Pass the popcorn.

Senator David Pearce (r) [2014 file photo].

John Hancock refuses to step down as some Missouri GOP lawmakers call for him to quit

By JASON HANCOCK and DAVE HELLING

The Kansas City Star

03/12/2015 10:45 AM 03/12/2015 2:23 PM

[….]

….Gary Romine, Mike Parson and David Pearce held a press conference in Jefferson City on Thursday calling for John Hancock to resign as the chairman of the Missouri Republican Party

[….]

….Negative campaigning, the role of political consultants and unlimited campaign contributions have “led to a very negative kind of campaign that none of us are proud of,” said Sen. David Pearce of Warrensburg….

[….]

Senator Pearce (r) has had significant experience with unlimited campaign contributions. He term limits out and cannot run for reelection in 2016. As far as we know Senator Pearce (r) has not announced he’s running for statewide office (or any other) in 2016. But, according to his campaign committee, there is a possibility:

C010192: Pearce For Missouri

Po Box 202 Committee Type: Candidate

Jefferson City Mo 65102 Party Affiliation: Republican

[….] Established Date: 10/01/2001

  Termination Date:

[….]

Election History

Election Year Primary Outcome General Outcome Political Office

2016 Statewide Office

2012 Successful Successful State Senator District 21

[….]

[emphasis added]

From Catherine Hanaway’s “How to become Governor of Missouri” checklist:

1. Goal: Find a simpatico billionaire to pave the roads with gold.

Achievements to date:

— Nearly $1 million dollars from one donor, megabucks political meddler, Rex Sinquefield.

Next steps:

— Ask Rex what he wants; submit bill.

2. Goal: Make nice with GOP crazy wing.

Achievements to date:

— Channeled the spirit of Todd Akin; attributed poverty, depravity and pedophilia to female sexual autonomy.

— Kudos from Constitutional Party, holly-rollier-than-thou, Cynthia Davis who responds to the Akin imitation with thanks to “brave women, like Catherine Hanaway, for having the courage and moral fortitude to speak the truth” about the sluts who “who have been beguiled into making their bodies available to men outside of Holy Matrimony.”

Next steps:

— Continue talking about keeping the sluts barefoot, pregnant and under Big Daddy’s thumb.

— With the understanding, of course, none of that talk applies to educated, rich Republican women who run for office.

3. Goal: Make nice with Missouri GOP power-brokers.

Achievements to date:

Endorsements:

— Former Missouri Governor and U.S. Senator Kit Bond – will put loyalty to former employees and friends over policy differences.  

— Former GOP National Committee Missouri member Ann Dickinson – goes where Kit Bond leads.

— Very connected U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner – all in for Hanaway – and why not since she’s the GOPs A-1 talent scout for women who can mouth the Republican anti-women line without retching.

— State Rep. Ed Emery, ALEC’s main man in Missouri.

Next Steps:

— Take a loyalty oath to ALEC.

— Hit the country club circuit.

4. Goal: Squash the other main GOP primary contender, Tom Schweich, like a bug.

Achievements to date:

— Long Version: Read former U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth’s eulogy for Tom Schweich to get the whole story.

— Short Version: Read TPM’s description of the way the old, political one-two works – or what Hanaway supporters and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Bill McCellan want to call politics as usual.

— Issued statement after announcement of Schweich’s suicide about what a mensch he was … oops! Make that what an “extraordinary man with an extraordinary record of service to our state and nation.”

Next Steps:

— Suspend campaign, lie low and maybe State GOP Chair and former Hanaway oppo researcher John Hancock will take all the heat.

* Edited slightly; inadvertently omitted text added back under achievements on 4th point.

Here is John Hancock’s home page on Twitter.

You will find the following as his self-description:

John Hancock

@johnrhancock

Christian, Husband, Father, Committed Conservative, GOP operative, piano player

The order is interesting: husband before father?

No wonder it is important for him what a politician’s religious affiliation is.  

