On Friday, June 17, I got up early to catch a train to get to St. Louis in time to catch the rally to save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security outside Senator McCaskill’s St. Louis office, and then go on to the Missouri Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner at the Renaissance Grand in Downtown St. Louis.

Basically, if all the statewides are scheduled to appear somewhere, chances are pretty good that if you look for the table at the back, where the tripods are set up and the hand-held recorders are out on the table, you will find me and assorted other members of the political media — especially my partners here at Show Me Progress. We try very hard to have someone at every event.

Sometimes that is short notice and it frequently sends me scrambling for resources if I haven’t had time to plan ahead, but we get there and we cover it and we archive audio so we can fight back with context and/or accuracy when Democrats are misunderstood — or as happens far to often, deliberately misquoted.

Take Friday night for example — Jo Mannies, who didn’t sit with us lowlife bloggers at a table, but chose to hug the wall just inside the ballroom doors instead — decried Democratic Governor Jay Nixon for lapsing into “partisanship” because he dared say the words “right wing extremists” and call out the nutjobs in the state legislature for what they are during his address Friday night…Even though he wasn’t speaking at a campaign rally, he was speaking to a room full of 500-plus of the most hard-core Democrats in the state, all of whom paid $125 per plate to attend.

When that sort of money is shelled out, red meat is expected, and since the menu was chicken and shrimp, that red meat came from the speakers. And did they ever deliver!

Governor Nixon gave one of the best speeches I have heard him give, and I have been covering him since he was our Attorney General, campaigning for Governor. He is in Jefferson City with the right-wing extremists who want to return us to the era before the New Deal and the Wagner Act, to the cutthroat era of the robber barons and union busting and the systematic disenfranchisement of the “wrong” people who tend to vote the opposite way that the rich and powerful do.

Nixon appeared before a crowd of Democrats just hours after vetoing the right wing extremists’ latest attempt to disenfranchise anywhere between 170-240,000 Missouri voters. hell, yeah, he was going to deliver some partisanship and get these people — you know, the folks who open their wallets and man the phones and go door to door and basically and keep the Missouri Democratic Party functioning — fired up!

I was also impressed with Claire McCaskill’s more pugnacious tone. Of course, the fact that 200 people were outside her office in 90-degree heat with 190% humidity for over an hour “encouraging” her to stand up for the safety net didn’t discourage her any from kicking it up a notch or two, either. When she said that teachers and police officers and firemen aren’t the problem, and that “their pensions sure as HELL aren’t the problem!” the crowd was on it’s feet and she had to pause before going on and wait for them to take their seats.

It’s not this guy’s fault we’re in this mess.

What I heard from the speakers who addressed the rank and file who, while in their finery on Friday night, in the coming months will be in jeans and sneakers canvassing neighborhoods, and manning phone banks, and working for candidates and raising money and donating money, and time, and talent — was that they are going to work as hard as we are and they will fight for us.

Jay Nixon fought for us on Thursday when he addressed boys state and told them something I hope they take with them the rest of their lives. He pointed out to them that they were going to be okay no matter what. Their tickets are punched, it’s all in front of them and it’s all theirs if they don’t piss it away. But, he told them, “you have to have compassion. You don’t make yourself any taller by cutting off the heads of those around you.”

Then he fought for us on Friday when he vetoed the odious Voter ID bill.

I hope he is just getting started and spends a little of his political capital to fight back in the rural areas where they are a natural Democratic constituency. They have potable water, electricity, gas, roads, mail delivery, phone service, internet access, hospitals and doctors and nurses to work in them, Social Security, Medicare, S-CHIP and Medicaid to access them and they can get drugs from a pharmacy that is regulated so they are sure they are getting what the doctor prescribed and not baking soda because Democrats didn’t just make those things happen — Democrats made those things possible.

