The October 2011 quarterly campaign finance reports are showing up at the Missouri Ethics Commission. The active Lieutenant Governor campaign committees:

Since former State Auditor Susan Montee (D) just formed her campaign committee there isn’t a quarterly report:

Date Established: 10/3/2011

COMMITTEE: MECID:C111177

MONTEE FOR MISSOURI

JEFFERSON CITY MO 65102

CANDIDATE: SUSAN MONTEE

JEFFERSON CITY MO 65109

OFFICE SOUGHT: LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

Date of Election:8/7/2012

Political Party:DEMOCRAT

Paper Filed Reports (Scanned)

Amended Statement of Committee Organization 10/03/2011 2011 [pdf]

[emphasis added]

Becky Plattner (D) filed her quarterly report on October 10th:

REPORT SUMMARY

PLATTNER FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR [pdf] 10/10/2011

2. All Monetary Contributions Received This Period $250.00

10. Expenditures made by cash or check this period $1,767.30

27. Money On Hand at the close of this reporting period $14,444.89

34. Total Indebtedness at the Close of This Reporting Period $20,000.00

[emphasis added]

That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the campaign plan.

There is one republican and an all too familiar representative of the lunatic fringe in the race now representing the Constitution Party:

REPORT SUMMARY

ELECT CYNTHIA DAVIS [pdf] 10/12/2011

2. All Monetary Contributions Received This Period $995.40

10. Expenditures made by cash or check this period $636.97

27. Money On Hand at the close of this reporting period $983.17

34. Total Indebtedness at the Close of This Reporting Period $30,000.00

[emphasis added]

You, too, can run for Lieutenant Governor if you have $30,000.00 in campaign debt. This is priceless:

EXPENDITURES AND CONTRIBUTIONS MADE

ELECT CYNTHIA DAVIS [pdf] 10/12/2011

B. Itemized Expenditures All Over $100

State of Missouri Ethics Commision [sic] Jefferson City MO 65102 8/17/2011 Late filing fee $150.00

[emphasis added]

This inspires confidence in the campaign, no?

And, finally, the big money, for Steve Tilley (r) who filed his report on October 17th:

REPORT SUMMARY

FRIENDS OF TILLEY [pdf] 10/17/2011

2. All Monetary Contributions Received This Period $575,940.00

10. Expenditures made by cash or check this period $96,959.94

27. Money On Hand at the close of this reporting period $1,544,024.01

34. Total Indebtedness at the Close of This Reporting Period $0.00

[emphasis added]

$1,544,024.01 cash on hand. That ain’t no typo. It is good to be the Speaker.

Let’s take a look at the expenditures:

EXPENDITURES AND CONTRIBUTIONS MADE

FRIENDS OF TILLEY [pdf] 10/17/2011

CHASE PARK PLAZA ST LOUIS MO 63108 7/5/2011 TRAVEL $189.31

CHASE PARK PLAZA ST LOUIS MO 63108 7/11/2011 TRAVEL $161.68

CHASE PARK PLAZA ST LOUIS MO 63108 7/11/2011 TRAVEL $195.04

CHASE PARK PLAZA ST LOUIS MO 63108 7/18/2011 TRAVEL $362.43

ST LOUIS BASEBALL ST LOUIS MO 63102 7/7/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $685.08

ST LOUIS BASEBALL ST LOUIS MO 63102 7/11/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $635.35

ST LOUIS BASEBALL ST LOUIS MO 63102 7/11/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $1,361.45

PERKINS RESTAURANT POPLAR BLUFF MO 63901 7/12/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $1,184.45

12 WEST BAR & GRILL FARMINGTON MO 63640 7/14/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $195.10

HILTON HOTELS ST LOUIS MO 63103 8/2/2011 TRAVEL $1,180.38

MORGAN STREET BREWERY ST LOUIS MO 63102 8/22/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $124.62

CHASE PARK PLAZA ST LOUIS MO 63108 8/22/2011 TRAVEL $495.02

SUNSET COUNTRY CLUB ST LOUIS MO 63127 8/25/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $2,310.52

J. BUCKS ST LOUIS MO 63102 8/26/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $108.21

ST LOUIS BASEBALL ST LOUIS MO 63102 9/12/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $315.75

BUFFALO WILD WINGS FARMINGTON MO 63640 9/23/2011 MEALS & ENTERTAINMENT $478.41

[emphasis added]

And on and on…

A lot of lodging, dining out, and baseball(!).

