Temporiti’s speech to the West County Democrats concluded with remarks about primary contests and super delegates.

Although he concedes any Democrat’s right to run in a given contest, he really, really dislikes contested primaries and works to get the candidate most likely to win running uncontested. And he’s quick to point out that he talks to the parties involved with great empathy because he’s been there. In 1988, when Dick Gephardt tried for the Democratic presidential nomination, Temporiti ran for Gephardt’s seat. Seven months into that campaign, Gephardt withdrew from the presidential race and asked Temporiti to drop out of the race for the third congressional seat. Which Temporiti did–“for the good of the party.”

Sure, a contested primary can gain the eventual winner more name recognition, but it can also cost an extra four or five million dollars in, say, a gubernatorial race. Oh how he’d love to see Steelman and Hulshof knock each other around and spend wads of cash these next five months.

And speaking of that race, having Blunt withdraw is huge. Temporiti believes we’d have beaten Blunt, but it would have been close. Beating Hulshof or Steelman will be easier.

Given the state chairman’s philosophy about contested primaries, it’s safe to assume he’ll be discussing the race in the second congressional district, Todd Akin’s seat, with the three candidates involved: Mike Garman, Byron DeLear, and David Pentland. Temporiti knows he can’t order anyone to drop out, but he does, in these situations, ask each one to consider how well he fits the voter profile in that district, what kind of financial backing he has, how hard his supporters will work for him, and what his own goals in politics are.

Someone in the audience asked what he thought of our chances in that race. “As good as I’ve ever seen it,” he said with a big smile.

Let me interject here that 58 percent of the ballots cast in St. Charles County were Democratic, and 54 percent in Lincoln County were. If those figures hold for next November, the eventual nominee would have to take 44 percent of the vote in West St. Louis County to win. That won’t be an easy feat. In 2006, George “Boots” Weber only got 36.6 percent of the vote in the whole district–and presumably much less than 36 percent in West County. Even taking into account that Weber was a weak candidate, it will still take good funding, super hard campaigning, and a good sized dollop of luck to make 44 percent of the West County vote end up in the Dem column.

Good luck, Mr. Temporiti, in winnowing that field to the strongest candidate. Akin needs to be history.

As a super delegate, Temporiti had some comments to make about his plans in that role. Missouri has sixteen super delegates. Ten of them are committed: five for Clinton, five for Obama. Temporiti has not committed himself and says it’s kind of fun getting phone calls from the likes of Bill Clinton. But he won’t make up his mind right away. He’ll base the decision on which way Missouri is going (it’s so even that this guideline is almost moot), on which one he thinks can beat McCain, and–very important–on getting something for Missouri from his vote. Specifically,  he will be looking for an assurance that the nominee will not pull out of Missouri early as Kerry did. Temporiti’s take on ’04 is that our state ended up with four years of Matt Blunt because Kerry pulled out.

My impression from scattered comments after the speech, was that most of the audience appreciated Temporiti’s pragmatic approach to politics. I do, when it comes to his urging the candidates least likely to win the general election into withdrawing early.

I even grudgingly admit that it does us little good to run only pro-choice candidates if that means we don’t end up in control of the House or the Senate. After all, if we win the House, the issue of abortion doesn’t even come up because the speaker doesn’t allow it to. But if we’re pure as the driven snow on this issue, run only pro-choice candidates, and lose the House, that’s when we get bombarded with some of the lunatic bills on abortion that are being introduced this session.

So far, so good. But I found myself disagreeing with the state chairman on an issue where he assumed unanimous agreement: he is vastly proud of Missouri for, as he puts it, taking control of the U.S. Senate. If Claire McCaskill hadn’t won in Missouri, we wouldn’t have the majority in the Senate. That’s true, of course, and naturally I’d rather have McCaskill than Talent, most of the time anyway. But her recent FISA betrayal would have done Jim Talent proud. McCaskill is a mixed blessing.

Oh well, the state party is hardly going to put someone in charge who would badmouth the party’s top elected official. Still, it would have been refreshing to hear Mr. Temporiti admit that she crossed a line when she refused to uphold the Constitution.

Update: It turns out there are four candidates in the Second Congressional District. Bill Haas is also running–as he so often does, for various offices. (And he’s a perennial candidate for mayor of St. Louis.) He doesn’t live in the second, but that’s not required for a person to run. If he were to win, he’d have to move there to serve.  