The thesis of one of the first posts I wrote when we launched Show Me Progress was me arguing that the Missouri Democratic Party needs a concerted 114 County Strategy, that we need to get offices back on the square in Albany and Bethany and Princeton and Trenton and Gallatin and Grant City and all the other small counties that lost their long-term Democratic Senators and Representatives in 2000 when term limits took over because — lets face it — term limits caught us unawares. We were content with the “old bulls” like Harold Caskey running things for decades on end. There was comity and things got done and worked pretty well. And in those rural areas, no new talent was being recruited and groomed by the Democrats, but the republicans were doing just that on school boards and municipal boards and county legislatures. Then they sprung term limits and they had their candidates ready to go.

And the state party responded by…abdicating the rural areas to the wingers.

I hope some of that pugnacious talk I heard Friday night means that the days of that nonsense are over. Instead, I hope it gets repeated in every county seat of all 114 counties by every statewide official on the 08 ballot at least twice between now and then, and I hope they have an aggressive social media presence, because every one of my country cousins uses Facebook five times as much as I do, and I use it every day.

There are votes to be had outstate — but only if you go and ask for them and talk to them about the issues that matter to them. And for god’s sake, they deserve better than the likes of Casey freakin’ Guernsey.  

Chair of the Missouri Democratic Party, Susan Montee (center left) and Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor (right) at the pre-dinner reception for the Missouri Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson Dinner in St. Louis on Friday night.

Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor (D), one of the fourteen, was a featured speaker at the Missouri Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson Dinner in St. Louis on Friday night.

Video by hotflash.

The transcript:

Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor (D):  [applause] [cheers] Hello Missouri!  [cheers] Oh my goodness, it is good to be with friends. Thank you so much. [voice: “Solidarity!”] That’s what I’m talking about. Solidarity, man. Power to the people. [applause] [voice: “Yeah!”] I have to tell you Democrats it’s wonderful to be with you. I have been at ground zero. I have been right in the midst of the fight. And it is good to be among friends. Thank you for having me. [applause]

I’m here to remind you, Missouri, I’m here to remind you Democrat, Democrats that this is our wakeup call. Bzzzzzzzzzzzz. [applause] Hear me! Hear the clarion call that this is our wakeup call. This is our moment to stand, to lead, to act. Forty plus years ago Martin Luther King was fighting for workers’ rights. He was fighting for access for people. He died in that fight, in that struggle. And today, in twenty eleven we fight the same fights. This is a fight for our nation. This is a fight for America, for her Democracy, and for the American dream. Not as individuals, but as brothers and sisters of a party, of a party that must stand up and heed the call of a nation that must fight for what is right. Access to education, access to health care, access to resources, access to jobs, access to Democracy, yes, Democracy in the workplace [applause] for workers’ rights.[cheers] We need access in America not just for the CEO but for the average Joe.[applause] My governor picked up the phone thought he was talking to the Koch brothers, he’s a really smart guy. Twenty minutes he talked to the Koch brothers but he didn’t have time for the average person from our state to talk to him. He revealed that this is a national agenda for the GOP, corporations over people, profits over people, budget cuts over the needy, of our constituents, of the people, the ordinary, average Joe. Tax credits for corporations while we give tax increases to our constituents and cuts to services. This is a national fight, but it doesn’t just end with what you saw in the Spring.

They’re the party that says we can’t. We can’t believe in it, we can’t sustain it, we can’t build it, we can’t, we can’t, we can’t fund education, we can’t fund health care. They’re the party of we can’t. But, Missouri, I’m here to say, this is our wakeup call. We need all hands on deck. Or maybe I should say, like Sarah Palin, except I actually know who Paul Revere is [laughter][inaudible]. The Republicans are coming! The Republicans are coming! [cheers][applause]

We must stand, we must lead, we must vote, we must act. America doesn’t need a we can’t attitude, we need a we can do it kind of thinkers. People who’ll say we can have clean energy, we can educate every child in a quality way [applause]. We can keep peace without creating war, we can care about the poor without creating dependency, and yes, we can honor the dignity of work and the right to negotiate [applause][cheers] in the workplace.