I finally got around to looking at the statement issued by former State Rep. and failed state senatorial candidate, Cynthia Davis, about her decision to leave the GOP and run for office on the Constitutional Party ticket. There are, as you might expect, lots of sour grapes. For instance, Davis seems aghast that political parties might show a preference for one primary candidate over another, essentially picking winners and losers before the election. (She claims less favored GOP primary candidates are not given access to vital polling information.) This observation is interesting because it suggests that Davis’ off-the-wall extremism was as disquieting to the GOP establishment as to the rest of us. I suppose nobody likes setting themselves up for ridicule.

Be that as it may, what struck me most was Davis’ new found awareness that money is the name of the game in GOP politics – although, to be fair, she strikes a “pox on both their houses” stance that, quite correctly, includes Democrats as well:

The existing political parties can’t be reformed because there are just too many special interests with too much money to allow it. When I joined the Republican Party, it was to make our state better, not to be a member of some elite social club.

There are no doubt some sour grapes here too – whenever somebody says they don’t want to join an “elite social club,” you can bet they haven’t been invited to do so – but, more importantly, one wonders just how Davis could have been involved in GOP politics for all those years without figuring out the role played by “big money.” Has she just realized that, as she puts it, “legislative priorities are defined by the largest campaign donors.” She adds, wide-eyed innocent that she is:

Giving leadership and chairmanship positions to those who donate the most money to the party is the common practice in both Washington D.C. and Jefferson City. This is similar to buying Senate seats and perverts the process of selecting the most qualified and competent people. This allows “Big Money” instead of better ideas to set the agenda.

I can’t help wondering if Davis would have been quite so bitter if she had been able to raise the money to “buy” a Senate seat? But putting aside speculation about the behavior of women scorned, what I really want to know is whether or not this means that she is actually calling for campaign finance reform? And if so, how does she reconcile this position with her membership in Missouri’s Constitutional Party? The Party’s platform explicitly states, under “Election Reform,” that:

We call for a repeal of all federal campaign finance laws (i.e. McCain-Feingold) due to their violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

So what exactly does Ms. Davis propose to do about the endemic corruption she describes, corruption she believes to be so pervasive that she can no longer be associated with the party in which she has served for at least a decade? Especially since lots of the abuse of money that she so decries is currently absolutely legal – the right-leaning judges of the Supreme Court have, after all, decided that money is speech. Does little Cynthia really think that the Constitutional Party Fairy is going to wave a wand and make all the naughty, old special interests go away? Or is she just bitching about the role of money in politics for the fun of it?

Via Twitter:

@FiredUpMissouri Fired Up! Missouri

Cynthia Davis, how can we miss you if you don’t go away? http://bit.ly/k5FMBH

3 hours ago

…sort of like the sound of one hand clapping.

Cute kid in the video, right? Based on what Phyllis Schlafly has to say about feminism and marriage, she might just be her Schlafly’s worst nightmare – a happy little girl who knows that she has a wide open future and that she needn’t be defined by her marital status.

Hotflash recentlly posted several videos showing Schlafly, the Queen Mum of Missouri conservatism, in action (here, here and here). They present a frail-seeming, fact-challenged woman, absurdly flailing at the the Affordable Care Act. A Huffington Post interview on the topic of Schlafly’s new book, The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know – And Men Can’t Say, cowritten with Suzanne Venker, serves to reinforce one’s sense that this woman is seriously out of touch with reality.