John Temporiti, chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party since last March, exuded energy and optimism in his speech Monday to the West County Democrats. He’s a businessman, proud of his years at the helm of Mayflower Moving and set on applying his business experience to taking all the Democratic seats possible in this state next fall.

He has a strategic plan of goals that are reviewed every 60-90 days by teleconference. The plan was prepared–at no cost to the party–by the man who did the strategic planning for Mayflower when Temporiti was CEO there. So you could get the impression that this job is just business calculations for him, especially since he began by pointing out that when he took over last March, the party was $300,000 in debt, and they raised $1.2 million last year. He might seem like nothing more than a green eyeshade type when he tells you that he now has twenty people on his staff and a monthly payroll of $100,000 to meet. Or when he says that Jay’s campaign manager, Ken Morley, hired in January 2007–that’s how long we’ve been serious about Nixon’s campaign–is one of the top three managers in the country and he doesn’t come cheap. (But hiring Morley and focusing on properly allocating our resources has been worth it, he thinks: “Wasn’t it the greatest thing, and no accident, that we beat an incumbent governor, Matt Blunt, without even going to the ballot?”) Temporiti sounds like a numbers cruncher in pointing out that the party is calling half a million people who voted Democratic in ’06 in order to get their profiles–addresses, e-mails, phone numbers–so that activists knocking on doors this year can use their time most efficiently.

He’ll tell you that “this is the business approach to the art of politics.” But his calculating methods aren’t the whole story. Temporiti feels a sense of history, and says that at this critical time in American history, Democrats have the momentum.

“This is our time. This is our time. Think of what’s at stake here, in our country, in this state, and in the world, and it’s not a very good picture. Now I am not a negative kind of guy. … I’m usually optimistic. But I’m a little bit troubled, to say the least, by what’s been going on. And I’m not standing for it anymore. So, one, this is our time. Two, though, imagine if we don’t take advantage of this opportunity. I don’t think I could live with myself very well. And I hope you can’t either. So it’s a double responsibility, because we have a sense of time and momentum that is unique.

That passion pushes Temporiti to organize the party. He has always been aware of how highly organized Republicans are. They have all the wrong ideas, but they win elections anyway, because they’re so focused.

These guys are good. They’re ruthless, they’re well-financed, and they’re good. And trust me, we’ll be just as appropriately ruthless and well-financed and good as we need to be.

The demographics of Missouri will help Temporiti accomplish his goals: the voters are 38 percent Democratic and 32 percent Republican. The rest are Independents and right now we are attracting those Independents at a rate of 2:1. Almost a quarter of  million more people took Democratic ballots in the primary than took Republican ballots.

In the end, though, pragmatism trumps passion for Temporiti. He feels that it does no good to have diversity–to be the real big tent party–and to passionately want social justice if we don’t win elections. Can we currently take our complaints about the way things are run to the governor? Or to the House? Or to the Senate? Nope. So he tries to get candidates who are the best fit for the districts they will run in. And that includes getting a pro-life candidate in Harry Kennedy’s first district senate seat. That’s a pro-life district where Kennedy is termed out, and Temporiti has no intention of letting that seat go to a Republican. (I know some of you will disagree with him. Feel free to say so in the comments section.)

But more important than anything in winning elections, to his mind, is sticking to our core values: jobs and the economy, health care, and education. Over the decades, Democrats have claimed those issues and we need to constantly remind voters that that’s who we are. It’s because those are our values that he gets frustrated with people in good union jobs–a couple earning, say, $110,000–who move to St. Charles and start voting Republican! “Give me a break,” says Temporiti. We need to remind those people where they came from and how they got where they are and then urge them to do the right thing.

Because Republicans don’t really care about the issues of jobs, health care, and education, they will always be the minority party–a party that survives in part by redrawing the lines in redistricting years to favor itself. Winning this year is crucial because 2010 is a census year. If we don’t want those lines redrawn to their advantage, we need the governorship.

Naturally, Mr. Chairman plugged the need, then, to support the state Democratic Party by joining it. The money the party brings in goes to help in the governor’s race, as well as House and Senate races. I went to www.missouridems.org, looked in the righthand column where I saw “Join the MDP or renew your membership”, and paid this year’s dues. I recommend you do the same.

I’ll have more to say in my next posting about Temporiti’s comments, specifically about how Blunt’s withdrawal affects our chances of getting the governor’s seat, how he sees our chances of taking Akin’s seat in the second congressional district, his activities in trying to prevent contested primaries, and his own role as a Democratic super delegate.