Wisconsin got in the spotlight as fourteen senators left. And let me tell you, they said we left on a bus. We didn’t. We drove in our cars, but I drove with Senator Carpenter. And I just need to digress for one moment and say, ladies, I didn’t believe, and gentlemen, I didn’t believe the stereotype that guys don’t know directions, [laughter] they don’t know, they won’t stop. I didn’t believe the stereotypes. But since I was later, when I never made it to Rockford, but I was in Illinois, I turned to Senator Carpenter and I said, I think you need some help. [laughter] We finally got to Illinois and it was our haven. It was the place the place we went so we could slow the bill down so the nation, we didn’t know at the time, but so Wisconsinites could know what was happening. But in time Wisconsinites stood up and they made a movement. And the nation responded.

And now I need to say to you we need to have more individuals who have the kind of values that governors like Governor [Jay] Nixon [voice: “Yeah!”] [applause][cheers]. Yes. Like Governor Gaylord Nelson or Governor Bob La Follette or Governor Francis Perkins or how about President Roosevelt or President Clinton or, I know, Missouri’s all time favorite, President Truman. [cheers][applause] We [inaudible].

I came today Missouri to say that this is our time to act. I want to paraphrase Ghandi for a second and say, we can, we must be the change we wish to see in our world, in our states, in our cities, in our communities. [Wisconsin] Governor [Scott] Walker [R], Governor Walker from my state has championed Robin Hood in the reverse, and I mean to say to you that we can do better. We must. And together [applause] we can, Democrats.

Do you see the need that I speak to? Will you be a part of that effort? Will you stand up with Wisconsin? Will you give another dollar to your party? Will you make more calls? Will you find some time to do a little more, to stand, to lead, to act? Will you help save America? ‘Cause this is our moment. You do realize that they’re watching what happens in ground zero in Wisconsin? And if they win there, they’ll use it as a template everywhere coming to a place near you. And I’m saying, bzzzzzzzz, this is our wakeup call [applause], Democrats.

In the midst of this entire battle Reverend [Jesse] Jackson came to Wisconsin. And he told us about the sanitation workers that Martin Luther King worked with. And I was really taken by that. But he said a small thing kind of in passing that really touched me. He said, you know, people don’t die in deep water because the water is deeper, they die because they stop kicking. Wisconsin, Missouri, I’ve come to report, has not stopped kicking. [cheers][applause]

I need you to know just yesterday in the middle of the budget hearing that we had people who actually locked themselves to the banisters. One by their, both by their neck, they locked themselves so that they could continue to chant in the chambers. Now, that was extreme. But I just want you to know that that’s what the people of Wisconsin are doing. That they are saying that they will not go easy, that they will kick all the way. And I’m coming to tell you that we need your help. Missouri, will you say it, with Wisconsin, to help us keep kicking? [applause][cheers] Will you say it with us? I hope the answer is yes. I believe that Democrats are the only way we can take it back. So when I say Demo, you say crats.

[Demo-crats cheer]

Who’s going to take America back?

[Demo-crats cheer]

Who’s going to take America back?

[Demo-crats cheer]

Thank you, so much Missouri. [applause][cheers]

Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor (D).

On Friday night the Missouri Democratic Party held its Jefferson-Jackson Dinner at the Renaissance Grand Hotel in downtown St. Louis. There were over five hundred in attendance.

The ballroom before the start of the evening’s activities.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) (center) at the pre-dinner reception.

@sarahfelts Sarah Felts

.@clairecmc: “We’ve got problems, but the problem isn’t teachers…The problem isn’t gov’t wotkers & it sure as hell is not their pensions.” 19 hours ago

@sarahfelts Sarah Felts

#MO Sen. @clairecmc on redistricting: “This state is not a 6-2 state & we’re gonna show everyone that in November.” 19 hours ago

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D) and Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana), the keynote speaker.

@sarahfelts Sarah Felts

Sen. Tester, Senator from Montana & keynote speaker at JJ Dinner, gives a shout-out to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Amen! 19 hours ago

@BGinKC Blue Girl

John Tester gives good speech. I could vote for him, if I lived in Montana. #JeffersonJacksonDinner 19 hours ago

@sarahfelts Sarah Felts

Sen. Tester @ JJ Dinner: “On the debt-limit, we’re playing around with something that could put us into a severe depression.” 19 hours ago

Susan Montee, Chair of the Missouri Democratic Party (right).

