MIssouri GOP Insider Reveals Disdain for Party Base

A recent Columbia Tribune article about Akin included an amazingly honest quote from a Missouri GOP insider:

The anger at Akin is intense. With his refusal to step aside, they see serious damage to GOP chances in many races this year. "I, personally, and a lot of people like me, want to punish Todd Akin," one insider said. "This is about getting you freaking people out of our party."

In my opinion, the positions of the extreme religious Right are ridiculous and I can see why someone wouldn't want them "in their party." But of course, the reality is that Republicans do want them in the party, as they want them voting for their Big Business candidates like Mitt Romney. They just don't want them in positions of leadership or influence.  Hence, when a True Believer like Todd Akin gets elected, the GOP party bosses are quick to try to destroy him and push him out in favor of an insider like John Brunner or Ann Wagner.

The quote, I think, reveals a core truth about the modern GOP; it's controlled by the super-wealthy and Big Business who use social issues to manipulate hordes of people into voting against their own self-interest.  The Roy Blunts, Mitt Romneys, and "grassroots Ambassador" to Luxembourg Ann Wagners of the world run for office for the purpose of putting more money into their and their friends' pockets, and they manipulate evangelicals into thinking that they care about social issues. The Religious Right should have their own party, and they should try out their own views in the free marketplace of ideas, but there's really no reason for them to keep giving away votes to people who only want to plunder the middle class.

K Street Can Thank Dana Loesch For Roy Blunt's Appointment To Key GOP Leadership Position

No, this doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Dana Loesch voted for Mitt Romney in the 2008 GOP primary and said that she liked his individual mandate before realizing that branding herself as a "goth tea party rebel" was more profitable. Why would you think that?

This has to do with Loesch's tea party refusing to support a conservative challenger to GOP establishment poster-boy Roy Blunt. If you recall, Loesch originally told Roy Blunt that if he didn't support the conservative challenger to Dede Scozzafava, Doug Hoffman, in the NY-23 election "...we will vote you out! We will come at you with so much heat, you won't even know how to handle it!"

Roy Blunt ignored Loesch while his conservative primary challenger Chuck Purgason did endorse Hoffman, but not only did Loesch not "come at Blunt with so much heat," her tea party (before she threw it under the bus) actually refused to sign on to a letter from 28 other Missouri tea parties stating that Roy Blunt was not a tea party candidate (they did, however, endorse Ed Martin in the MO-03 primary). At that time, the St. Louis tea party was the most influential in the state, and their support could have made a huge difference for Purgason. And given Roy Blunt's huge margin of victory over Robin Carnahan, it's likely that Purgason would have won the general election had he made it through the GOP primary. Instead, the tea party got Roy Blunt and acted surprised when he still liked earmarks.

And now Roy Blunt, much to the chagrin of tea party bloggers, has been elected over conservative challenger Ron Johnson for a key Senate position. Erick Erickson at Red State says it's a victory for K Street over the tea party. No doubt it was, and K Street has Dana Loesch, among others, to thank, despite her half-hearted tweets to the contrary. Of course, now that Loesch is supporting Roy Blunt's campaign chairperson in Missouri's 2nd district and has thrown the local tea party to the wolves, her sycophantic relationship with the same old GOP establishment can no longer be considered surprising.

By the way, if Loesch is so darn "principled," why hasn't she ever defending her boss Andrew Breitbart against Glenn Beck?

Update: Looks like Loesch gave Breitbart two sentences to mention the Beck thing today on her show.

Rally At Roy Blunt's Office To Save Social Security and Medicare

Hundreds of activists gathered on Thursday outside of Roy Blunt's office to tell the Senator that Missourians don't want budget issues to be used as a cheap excuse to push through the Republicans' dream of cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Polls have consistently shown that people overwhelmingly support keeping the social safety net in place and are in favor of allowing tax breaks for the uber-wealthy to expire. That is the responsible way to balance the budget.