In the interview, Schlafly describes a right wing fantasyland where flippant feminists set about destroying the American Way of Life just because they “love divorce”:

… They wanted to be independent of men and liberated from the duties of marriage and motherhood. So, their first legislative goal was the adoption of easy-to-get divorce

She and her co-author, like many social conservatives, view divorce as something that superficial women, seduced by empty feminist platitudes, embrace simply because they can. Consequently, Schlafly and her ilk have devoted themselves to making sure that they can’t. Here in Missouri, for example, Schlafly think-alike, Cynthia Davis, introduced legislation to eliminate no-fault divorce, and in her role as Chair of the House Interim Committee on Poverty issued a trumped-up report that reduced a complex, many-faceted issue to the scourge of unmarried motherhood. There seems to be no social pathology that these folks can’t explain by reference to women’s sexual behavior and marital status.

Social conservatives who want to meddle in people’s marriage choices often claim that they do so because prohibiting divorce is in the best interest of children. Proponents of this view usually trot out various studies that purport to demonstrate the dire future outcomes for children of divorce and Schlafly doesn’t disappoint, citing Judith Wallerstein’s highly publicized, but questionable research.

It is interesting and typical of the conservative modus operandi that Schlafly does not point out any of the many criticisms of Wallerstein’s methodology and conclusions, nor the many studies that reach different conclusions. If she were a fair disputant, she would certainly also discuss findings that show that children who remain in intact, high-conflict families have an equal or even higher rate of negative outcomes when compared to children from divorced families. As an analysis of such studies from the Cato Institute’s Cato Unbound series concludes, “the evidence that preventing divorce would benefit children is weak at best.”

Based on the interview, I’m betting that Shclafly’s book offers little more  than the latest iteration of the perennial rightwing Kinder, Küche und Kirche propaganda – bolstered by the usual misrepresentation and twisted logic that we expect from the less thoughtful social conservatives. Schlafly can, on one hand, lambast the family court system, which often oversees custody disputes, as an example of government overreach, “an arm of government that exercises virtually unlimited power to dictate the private lives and income of millions of Americans.” On the other hand, she openly asserts the right of government to legislate morality when it comes to limiting divorce. The question for us, of course, is do we want the Schlaflys of the world to be our moral arbiters? Do we want our children, children like the little girl above, bound by her view of female destiny?

Note:  Steve Benen takes on possible GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee on the marriage issue. The money quote:

… if right-wing activists have thrown a months-long tantrum over Michelle Obama encouraging kids to eat healthier foods, how will these same activists perceive a presidential candidate who wants to press parents to get married, whether they want to or not?

I’m guessing that if they notice at all, they’ll praise him to the skies.

Soon to be former State Representative Cynthia Davis (r-let them eat McDonald’s) sent out her final “Capitol Report”:

(via The Turner Report)

….I became the target of several left wing blogs and frequently segments of my Capitol Reports would be quoted within hours of being e-mailed.  People in other states would write me who read about what I am saying and accomplishing in Missouri.

The goal of the left wing bloggers is to shame and humiliate those who speak up for common sense America.  It is possible that they are so surrounded by socialists that it shocks them to hear someone explain free-market ideology.  More likely, they think making a martyr out of an honest mother of seven, grass-roots supported American will intimidate others from daring to state the obvious out of fear of the backlash.  It may have worked were it not for the fact that I am defined by my Maker, not what the left-wing blogs say….

“Aww, somebody call the waahmbulance!”

“…frequently segments of my Capitol Reports would be quoted within hours of being e-mailed…”

Damn you, Wikileaks!