Representative Wm. Lacy Clay (D), First Congressional District (left).

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and her spouse, Juan Carlos Antolinez.

@sarahfelts Sarah Felts

#MO Sec. of State @RobinCarnahan: “Democrats focus on people. That’s what we do… We know we have an obligation to take care of people.” 20 hours ago

Representative Russ Carnahan, Third Congressional District.

Susan Montee (center left) and Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor (D) (center right).

@sarahfelts Sarah Felts

WI State Sen. Lena Taylor addressing the JJ Dinner about the #WIunion fight. “We’re still kicking. Missouri – will you fight with us?” 20 hours ago

Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel (D) (left).

Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel addressing the audience.

@BGinKC Blue Girl

The crowd at #JeffersonJacksonDinner are on their feet for Jay Nixon and his veto of the GOP disenfranchise-Democratic-voters scheme. 20 hours ago

Governor Jay Nixon (D).

@BGinKC Blue Girl

“Attacking working families doesn’t create a single job.” Gov. JAY nixon 20 hours ago

@sarahfelts Sarah Felts

#MO Gov. Nixon @ JJ Dinner: “Elections matter. …We’re going to send our common-sense senator (@clairecmc) back to Washington to lead.” 20 hours ago

@sarahfelts Sarah Felts

#MO Gov. Jay Nixon @ JJ dinner: “I will keep opposing right-wing-extremists… They wanted ‘Right-to-Work’ & We. Said. No.” 20 hours ago

Governor Jay Nixon in the foyer after the dinner.

Former State Auditor and current Missouri Democratic Party Chair Susan Montee was the keynote speaker at the annual Cass County Democratic Committee “Back to Blue” dinner in Belton on April 30th.

Missouri Democratic Party Chair Susan Montee spoke at the Cass County Democratic Committee “Back to Blue” dinner in Belton on Saturday night.

Missouri Democratic Party Chair Susan Montee ….We now are faced with needing to do something differently. Now, I’m a big proponent of the idea of the self-sustaining party, but it, it wasn’t my idea. It came about after our election in two thousand and four, where we narrowly lost the governor’s election. Um, and it was largely due to the fact that [presidential candidate] John Kerry pulled out of our state with three weeks left. And we had no infrastructure in place to do anything about it and to get our votes out. And at that point we said, never again, we don’t want this to happen to us again. We have to have a party that is active and able to get a message out and to get people out and, and we can’t be reliant on these outside forces.

We actually came up with a plan, we were going down a path, but a couple of wonderful things happened to us. Uh, Claire McCaskill decided to run for the Senate in two thousand and six and a ton of money came into the state so we didn’t need that plan. Uh, two thousand and eight, uh, the Obama campaign dumped a ton of money into the state, was the narrowest, uh, margin in the country, tried everything, we had all this money, things were great, we didn’t have to get our plan in place. In twenty-ten when there was no money coming into the state from the federal and we had never activated our party structure we found out what it’s like if we don’t get our votes out…

…And don’t let anybody tell you that, oh, well, it was the tide, all the independents that had voted Democratic voted Republican.  ‘Cause while you can see some of those things happening on the federal issues and maybe in the federal races that was not what happened to us in our state races and our local races. ‘Cause what happened to us here is our Democrats did not turn out. And I know that. I looked at it. I looked at my numbers from oh-six and ten and I can tell you. I, I can even tell you by county by county. We can go to St. Louis County which is the largest blocks of folks in the state.  In two thousand and six the republican candidate had a hundred and sixty thousand votes. In two thousand and ten the Republican candidate against me had a hundred and fifty-nine thousand votes. And less votes. But I was missing thirty-five thousand votes. So, the margins that we lost were our Democrats not coming home. Believe me, the independents didn’t shift in my race. It wasn’t the Republicans that stayed home in St. Louis County. We know what it was.

