Carnahan’s invitation to debates – he later tried to tell the faithful who tune into the Jamie Allman program that Robin is the one who is afraid to debate! Say what you will about integrity, you can’t say Daddy Blunt lacks brass.

And of course, there’s Ed Martin, the archetype for frat boy trickmeisters everywhere, who is so afraid of debating Russ Carnahan that he schedules pretend debates. An understandable ploy – it’s so much easier to make points against your opponent if you don’t actually have one.

Today, again via FiredUP!, we learn that Billy Long, the Republican running for Roy Blunt’s House seat, is not only trying to get out of a series of debates with his opponent, the putative Democrat, Scott Eckersley (and, like Roy Blunt, lying about it), but he won’t even participate in an environment only dreamed about  by other GOP candidates. As of this writing, Long just doesn’t seem to be able to find time for a debate sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and moderated by a chamber member who will, get this, “ensure that we remain on topic and that it doesn’t turn into a debate format.” A debate that doesn’t have a debate format and candidates who would want that to be the case – am I missing something here?

Which brings us to the eponymous question: Why are Republicans scared to debate? I admit that it’s a rhetorical question. We all know the answer. If you were intent on sticking to your focus group tested, to-the-gut-but-well-shy-of the-brain talking points and were incapable of defending said points with facts, you probably wouldn’t want to debate either.

Which is not to say that there isn’t an actual question we should be asking: How can any citizen of Missouri really want to vote for somebody with so little faith in their own policy positions that they can’t stand up in a real debate and defend them?  

Roy Blunt’s so-called jobs plan makes it clear that he’s going to go to the wall to defend the Bush tax giveaways for his rich friends – even though he hasn’t got the chutzpah to do it upfront, but instead tries to use the discredited claim that it will create jobs. As for Robin Carnahan, we all know that she’s opted for strategic camouflage, trying to blend into Missouri’s Republican woodwork when it comes to this question.

Arguments against the tax giveaways seem to fall just short of cutting through the GOP flim-flam in spite of the fact that it is clear that extending tax cuts for the wealthy will not only fail to create jobs, but will feed the dreaded deficit. You do remember the deficit, don’t you – the club that Republicans and a few neutered Democrats have been using to beat back initiatives, like the currently languishing small business aid package, that might actually create jobs?

Given this environment, a little perspective on the costs of extending tax cuts for the richest 2% of the population might be apropos. According to Kathy Ruffing and Paul N. Van de Water in their summary of the 2010 Report of the Social Security Trustees:

The 75-year Social Security shortfall is about the same size as the cost, over that period, of extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans (those with incomes above $250,000 a year). Members of Congress cannot simultaneously claim that the tax cuts for people at the top are affordable while the Social Security shortfall constitutes a dire fiscal threat.

If you like visual props, this graph demonstrates the relationship:

Shouldn’t somebody ask our senatorial candidates whether the 315,000 families with a minimum yearly income of a million dollars are more deserving than millions of Americans who can look forward to a secure old age thanks to Social Security?

As much as I would like to see both Blunt and Carnahan cornered and made to answer just that question, with no retreat into stale, dishonest talking points allowed, I’m not  taking odds that such a thing will ever happen. Consequently we’ll just have to guess where they would stand, and when we do so, we should remember these facts:

–When it comes down to floor votes, Blunt has always been firm that the top 2% of Americans, the richest of the rich, shouldn’t be expected to pay their way like the rest of us do. That’s why he get’s a 0% ranking from Citizens for Tax Justice.

–Carnahan … well, she has indicated that maybe she doesn’t think the Bush tax giveaways for the wealthy should be made permanent – and, hey, we’re Democrats after all. In Missouri it seems we have to take what little we can get.

Addendum:Some thoughts from Ezra Klein on the intra-pundit controversy generated by the CBPP  contention that the tax giveaways equal the projected social security shortfall.

*2nd paragraph edited slightly for clarity.

…a strange combination of support for a pseudo populist far right wingnut and an inside the beltway Washington friend of lobbyists.

Granted, they’re both running as republicans, but cognitive dissonance in politics can be an amusing phenomenon. That is until the rest of us suffer the consequences.

Steve Benen, in an excellent analysis of the sloganeering that characterized Glenn Beck’s Besmirch MLK Rally yesterday, exposes the lack of substance behind the boiling Tea Party paranoia. Benen’s post, definitely worth reading in it its entirety, concludes:

The folks who gathered in D.C. today were awfully excited about something. The fact that it’s not altogether obvious what that might be probably isn’t a good sign.

According to Bill Lambrecht at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s “Political Fix,” St. Louisians who traveled to Washington D.C. to bask in the light of Beck, the self-anointed prophet, and his acolyte, Saint Palin, are equally worked up and just as vague about what it is that’s got them twitching.

One gentleman whom Lambrecht quotes melodramatically declares that “This is to wake up the people. The politicians don’t listen.” We should doubtless overlook the tang of sour grapes in this cri d’coeur – the outraged tone of those who thought that the Bush years, with their indulgence of the full range of right wing fanasy, would truly go on forever. That particular speaker though does seem to have awakened – albeit a few years too late.  He is concerned, Lambrecht reports, because he has “never seen the economy so bad”:

It’s time to stop Congress from all this overspending and these frivolous earmarks. I think we’re headed for a collapse of the economy if it doesn’t stop

Similarly, an equally clueless St. Louisian is quoted as saying:

I’m scared that where we’re going is not a good place,” … There is no good ending to this story unless we make a U-turn,” he added.

