As far as the races in Missouri, Terrence Jones echoed this blogsite’s disappointment with the Dem showing in legislative contests (only three seats gained in the House and three seats lost in the Senate). Then he commented on the statewide candidates who won. (You’ll find his answer to the question in the title of this posting):

Asked why Sam Page lost, Jones had this analysis:

My next posting on Jones’ speech to the West County Dems will feature two brief clips: one on redistricting, the other on what we can do to improve our performance in state legislative races in 2010.  

At Clint Zweifel’s victory party at Teamsters Local 688 last night, he spoke briefly and introduced his campaign manager, Patrick Lynn, who had some interesting observations to make about Clint and about money in campaigns.

The best moment, though, came after this video was shot, out in the hallway, when I saw Clint heave a sigh and say, still not sure if he believed it, “We won.”

Yes, indeed. And congratulations.

Andria Simckes would make a fine State Treasurer. So would Clint Zweifel. But it seems to be Zweifel snagging the endorsements. One would expect all the union endorsements, since he’s a union man. But he’s also been getting the media  the KC Star, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Columbia Tribune. Now, with just three days left till the voting starts, Zweifel has picked up the endorsement of the 21st Century Democrats. They’re sending out an e-mail blast about it this afternoon.

That’s an endorsement that will keep on giving should Zweifel actually win the primary because their specialty is offering progressive candidates logistical support in the form of field organizers.

The 21st Century Dems are hoping to have quite a presence in Missouri this fall. They’ve already endorsed Deb Lavender for HD 94, Kay Barnes in the Fourth Congressional District, and Judy Baker in the Ninth. Baker and Zweifel, of course, in hotly contested primaries, will have to get past their challengers before they can take advantage of the help this endorsement can bring.

Three of the four candidates for state treasurer–Andria Simckes, Charles Wheeler, and Clint Zweifel–spoke at the candidates forum at West County Dems on Monday. (The fourth candidate, Mark Powell, did not attend.) You’ll get the most accurate idea of them if I just let them introduce themselves, as they each did in a three minute speech.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is twelve minutes of video worth? I think it will tell you a great deal about who you want to vote for. … But it will still leave you with a tough choice.

Clint Zweifel, currently running for State Treasurer, just got Missouri Pro-Vote’s Outstanding Legislator Award. It should be noted that Pro-Vote doesn’t generally endorse in a primary, and none of Zweifel’s opponents are legislators and thus weren’t eligible for the award. Still, Pro-Vote is a solid progressive organization and any nod from them has to be taken seriously.

Primary opponent Andria Simckes released a number of endorsements earlier this week. Former KC mayor Charlie Wheeler and former Arnold mayor (and 2004 Democratic nominee for treasurer) Mark Powell are also running for the nomination.

The Pro-Vote press release is below the fold.

Pro-Vote Honors Zweifel

Representative Named Outstanding Legislator

ST. LOUIS – The Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition announced that Representative Clint Zweifel will receive the Outstanding Legislator Award at Pro-Vote’s 13th Annual Progressive Awards Dinner this fall.  Representative Zweifel represents the 78th District which includes parts of Hazelwood, Florissant and Bridgeton in St. Louis County.  

Clint was first elected in 2002 by a 67-vote margin.  He chaired the Missouri House Democratic Campaign Committee in 2006 overseeing the largest Democratic net gain in the House since 1978.  After three terms as a State Representative, Clint is running for Missouri State Treasurer this election cycle.  Clint was the Research and Education Director for Teamsters Local 688 and a former Pro-Vote Board Member.

Clint has helped lead Democratic policy strategy in Jefferson City on important issues like early childhood education, privacy rights and helping seniors cope with property taxes.  During his three terms in Jefferson City, Clint has emerged as a leader on state finances where he serves as the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee and the Special Committee on Tax Reform.  Since being elected, Clint has received a 100% on Pro-Vote’s annual Legislative Scorecard every year.

“Clint has been a true champion for hard-working Missouri families on the issues that matter to all of us,” said Greg Shufeldt, Political Director for Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition.  “We are proud to recognize the great work and accomplishments of Representative Zweifel.”

The Pro-Vote Annual Awards Dinner is an impressive gathering of the progressive community to honor outstanding organizations and individuals.  More than 400 legislators, labor union and community leaders, and activists will attend the dinner and enjoy good friends and Pro-Vote’s inspriring vision.  This year’s event will be on Saturday, September 27th at the America’s Convention Center in St. Louis.

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Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition (Pro-Vote) is a statewide coalition of more than forty labor unions and community groups founded in 1992 to give grassroots organizations the tools to engage their membership in the public policy process.  Pro-Vote works to advocate for sound progressive public policies and to help elect progressive candidates.