The good news about that, another one of those opportunities, is we don’t have to change anybody’s mind. We have to just get our people to get out. And the way that we do that is we talk about issues, and we tell people what means to be a Democrat, and we make sure that people understand the consequences of not voting or not voting right.

And, so what we’re gonna do at the Democratic Party is, we are going to be the place where all of the ideas filter through so people can get information about what’s going on. And so people know what it means to be a Democrat in this state. And what that means for all of our candidates is they should be a reflection of the values that we have put together. It isn’t that the party is there to reflect the values of any of our candidates, it’s the other way around. So, we are going to be talking all the things that are important and all of those candidates. They just need to get in line with us and we will be supportive of them.

Now, I just want to say a little bit about our elected officials and candidates and this whole big concept. Because, not all of our elected or our candidates are gonna agree with me or with all of you on every single issue. And, we are a really big tent and so, we know that that’s the case. And that’s okay. We want our elected officials to be smart, independent thinkers. I mean, I’m glad that they disagree with me sometimes. Okay, I am not glad that they disagree. [laughter] I respect that they disagree with me sometimes. Um, and so I just want to say that because sometimes internally when we’re upset we go, gosh, this person isn’t a good Democrat or this person isn’t doing the thing, but, believe me, we all need to work very, very hard for all of those Democrats this year, to get them reelected, because I have seen the alternative. And all of you guys have seen the alternative. And I see it every day in Jefferson City.

And the alternative that we’re talking about is people that don’t have any, don’t give any value to education in this state. They’re the people that would turn away our federal unemployment dollars to another state and say, hey, unemployed, just get a job. At the same time they’re not offering anything that would create any kind of jobs, unless, of course, you’re talking about doing away with child labor laws. [jeers] At the same time, for those people who are fortunate enough to have a job, they’re saying, hey, it’s okay, we’re gonna let them discriminate against you in the workplace, we’re gonna take away your ability to collectively bargain and, and have your rights, we are gonna cut your minimum wage. So, good thing you have a job, because it’s not gonna be worth anything. That’s the alternative that we are not going to be able to live with. And so, I’m not gonna live with it. I know you guys aren’t and that’s why we’re gonna get out and work a lot, lot harder this year [applause] then we did last time….

CORE PROGRESSIVE MESSAGE:   WE BUILD AMERICA ON A STRONG FOUNDATION, ONE PERSON AT A TIME.

“I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion,  and  in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas.”   John F. Kennedy,  September 14, 1960 speech in New York City.

Progressives believe in the dignity of every human being and will rebuild our country from the bottom up. Healthy, educated people can take care of themselves and, when given the opportunity to reach their God-given potential, will create new technologies and business opportunities for themselves and others. A society, just like a tall building, needs a firm foundation or it will crumble.

Progressives believe that strong families and communities are intrinsically valuable, not just for the emotional rewards people feel from belonging to a caring society, but for the stability a strong community provides for economic innovation and advancement toward prosperity.

Progressives believe that the benefits of economic production should be shared by those who actually do the work and produce the wealth, not just by shareholders and top executives.

Progressives believe that the moral mission of government includes the protection and empowerment of citizens.  Protection includes education of all of its citizens,  defense against inhumane working conditions, medical care when needed,  access to safe food, air and water,  and a national defense and intelligence infrastructure commensurate with changing world conditions.

Conservatives and progressives operate from very different world views and with different cognitive mazeways.  Conservatives operate from an authoritarian belief system that stresses following orders rather than following our individual dreams.  They stress  punishment rather than rehabilitation.  They demand accountability from teachers but not from hedge fund managers.  They reject progress toward a sustainable environment because they would rather shift the cost of pollution onto the citizens than make the polluters pay.  They believe that government has no business helping individuals stay healthy or even to have a roof over their heads.

Conservatives, especially the Corpublicans running the country at this point in time believe that empowering a tiny portion of the citizens at the top of the income scale by shifting wealth up to them from the working and middle class will create jobs. There is no evidence that a CEO making $11 million a year plus stock options and bonuses creates jobs. In fact, from what we have seen over the last two  years, the incentive is just the opposite. Corporations and business owners have cut jobs to improve their bottom line despite sitting on mountains of cash and enjoying high profits. In the conservative worldview, workers are just one more expense to cut any way possible.