The fact that the economy collapsed some time ago – two years ago to be exact – due to the ministrations of those applying just the panacea of deregulation and tax cuts that folks like these gentlemen advocate, doesn’t seem to have much penetration among this segment of the population. Instead they seem to derive intense, almost palpable satisfaction out of railing against the very measures that have kept us from the deepest and darkest of economic pits. How could any thinking person want to make a U-turn right back to the Bush policies that put us in the very bad place we were in at the end of 2008?

What is really going on when you have a wildly energized group whose raison d’etre dissolves when examined closely? Several observers noted that the tone of the Beck rally was essentially religious. However, the St. Louis  attendees who were quoted in the Lambrecht article almost all seemed to locate their worries in the political sphere, And, although they might justify themselves by reference to religious beliefs, I strongly suspect that most of those attending expect to find solutions to their complaints in retrograde political action.

Am I the only person who finds this blending worrisome? On the one hand, you have easily led, poorly informed people, seething with discontent, expressing real fear and anxiety about something that doesn’t ever seem to quite materialize in an intellectually viable form. On the other hand, you have numerous interested parties feeding the group’s sense of self-importance with visions of super-patriotism, heroic defiance, and now, with the Glenn Beck crusade, a sense of religious mission. Am I the only one reminded of Father Coughlin’s incendiary radio broadcasts and his depression era Christian Front brown shirt wannabes?  

It’s gonna be a long election season on television. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee started running this ad in Missouri:

Announcer: Roy Blunt’s Washington, a culture of corruption and special interests where Missouri gets left behind.

And when our economy collapsed Washington is where Roy Blunt took the lead and voted for the seven hundred billion dollar Wall Street bailout. Where Blunt has taken over one point six million dollars in contributions from Wall Street.

And Washington is where Roy Blunt was named one of Congress’s most corrupt politicians.

Roy Blunt, he isn’t just in Washington, he is Washington.

Second Announcer: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.

Again, with the tux.

On Friday, a small group of senior citizens visited Roy Blunt’s office with some questions about Medicare and Social Security. They found the doors locked, and the staff hid from them. Whenever a staffer found it necessary to leave the office, he would act as if the seniors were ghosts that he could neither see nor hear. But obviously, the staffers did see and hear the intruders, because eventually they called the cops and had those ruffians removed from the property.

Well, the staff’s behavior is perfectly understandable. First of all, imagine the gall of those old folk to ask questions at the office of a Senate candidate about issues that concern them. And. And. Keep in mind what a scary bunch they must have been, shouting and screaming (in modulated tones) as they did. Watch the video. You’ll see what I mean. Thugs, whether they’re on the far side of 65 or not, have to be shown what’s what.

Scott Brown, really?

The Public Editor

Why I Would Do This

By ARTHUR S. BRISBANE

Published: August 28, 2010

….I believe that journalists should leave their political views at the door when they report and edit the news. I’m a registered Democrat who voted for Barack Obama and then Scott Brown, so, as you can see, I have already left my views at the door!…

“[A]t the door” is not the terminology I would use.

SharkFu Someone please tell #cnn that history is littered with events attended by thousands of people gathered to celebrate bullshit. #trifling about 4 hours ago via web

Heh.

Dr. Michael Hoeman (D), a physician, is challenging the republican hold on the 30th Senate District seat in November.

Candidate List

State of Missouri General Election

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

State Senator – District 30

Hoeman, Michael DEM   Springfield, MO 65804

Dixon, Bob REP   Springfield, MO 65802

Bob Dixon (r) filed his “eight day” campaign finance report with the Missouri Ethics Commission on July 26th:

Detailed Summary of Committee Disclosure Report

Committe: BOB DIXON FOR SENATE

9. TOTAL ALL RECEIPTS THIS ELECTION(SUM 1B + 7A – 8A) $364,641.09

28. MONEY ON HAND AT THE CLOSE OF THIS REPORTING PERIOD (SUM 25 + 26 – 27) $121,594.79

[emphasis added]

Michael Hoeman (D) filed his “eight day” campaign finance report with the Missouri Ethics Commission on July 26th:

Detailed Summary of Committee Disclosure Report

Committe: CITIZENS FOR MICHAEL HOEMAN

9. TOTAL ALL RECEIPTS THIS ELECTION(SUM 1B + 7A – 8A) $32,113.50

28. MONEY ON HAND AT THE CLOSE OF THIS REPORTING PERIOD (SUM 25 + 26 – 27) $7,675.15

[emphasis added]

Given that huge advantage, this recent contribution to the republican candidate is nothing less than overkill:

CONTRIBUTION OF MORE THAN $5,000.00 RECEIVED BY ANY COMMITTEE FROM ANY SINGLE DONOR – TO BE FILED WITHIN 48 HOURS OF RECEIVING THE CONTRIBUTION

C010111 BOB DIXON FOR SENATE [pdf] 8/27/2010

7th District Congressional Republican Committee

Non Federal Account

Springfield, MO

8/26/2010

$6,000.00

[emphasis added]

Unless, you think they’re worried? Maybe by this:

Hoeman wants to face Dixon in state Senate race next November

…In his campaign kickoff, Hoeman said he’s better equipped than Dixon to deal with pressing issues like healthcare because he’s able to see the impact up close.

“I have consoled patients in my office who have broken down in tears because their Medicaid had been taken away. Without it, healthcare was simply not possible for them,” Hoeman said…

Everybody knows someone who has problems getting access to affordable health care. Maybe that rational political seed has been planted. We can hope.