Via a Clint Zweifel press release, Andria Simckes apparently supports the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, which is actually a ballot initiative to ban affirmative action programs designed to improve opportunities for women and minorities. Historically, women have been the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action programs, and everyone in society benefits from greater access to education and employment in traditionally disadvantaged groups. So it’s baffling that Simckes, an African American woman running in the Democratic primary for state treasurer, would support something like the MCRI.

I’m not sure if Simckes truly supports the ballot initiative, if she misspoke, or if she got fooled by the deceptive title. I’m hoping that the most generous scenario is the correct one.

UPDATE: That’s what I thought. Dave Drebes has the following statement from Simckes:

I support the right to equal opportunity for all Americans.  I am living proof of that opportunity.  My acceptances in the NASA-Lewis MARS Internship Program and Brown University are just two examples of how the right to equal opportunity has benefited me personally.  Affirmative Action is one of the most effective tools in beginning to level the playing field for women and minorities.  I have always and will continue to support everyone’s right to equal opportunity.

That’s good, but it’s unfortunate that a quote from a leading Democratic candidate can lend credence to an initiative she opposes.

You figure that a tax maven in the state lege will come across as such a policy wonk that you’d be yawning after the first paragraph. Nope. I talked to Clint Zweifel, state rep from district 78 in North St. Louis County, after he’d gotten out of his last committee meeting of the day. It was 6:30, he was in his car going home, and the words–the ideas–came tumbling out of him as if he were on a coffee high.

He’s a man who wants to be the state treasurer because “politics at its heart better be about ideas.”

What ideas? I mean, you know that the state treasurer is supposed to manage our cash flow and investments, right? Any green eye shade type should be able to do it. Wrong, according to Zweifel. “That’s a minimum level of performance.”

Once that minimum level of competency is met, he feels that the treasurer should speak forcefully on issues that will financially affect the state and its citizens. For example:

“When the assets were sold on MOHELA, I think that would have been a really good opportunity for a treasurer to stand up and say, ‘Hey, let’s stop for a moment, let’s take a look at what this means for future student borrowers; let’s conduct independent actuarial analysis; and let’s tell the story of how this might affect students before we start raiding the fund so that we can building some buildings.'”

Zweifel points out that MOHELA has lost money for the first time in its 27 year history and their basic mission of providing affordable loans is in jeopardy. The treasurer could have stood up instead of standing by.

Health care is another such issue. We have two philosophies about health care in this state, but when all those Medicaid cuts were proposed, “the treasurer was in a position to tell the story of what the impact is when you suck $600 million of health care spending out of our economy.”

And then there’s the way Missouri sat idly by, he says, while the mortgage crisis developed in this state.

“We have a system of originating mortgages where, frankly, there’s not one consumer protection built in. They’re not licensed, these brokers aren’t. There’s no incentive in the process for people to have good behavior. If you’re a watchdog for tax dollars, you also need to be a watchdog for consumers.

“It’s easy for somebody who is in the ivory tower to say, well, you know these downturns happen and it’s just a correction, and things’ll work their way out. But you’re talking about real people.”

Notice that all the issues Zweifel raises, beyond being economic issues, are also emotional, human issues. To him, being the treasurer is more than bookkeeping and investing. A treasurer needs to care about the connection between people’s pocketbook worries, legislative policies, and the state’s money.

So, yes, Zweifel has an M.B.A. and sits on three legislative committees that deal with finance, but there’s much more to his legislative record. He has led on policy development for the caucus for the last two and half years and feels that the caucus is light years ahead of where it was in the past. Dems have been putting together “legitimate policy proposals so that when it’s time for us to govern, we’re going to be ready to go.”

In the last three years, he himself has developed the caucus’s proposals for early childhood education and college affordability. He led the debate on the sale of MOHELA and spearheaded discussion about creative ideas to get the best teachers and the best classrooms.

Considering those caucus plans, you’d surely call Clint an idealist, but he’s not a naif. Not only has he faced a Republican House for the last five plus years, he also faced long odds just to get there–in 2002, the year Dems lost the House. He ran a disciplined campaign that focused on the emotional connection to voters on kitchen table issues.

And what he means by “disciplined” is that for seven straight months, he knocked on eighty doors a day, personally knocking on 14,000 doors. No other Democrat toppled an incumbent Republican that year, but Clint won by 67 votes out of 13,000 votes cast. He points out that having a history of beating Republicans should matter when Democrats pick their candidate this year.

Missourians could do a lot worse than get a treasurer who not only manages state funds competently but who also speaks out when the big financial issues are about to hit ordinary people’s fans.