Our good friends at Fired Up!:

In her final newsletter as a State Representative, Rep. Cynthia Davis complains about “left wing bloggers” she believes are out “to shame and humiliate those who speak up for common sense America.”  Davis’ list of evil librul bloggers presumably includes writers for Fired Up!, Show Me Progress, the Pitch, Riverfront Times, and the Turner Report, among others.  No apologies here for reporting the things she said and did, and for calling out the allegedly reasonable leaders who put her in positions of leadership….

“…not what the left-wing blogs say…”

“We share our wisdom with those who seek it. It’s a life of quiet dignity.”

You’re welcome.

State Representative Cynthia Davis (r-let them eat McDonald’s) is still in office through early January until the new Missouri General Assembly is sworn in. Our good friends at Fired Up! caught her latest newsletter, pointing out her inimitable views on cosmology.

We note her (lack of) constitutional scholarship in the same newsletter:

…Missouri is Also Special

Our Missouri constitution has some parts that are better than our US Constitution.  For example, Missouri’s Bill of Rights states:

  1. “Missouri is a free and independent state…all proposed amendments…affecting the individual liberties of the people or which in any wise may impair the right of local self-government belonging to the people of this state, should be submitted to the conventions of the people.” (Section 4).

  2. “All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; that no human authority can control or interfere with the rights of conscience;” (Section 5).

  3. “No law shall be passed impairing the freedom of speech, no matter by what means communication; that every person shall be free to say, write or publish, or otherwise communicate whatever he will on any subject, being responsible for all abuses of that liberty;”  (Section 8)

  4. “…The court shall excuse any woman who requests exemption there-from before being sworn as a juror.”  Section 22 (b)

  5. “Private property shall not be taken for private use …except for private ways of necessity, and except for drains and ditches across the lands of others for agricultural and sanitary purposes…” (Section 28)

  6. “To be valid and recognized in this state, a marriage shall exist only between a man and a woman.  (Section 33)….

“…Our Missouri constitution has some parts that are better than our US Constitution…”

Uh, there’s a small matter of the supremacy clause in the United States Constitution:

Article VI

….This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding….

[emphasis added]

“…and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding…”

Cynthia Davis is an idiot.

The Bill of Rights?

While we’re at it, the Missouri Constitution, has an establishment clause in, count ’em, two places:

Missouri Constitution

Article I

BILL OF RIGHTS

Section 7

Public aid for religious purposes–preferences and discriminations on religious grounds.

Section 7. That no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion, or in aid of any priest, preacher, minister or teacher thereof, as such; and that no preference shall be given to nor any discrimination made against any church, sect or creed of religion, or any form of religious faith or worship.

Article IX

EDUCATION

Section 8

Prohibition of public aid for religious purposes and institutions.

Section 8. Neither the general assembly, nor any county, city, town, township, school district or other municipal corporation, shall ever make an appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any religious creed, church or sectarian purpose, or to help to support or sustain any private or public school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other institution of learning controlled by any religious creed, church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or donation of personal property or real estate ever be made by the state, or any county, city, town, or other municipal corporation, for any religious creed, church, or sectarian purpose whatever.

The concept is so important that it’s in two places in the Missouri Constitution. Cynthia Davis (r) ignores that? How convenient.

 

We never get out of junior high school.

Via our good friends at Fired Up!:

Cynthia Davis

I outlasted Keith Olbermann! I’m still in public office and he off the air. I owe him a debt of gratitude for propelling me to national fame and for getting me on the Steven Colbert Show. The lesson is that good people win in the end and mockers go by the wayside. He may never understand how God used him to demonstrate the truth of Proverbs 22:10.

I don’t believe Cynthia Davis understands the premise of Stephen Colbert’s show.

“…mockers go by the wayside…”

I wonder if McDonald’s is hiring.