Primary contests can be an approach/avoidance situation.  They’re useful as far as giving the Democratic base a choice, but they take a toll on the finances of the eventual winner.

Here’s the upside of contested primaries:  I could take a vacation if I had a ten dollar bill for every time I’ve wished some DINO would get a progressive challenger in the primary.  And sometimes the results are wonderful.  Look at Senator John Tester’s primary win in Montana last year.  He decimated the DLC selected Democrat and went on to win.

But it can work the other way, too.  In the Missouri attorney general’s race, we have two fine progressives, Margaret Donnelly and Jeff Harris, opposed by a recent convert from the Republican party, Chris Koster. 

As a state senator, Koster has name recognition and a much larger chunk of change than his opponents.  He raised over $440,000 in the third quarter alone and has a million on hand.  $100,000 of that $440,000 came from Rex Sinquefield PACs–and, by the way, Koster isn’t saying whether he would oppose state tax credits for families that send their children to private schools.

Koster would like Democrats to overlook his record, but Margaret Donnelly called him on his recent flip flop over the Medicaid cuts:

In a press release today, Donnelly said Koster suggested he would have liked a “do-over” of his vote at a Missouri Democratic Party State Committee meeting last Saturday.

“What’s most curious about Koster’s most recent statements appealing for a do-over is that in September of 2007 Koster told KY3 in Springfield that he stood behind his decision to cut Medicaid eligibility. So which is it Chris? Do you want a do-over or do you stand behind cutting thousands of Missourians off needed healthcare?,” an e-mail from the Donnelly campaign for Attorney General asks today.

Jeff Harris is getting his blows in too by challenging Koster to give back his over-limit donations.

Put that information about the Donnelly/Harris/Koster arguments on hold for a minute, while you consider this: the Missouri Democratic Party chairman, John Temporiti, doesn’t seem to buy into that approach/avoidance attitude toward primaries.  He knows what he wants: fewer primary contests.  He believes that eliminating many of them would give the Dems a chance to take more seats in the legislature.  To that end, he’s been having conferences with candidates involved in primary contests, trying to talk those less likely to win the general election into dropping out.

Temporiti says he talks to the candidates about “campaign assets, resources and winnability.”  That doesn’t sound as if he focuses on policy, does it?  Of course, he would probably argue that any Democrat who gets elected is one more vote to put the skids on the right wingers.  A few more votes, for example, might have prevented the wingnuts from passing that abstinence only sex education bill last spring.  We’re dealing with people who are fond of crowing that the bill defeated Planned Promiscuity, that they ran a truck over Planned Terrorist in the Womb (parenthood-not).  Clever, eh?  And much in need of being stopped.

Temporiti claims success at getting two state legislators to drop out and give Rep. Joan Barry, a better known candidate, a clear field in the race for the soon-to-be-vacant First District state Senate seat.  He also talked to the two men running for Lieutenant Governor, Sam Page and Mike Evans.  The rumor mill has it that Evans, far less well funded, will drop out in a couple of weeks.  If Sam Page is the last one standing, he’ll need everything he’s got to beat Peter kinder.

And now, back to the AG race. 

Temporiti acknowledges less success in trimming the current three-Democrat field running for Missouri attorney general. He admits being envious of the state Republican Party, which already has winnowed its attorney general contenders down to state Sen. Michael Gibbons of Kirkwood.

Temporiti says he’s met with the three declared Democrats: state Sen. Chris Koster of Harrisonville and state Reps. Jeff Harris of Columbia and Margaret Donnelly of Richmond Heights.

Temporiti said he discussed with each their “financial resources, grasp of the issues, and winnability in a statewide race.” The upshot: “All three of them have made very persuasive arguments of why they should stay in this race.”

Koster’s arguments would be name recognition and MONEY, while Harris and Donnelly are less well known but dependably progressive.  I just hope the two of them don’t cancel each other out and leave the top spot to Koster.  Not that I don’t appreciate him leaving the dark side, but he doesn’t deserve that nomination until he builds some street cred as a Democrat.

Temporiti plans to continue discussing the race in hopes of getting one or two of them to drop out.  If Koster refuses to go, Donnelly and Harris would do the progressive side of the party a favor if they could agree that one of them should drop out.  They’re both so good that I hate to say that, but their competition could throw the race to a candidate who is untested as a Democrat and who has several legislative votes that make me cringe.