If you’re interested, Missouri GOP Chair John Hancock is now issuing the expected and inevitable statements denying Tom Schweich’s posthumous accusations that he spearheaded an anti-Semitic whisper campaign in order to derail Schweich’s gubernatorial candidacy in favor of the Rex Sinquefield-blessed Catherine Hanaway. Not a surprising move, although his terminology in an email sent to folks identified as “party-leaders” is interesting:

Many of you on this committee are aware of the issue, as it came up in several of our conversations during the past few months,” Hancock wrote, as quoted by the Post-Dispatch. “While those who know me understand I would never denigrate anyone’s faith, Tom had mistakenly believed that I had attacked his religion.”

This left me scratching my head. Nothing that I’ve read implied that Hancock had ever attacked Schweich’s religion. According to reports, Schweich was an Episcopalian and nobody to my knowledge is accusing Hancock of slandering Episcopalians. What folks are saying is that Hancock was falsely asserting that Schweich, who had a Jewish grandfather, was himself Jewish. And that Hancock was doing it in those Republican circles where that might make Schweich persona non grata – at least as far as raising money to finance his race against Hanaway.

There’s a difference. Maybe Hancock doesn’t understand that, or maybe he’s just a sloppy kind of guy when it comes to explaining himself. But what Schweich accused him of wasn’t attacking his religion, but of practicing the dirtiest type of very dirty politics. An accusation that derives a certain credibility from the fact that we all know Republicans are good at doing just that – as I pointed out earlier.

That impression is reinforced by Hancock’s efforts to discredit the motives of Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger who had been made privy to what was on Schweich’s mind during his last weeks of life:

“Now, some political opponents-particularly liberal Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger-are using this tragic incident as an opportunity to criticize me and to smear the Missouri Republican Party,” Hancock wrote, as quoted by the newspaper. “These attacks are not only disgusting; they are wrong.”

Hoowee! Hancock evidentaly belongs to that school of conservative thought that seeks to answer any accusation of wrongdoing by evoking that rightwing bugaboo – those damn “liberals.” Count on them to be “disgusting and wrong.”

Wrong in what sense, though? Does wrong here mean inaccurate or morally culpable? Does Hancock think Messenger made up Schweich’s claims? By his own admission, lots of folks knew that Schweich was getting hot under the collar about what he considered an underhanded and nasty effort to knock him out of the race for the governor’s mansion. So what’s disgusting and wrong, in either sense, about telling folks about the beliefs that had been driving Schweich prior to his death, especially since Messenger correctly ensured that his account of what Schweich said neither affirmed or denied the accusations. If, based on past experience, we’re inclined to take Schweich seriously, the onus should fall on those of Mr. Hancock’s partisans who paved the way for us.

By many accounts Schweich was a highly-strung individual; maybe he was magnifying a few garden-variety incidents of who knows what. But by all the same accounts, he was also a man of integrity who refused to countenance what he considered bad behavior; it is probably undeniable that if he had not taken an even more decisive action yesterday, he would have been making those accusations public himself. How is it wrong – or even “liberal” – for Tony Messenger to act as Schweich’s proxy? Wasn’t Messenger just practicing honest journalism?  Doesn’t Tom Schweich, whose last phone call seems to have been an effort to arrange an interview on the subject, deserve a little respectful and honest journalism on the day of his death?

 

On the topic of the alleged GOP whisper campaign against Tom Schweich:

The Post-Dispatch reports Schweich believed Republican Party chairman John Hancock, elected last weekend, was saying Schweich is Jewish to hurt him politically in the gubernatorial primary race, as many Republican voters are evangelical Christians.

So what are all these reporters trying to say about evangelical Christians? Think maybe they should broaden the target? Narrow it? Tell it like it is? You already know what I think.

After thoughts: Do you think saying evangelicals might not vote for a Jew is an effort to make anti-Semitism sound respectible? As if it’s just a crazy foible of the religious which is to be expected and tolerated?