TPM notes that among incoming House members, four unequivocally qualify for membership in that chamber’s Crazy Caucus – among them, Missouri’s Vicky Hartzler. In this very special group of congressional newbies, which includes such standard fringewing specimens as as a proud torturer of war prisoners (Allen West, R-FL), an hysterical anti-Muslim fanatic (Renee Elmers, R-NC), and a birther (Tim Walberg, R-MI), Hartzler occupies the requisite religious nut niche (although there will no doubt be lots of mutual holding of ideological hands):

Hartzler belongs to that particular branch of conservative politicians, such as Michele Bachmann, who have described their political careers as callings from God. In fact, she wrote a campaign handbook for similarly-minded aspiring politicians, Running God’s Way.

This leaves me with just one question. Is Hartzler the price the powers that be are exacting in return for getting the queen of Christian scourges, Cynthia Davis, out of state government? If so, the tally is unbalanced – we still have Christian Dominionist Todd Akin (R-2nd) running untethered in Washington. One such embarrassment from Missouri should be enough, particularly in Washington where they can do big-time, national damage to Missouri’s reputation if they’re not watched carefully, which, given the new character makeup of the House of Representatives, is unlikely to be the case.

Those of you who read national political blogs and newsletters, have heard by now about the total craziness of Christine O’Donnell, the anti-sex crusader turned Tea Party candidate who won the Delaware GOP senatorial primary last night. It struck me that this would be the same thing as the Missouri GOP selecting  dim-witted, God-Squadie Cynthia Davis as their candidate for national office. It seems, though, that Missouri Republicans aren’t quite as addled as those in Delaware since they decided that they didn’t even think Davis was ready for the state senate.

But wait, you say, the Missouri GOP still has time to prove that they are as over-the-bend in thrall to the Tea Party craziness as the good folk in Delaware (and Nevada, Alaska, and New York). Isn’t nutty Ed Martin running on Tea Party gas? To which I respond that that might be true, but  Ed Martin actually strikes me as slipperier than he is crazy – a opportunist who sees how the Republican party is beginning to roll and thinks Tea Party might be the way to the goodies if he plays his cards right.

Then, of course, you could pull out your pièce de résistance, super-looney Todd Akin who dreams of an overtly Christian state. Conservative but quite sane Republicans in the 2nd district keep sending him to Washington time and again. The usual response is that Todd keeps a low profile with his craziness – although you could also point out, if you were so inclined, that the Missouri Democratic party also seems content to write the 2nd district off.

You could probably say similar things about many of the Missouri Republican pols – I just picked my favorites. And in point of fact, Tea Party bassackwardness* may just be current GOP politics as usual in Missouri – certainly evidence exists that the Tea Party in general is no more than that part of the the hard right Republican base that likes to dress up in eighteenth century costumes. Certainly, for all their populist blather, the TP “patriots” here don’t seem to have strong objections to corporate go-to boys like Roy Blunt.

However, I wonder if these primaries might not embolden folks like Akin to crawl out a little further into the light, while the rest of our GOP contingent gets just a little bit more shrill. Speaking about the impact on the GOP that the electoral success of the likes of O’Donnell might have, Ezra Klein seems right on the money:

Politicians are, by nature, a fearful species. But their nightmares became a lot more specific last night. The Tea Party, for all its unexpected successes, cannot topple every incumbent Republican in the country. But by toppling the right ones, it can make every incumbent Republican vote and speak and act with the Tea Party in mind. So though the Te Party isn’t likely to send all that many of its own Republicans to Washington, the likely outcome of last night’s primaries is that the Tea Party takes over the Republicans who are already in Washington, and don’t want to be sent home.

I would add that Democrats aren’t immune. I would suggest that we are already seeing the effect of the Tea Party on conservadems like Claire McCaskill who last summer, in spite of her town hall efforts at rationality, seems to have been roundly schooled by the Tea Party, and now runs away fast whenever confronted by real Democratic principles.

* Bassackward: The art and science of hurtling blindly in the wrong direction with no sense of the impending doom about to be inflicted on one’s sorry ass. Usually applied to procedures, processes, or theories based on faulty logic, or faulty personnel. From the Urban Dictionary