When people are treated like trash and thrown out in the street, they lose self-respect and faith in the future.  Poverty, homelessness, medical emergencies cause stress on the entire society, but those suffering foreclosure and joblessness pay the highest price.  This is not fair.  The current recession was caused by greedy, reckless money managers who gambled with our life savings.  Now the Corpublicans say we all need to share the pain of reducing the national deficit.  They played and we paid. Like vultures, they circle in the air waiting to suck the lifeblood out of the American people and pick what tiny shreds of dignity we still have.  They won’t be happy until America is a third world nation and we will beg them for any job at any salary just to stay alive.   Corporations have no national loyalty.  Their goal is infinite profit for a few at the expense of the many.    Progressives are rallying to the defense of the defenseless.   We can do better and we deserve better.

Since it is popular these days to reference the U.S. Constitution, let’s remember the Preamble we all learned in grade school.   WE are “the people,” not the corporations.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Progressive Democrats of St. Louis

January 7, 2011

An article By Jo Mannies of the St. Louis Beacon on the challenges faced by Susan Montee, the New Chair of the Missouri Democratic Party, raises some interesting issues.  Mannies notes that Montee and a new activist group, the Progressive Democrats of St. Louis, are both concerned about the organizational and communications failings of the state Democratic party. Beyond that point, though, Mannies’ report implies that when the smoke of the last electoral defeat clears and Montee gets down to work she may not see eye to eye with progressives about the correct direction for the state party.

I find it telling that Montee describes the “messaging” failures of the Missouri Democrats in the last election as follows:

We didn’t talk about what makes state Democrats different from national Democrats or California Democrats.

Would the crucial difference that Montee is hinting at have anything to do with the fact that the most prominent elected Democrats in the state, Senator Claire McCaskill and Governor Jay Nixon, are essentially old-time moderate Republicans in disguise? Although the article makes it clear that McCaskill and Nixon aren’t claiming responsibility for Montee’s selection, it seems equally clear that Montee is the choice of the state Democratic establishment which, from my admittedly limited perspective, seems to bless only good, well-mannered little boys and girls like McCaskill and Nixon.

Montee’s view that her job is to distance the state party from what the GOP represents as the socialist-communist-facist policies of the national Democratic Party (or Nancy Pelosi’s Gay California Hippie Party) indicates that she may have taken too deeply to heart the Republican message, as articulated by the Missouri Republican Party Executive director, Lloyd Smith:

… that Missouri is becoming an increasingly conservative state, ….  Susan Montee was soundly defeated because she embraced the failed policies of Barack Obama and national Democrats.

If this is indeed the case, I would invite Montee to ponder the defeat of her colleague, Robin Carnahan, who was at the head of the losing Democratic ticket in November. As a progressive, the first big disappointment that I experienced in regard to Carnahan was her rush to embrace the Bush tax giveaways for the wealthy. Before that time, I had been annoyed by her incipient posturing as a “deficit peacock,” but her lame effort to deprive the GOP of a campaign weapon at the cost of the core Democratic value of fairness was something that no messaging strategy or slogan could have overcome, not even the “caring, fair and smart” refrain that the spokesperson for the Progressive Democrats of St. Louis, Rea Kleeman, suggested to Mannies as a first step in reviving the party message. I don’t think that I am alone in this feeling; I believe that was the point where many in the Missouri Democratic base cashed in their chips.

I ultimately stuck with Carnahan because I decided a vote for her was a vote for a national Democratic majority, and even – in the long run – a vote for Nancy Pelosi (of the California branch of the party). Lots of Democrats that I know weren’t so forgiving. Carnahan lost decisively and, as I remember, didn’t even do that well in the Democratic strongholds of St. Louis and Kansas City. I wonder if her willingness to betray a core Democratic principle might not have been the final straw in the broom that swept away her margin in those regions?