Read Tony Messenger’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial piece on the death today of State Auditor and gubernatorial candidate, Tom Schweich. It’s heartbreaking. If you don’t have the stomach for sad stories and righteous anger is more your thing, just read the excerpt that Michael Bersin posted below  

Messenger makes it clear that he doesn’t know the nature of the desperation that led Schweich to do what he did. What he does know: the chair of the Missouri Republican Party, who claimed neutrality in the primary race between Schweich and Catherine Hanaway, was, according to Schweich, planning to undercut Schweich through a “whisper” campaign. Schweich’s grandfather was a Jew and that seems to be sufficient to do damage among Republicans.

The use of a race-baiting whisper campaign is old-hat for Republicans. The Nation describes one of the more notorious examples:

Eight years ago this month [i.e.,  Jan. 2008], John McCain took the New Hampshire primary and was favored to win in South Carolina. Had he succeeded, he would likely have thwarted the presidential aspirations of George W. Bush and become the Republican nominee. But Bush strategist Karl Rove came to the rescue with a vicious smear tactic.

Rove invented a uniquely injurious fiction for his operatives to circulate via a phony poll. Voters were asked, “Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain…if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” This was no random slur. McCain was at the time campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh.

In his editorial article Messenger hones in on racism in Missouri:

Missouri is the state that gave us Frazier Glenn Miller, the raging racist who last year killed three people at a Jewish community center in Kansas City. It’s the state in which on the day before Schweich died, the Anti-Defamation League reported on a rise of white supremacist prison gangs in the state.

Division over race and creed is real in Missouri Republican politics, particularly in some rural areas. Schweich knew it. It’s why all week long his anger burned.

True enough. But from what I’ve been seeing over the past six years, this roiling racist frenzy isn’t just a Missouri phenomena, but the new defining characteristic of the Republican Party itself. Since Richard Nixon, Republican politicians have been attempting to generate and exploit white racial resentment. But it’s taken the election of an African-American president to rouse the tribal hysteria that we’ve seen in recent years.

Republican politicians and their media counterparts on Fox television and rightwing radio routinely engage in the type of racist innuendos and slurs that would have been enough to have ruined careers a decade or so ago had anyone dared say out loud what is now par for the course. I could give examples, but there’s so many it’s hard to choose – and you already know what I mean. Take for instance,  this list of the ten most racist moments at the last GOP convention. It’s even disturbed some Republicans. Charlie Christ left the GOP because “‘I couldn’t be consistent with myself and my core beliefs, and stay with a party that was so unfriendly toward the African-American president.” Hmmm, unfriendly. Politicians are politic, but the gist is clear.

As for anti-Semitism, remember Eric Cantor? You know, the Jewish guy who used to be House Majority Leader – and the only Republican Jewish member of the House of Representatives? Prior to his defeat, which many attributed to anti-Semitism, Cantor essentially admitted that racism and anti-Semitism was a problem in the House GOP caucus. And you all know about the history of anti-Semitism in the leadership of the American Family Association (AFA), the group that has given its heart, soul and financial support to the Republican Party – which reciprocates by regularly regularly sucking up in the AFA’s direction.

Of course rightwingers become apoplectic when they hear that other R word coupled with Republican, not to mention anti-Semitism. Not Islamophobic though – they seem to like that epithet. And it’s not just the denial; there’s all the projection too. Wingers are always on about how liberals are the real racists. Sadly, though their outrage is far too shrill and contrived; their red-faced conniption fits ultimately just make the rest of us laugh.

But I’m not laughing now. Folks who have a chance of adding control of the executive branch of our state to their legislative branch trophies, are accused of waging an anti-Semitic whispering campaign against a fellow party member. It’s going to be hard to escape the fall-out from this latest, local evidence of Republican moral rot. Or at least it ought to be.

*Phrase added in next to last paragraph.

Previously:

Offered without comment (April 16, 2013)

Yesterday, via Twitter:

John Hancock @johnrhancock

Anybody else out there wishing John Ashcroft was still the USAG? #boston. 7:35 PM – 15 Apr 13

Boston? John Ashcroft? Yes, we do remember, almost ten years ago:

Crowd of 1,200 boos Ashcroft

By Allison Brown

The Daily Free Press (Boston U.)

