Dave Catanese was already on shaky ground with his explanation of Nixon’s grade of C- for last week. But he really stepped in it with his defense of the explanation.

Let me back up. Yesterday, Dave Catanese gave our Governor Jay Nixon a C-. I suppose the grade could be defensible, but his explanation was essentially that the Missouri GOP has been intransigent on his key legislative priorities. And what’s worse, when Sean at FiredUp called him on it, Dave Catanese responded on Twitter:

@FiredUpMissouri Ponder this: Bush didn’t get immigration reform or social security reform and he gets blamed.

That’s right. If only Bush could have passed the extraordinarily unpopular partial privatization of Social Security, he would have gotten credit and a good grade. Well, from David Broder maybe, but not from voters. Remember that the plan was so popular that administration officials kept trying to switch the term of privatization (is it private accounts or personal accounts) and Bush’s popularity plunged weekly (along with support for the plan) the longer he publicly pushed for it. Only in the Village do people long for “Social Security Reform.”  

Cole at Fired Up Missouri catches incoming Missouri Speaker Ron Richard undermining my defense of earmarks.

Richard is proposing that a new Missouri River bridge be shoe-horned into a legislative deal to build an additional nuclear power unit at Ameren’s Callaway plant.

The $50 million bridge would link Chamois (pop. 456) and the Molle Dozier Chute (pop. 0).

No word on how much it would cost the state to relocate bridge users to the area.

I still say that it’s the job of other legislators to object to egregious earmarks, just as Congress stripped the earmark for the “Bridge to Nowhere” but then again, it might be difficult for the majority to say no to their head honcho.  

Via Fired Up, I see that Republican operatives are squawking to Politico that Judy Baker was their preferred opponent in Missouri’s Ninth District. Nothing new here; Republicans love spreading misinformation on that site. What’s perhaps more surprising is that one of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s main political writers, Jake Wagman, would fall for the same story.

The GOP is trying to promote a storyline that Baker is weak outside of her “liberal base” in Columbia, where Gaw would supposedly have scooped up votes all over the district. Nevermind that Baker beat Gaw in northern Missouri counties like Clark and Scotland, in the center of the district in Gasconade County, in Saint Charles County, and in the south of the district in Crawford County. If it had been a true rural vs. city split, the race might have been closer, but as it was, Baker won handily with support throughout the district.

It’s not surprising either. I’ve met Judy, and she’s very charming and personable. She has a good track record working on important issues like health care, and as the wife of a Baptist minister and as someone with a Master of Divinity degree, the usual Republican cultural attacks don’t work too well against her. And as a candidate, she is very effective at raising enough funds to compete all over the district.

The fact of the matter is, GOP operatives aren’t interesting in pesky little things like facts. If Gaw, Bode or Jacob had prevailed, they would put a different spin on the exact same storyline. But as a newspaper reporter and all, Wagman should spend a little more time researching and a little less time passing along GOP talking points.

By the way, if the P-D wants to pass along a partisan point of view, they would do well to read Fired Up’s analysis of why Hulshof is the worst of the Republican gubernatorial options, politically speaking.

Photo of Judy Baker sandbagging in Hannibal courtesy of JudyBakerforCongress on Flickr.