It bears thinking about, and I hope Montee will be able to take it into consideration as she tries to shape the Missouri Democratic message. Democrats are eager for a strong narrative, one that grabs at our core values with two fists, something that nice girls and boys who are worried about offending Grandma and Grandpa Grundy can’t offer.

Every once and a while I take a look at the The Record Blog, which is sponsored by the conservative Missouri Record online journal. I like to see what the other guys are talking about and how they are arguing their points. Occasionally, my curiosity is repaid and the journal’s editor and main blogger, Patrick Tuohey, or another contributor actually construct an argument for their point of view that that is really an argument, not simply a litany of slogans. However, I am at a loss to explain this short post on Susan Montee’s appointment as the incoming Chair of the Missouri Democratic party:

.

… state Democrats have given us a chair.  To wit, Susan Montee, former State Auditor-elect has been chosen to serve as furniture.

………..

… We’re just worried about the rest of the office suite.  There is no word yet on who will be serving as table, credenza or file cabinet.  But rest assured, once a capable credenza has been elected, a margarita machine will be placed upon him or her forthwith.

I am taking up your time by drawing your attention to this clunky attempt at humor because I don’t get it. Do I have to be a right winger to understand what Tuohey is getting at? Is he that worried that substituting “chair” for chairman is too politically correct – a label that makes strong wingers tremble? Or, if he concedes to the desire for courtesy that leads some to use gender neutral words now that more women are active in business and political life, does he just prefer “chairperson”? Is he trying to lampoon Montee specifically, or the state Democratic Party (here the comparison to furniture might actually be kind of apt given the Party’s general lifelessness)? Or maybe, like some five year olds I have met, he thinks the word “chair” in this context is funny all by itself? If so, it explains a lot.

At any rate, the bit about the margarita machine on the office credenza (elected or not) is not a bad suggestion, and Montee should take it under consideration. It might liven things up a little – which would be a welcome change for the state party. Ooops! Did I just get the joke?  

We just received word that outgoing State Auditor Susan Montee was elected chair of the Missouri Democratic Party today.

Missouri Revised Statutes

Chapter 115

Election Authorities and Conduct of Elections

Section 115.623

State committee to meet and organize, when.

115.623. The members of the state committee elected as provided in section 115.621 shall meet at a time and place to be designated by the current state committee chairman. The meeting shall occur no earlier than two weeks following the election of members to the state committee. At the meeting, the committee shall organize by electing a chairman and a vice chairman, one of whom shall be a woman, and a secretary and a treasurer, one of whom shall be a woman, and who may or may not be members of the committee. In the event a vacancy shall occur in the office of chairman, a vacancy shall also be declared in the office of vice chairman and a new election shall be held for filling the vacancies of both chairman and vice chairman, one of whom shall be a woman.

(L. 1977 H.B. 101 § 14.045, A.L. 1983 S.B. 234, A.L. 1986 H.B. 1471, et al., A.L. 1994 S.B. 650)

Effective 1-1-95

Update:

Susan Montee via Twitter:

I would like to thank the members of the Missouri Democratic Party State Committee today. I am honored to serve as your new Party Chair.     about 1 hour ago  via web  

I look forward to working with all Missouri Democrats as we move ahead towards the 2012 election cycle!     about 1 hour ago  via web

Yesterday:

[Susan Montee] says Democrats did a poor job of getting their message out during the past election and a poor job of getting Democratic-inclined voters in rural areas to the polls. But she says there’s little that an auditor’s candidate could have done to drive up voter turnout.

Montee has served in various Democratic Party roles over the years. She declined to say whether she was interested in a Democratic leadership position after her auditor’s term ends in January.

Let’s not be that narrow, Democrats didn’t just do a poor job getting Democratic-inclined voters in rural areas to the polls, they also did a poor job getting Democratic-inclined voters in urban areas to the polls. I need to write up and finish up the Kansas City Ward-by-Ward summary that proves that exact point.

And… today

Susan Montee is the new Chair of the Missouri Democratic Party!

Considering the fabulous electoral record of the Missouri Democratic Party in the last decade, I suspect this will be the last we hear of Susan for 2 years or so.