09/10/2003

(U-WIRE) BOSTON — With fists and middle fingers upraised, a booing, hissing and chanting crowd of about 1,200 people awaited United States Attorney General John Ashcroft when he arrived at Faneuil Hall Tuesday morning, decrying his support of what some protesters called government policies undermining civil rights.

Ashcroft was bombarded by cries of “Shame!” and the sound of the “Imperial Death March” from the movie “Star Wars” as he entered a meeting with law enforcement officials in Faneuil Hall. The meeting, which was closed to the general public, was billed as a briefing on the particulars of the USA PATRIOT Act, a federal anti-terrorism initiative, according to The Boston Globe….

OUTSIDE

Why can’t we cover up this boob?

BY CAMILLE DODERO

This past Tuesday morning, US Attorney General John Ashcroft popped into Boston’s Faneuil Hall to deliver a speech about a little piece of legislation called the USA Patriot Act. What Ashcroft – or ASHHOLE, ASSKKKROFT, PROTO FACIST, or THE MAN MORE EVIL THAN STEINBRENNER, as the placards anticipating his arrival preferred to call him – had to say about the USA Patriot Act was as foully predictable as flatulence after a bowl of baked beans. But the horde hanging outside couldn’t be sure of that until Ashcroft was safely whisked away around 10 a.m., en route to a similar engagement in New York City. Indeed, Ashcroft’s national “public relations” spree to promote his invasive law doesn’t include the public at all – and that flagrantly intentional oversight was simply more fuel for the ire raging outside the historic building.

“Let the people in!” the hundreds (final estimates hovered around 1000) standing on the cobblestones chanted. “Let the people in!” they continued, followed by “What’s the big secret?” and “Closed meetings for closed minds!” And they sang “Hey, John Ashcroft!” to the tune of “Frère Jacques”:

Hey, John Ashcroft! Hey, John Ashcroft!

Why are you, why are you

Spying on our country?

We don’t think it’s funny.

Shame on you. Shame on you!

[….]

Issue Date: September 12 – 18, 2003

Yeah, for sure, Boston just loved John Ashcroft (r).

The Rs in the governor’s office got caught illegally deleting e-mails about state business.  In classic Republican fashion, they went into distraction mode (Look over here!  Look over here!), screeching about Nixon using his state car to travel to political events.  First of all, how do you even decide what is and what isn’t a “political” event?  We already went through that squabble in reference to Nixon’s Arrow Rock speech last Saturday.  True, but sometimes you can draw clear distinctions, like fundraisers, for example.  Yawn.  Wake me when you’ve got a legitimate complaint, will ya?  Political Eye has the best line about the relative importance of the e-mail scandal and Nixon’s travel arrangements:

It’s like your brother killed somebody and confessed to the murder, so you jump up and down screaming that somebody else pulled your sister’s pigtails – and didn’t even say he was sorry!

But you know those rat terriers in the GOP.  They’ve got their teeth into this one.  Here’s how important they claim it is:  they’re likening Nixon’s crimes to those of Bill Webster, the Republican who preceded Jay as Attorney General–you know, the Bill Webster who got two years in prison for letting his campaign contributors rummage through the worker’s compensation fund, helping themselves.  Republican spokeshole, John Hancock says that Nixon’s use of the car to attend fundraisers “is exactly analogous to what his predecessor went to prison for two years for.”

Really? 

Then what about Peter Kinder, Republican Lt. Governor, who uses his car for state events but reimburses the state?  Tim Hoover of the KC Star asked Hancock about that and the upshot of the conversation is beautiful, baby:

“I would say his problem is less clear” than Nixon’s, Hancock said.

So, would it be OK if Nixon just repaid the state for use of his vehicle?

“At this point, that would be like a bank robber returning the money after the crime,” Hancock said.

Well, how would that be that different than what Kinder has been doing?

That’s not the same, Hancock said, because Kinder “has a policy” of reimbursing the state.

So, a bank robber’s on safe ground as long as he “has a policy” of returning the money?

Hancock paused a moment.

“I’d have a lot less problem if Jay Nixon reimbursed the state,” he said.

‘Nuff said.