Here are some photos from the rally taken by activist Brenda Ringo:


A press advisory for the event (I changed the tense):

ST. LOUIS – As Congress works to balance the budget and reduce the deficit, hundreds of Missourians rallied Thursday at 4:30 p.m. outside of Senator Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) Clayton office to tell him how his commitment to protect Corporate America and the wealthiest Americans will harm his constituents across the state of Missouri. Senator Blunt has publicly stated that he will not support measures to raise the revenue in order to confront budgetary issues; including closing corporate tax loopholes and increasing taxes on millionaires. Instead, he continues to support plans that will drastically cut funding to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and federal workers that provide critical services to Americans.

Senator Blunt stated that ending tax breaks and closing loopholes would not be fair to those who rely on them. Thursday, Missourians had a chance to reply to Senator Blunt with their message about what “fair” means to average Missouri citizens. Monica Williams, a Paraquad Community Advocate, spoke about how Medicaid is her lifeline to freedom and independence in the community since it provides her personal care attendant. “Medicaid enables me to go to work and be a productive citizen” she stated. “Taking away my opportunity to live independently and work in the community is not fair.”

Others spoke about how cutting critical programs will harm the seniors, people with disabilities, and working- and middle-class families that rely on them. Reverend Susan Sneed of Metropolitan Congregations United stated “balancing the federal budget on the backs of vulnerable Americans is never the answer. We promised our seniors that if they pay their taxes and paid into Social Security and Medicare, these programs would be there for them when they needed them. Rather than cutting critical programs, we must look for balanced budget solutions that uphold our American values, require all individuals and corporations to contribute their fair share, and ensure that all Americans have access to the basic services they need.”

Attendees signed a petition to Missouri’s Senators that states, "We urge you to stand strong and protect Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and the federal workers who deliver our essential services. A cut to our federal budget and workforce is a cut to Missouri. We have sacrificed enough. Now, we urge you to raise revenues. It's time for the rich and big corporations to pay their fair share. We do not accept that there have to be spending caps, cuts to essential services or balanced budget amendments."

"It is absolutely critical that our efforts to reduce the deficit are balanced solutions that include new revenue,” said Kirsten Dunham of Paraquad. "We are very concerned that Congress will try to impose global spending caps or a balanced budget amendment that may sound good on the surface, but which over time would require drastically cutting Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and other services that Americans value."

Organizers of the rally were the American Federation of Government Employees, Missouri Jobs with Justice, Metropolitan Congregations United, Missouri Health Care for All, Missouri Budget Project, GRO - Grass Roots Organizing, Missouri Pro-Vote, the Alliance of Retired Americans, Paraquad and the Disability Coalition on Health Care Reform. Representatives from each organization delivered the petition to Senator Blunt's staff during the rally.

Hotflash at Show Me Progress has more from the rally, including this great video of leaders sharing their concerns with with Blunt's staff:

Props To The Post-Dispatch

I've been pretty critical of St. Louis Post-Dispatch political reporting recently, but I'm happy to say that there have been several recent events that suggest that they may be bringing better balance and accuracy into their stories. First, I recently complained that the Post's website included an article about a puny 200 person tea party rally in Washington D.C., though they had previously ignored a 4,300 person union rally in St. Louis. After a Twitter exchange with an employee I posted the following update:

The Post-Dispatch Weatherbird suggests that AP articles automatically feed into the site:

It would be a little strange to me if there was no selection process whatsoever for which articles appear on their national news section, but perhaps this is accurate. However, this clearly would not be a good excuse for them deciding to run the story in the print edition tomorrow.

Well, it looks like the print edition got it right. In fact, it included the following passage in the story about the budget (h/t Hotflash at Show Me Progress):

Congressional leaders are inching closer to a deal on how much to cut federal spending for the next six months.

They seem to be pretty much ignoring the spending-cut absolutists of the Tea Party, the grass-roots movement that's losing influence despite having helped elect dozens of Republicans last November.

Tea Party activists had hoped to send a loud message Thursday to Republican lawmakers, telling them at a long-scheduled Capitol Hill rally either to stick to tough budget-slashing principles or face the movement's wrath.

Instead, only a few hundred people showed up.

I'm not sure I agree with this analysis since it seems to me that the House Republicans are paying far too much attention to the tea party given how much their "movement" has dissipated, but I appreciate the Post-Dispatch at least using an article that acknowledged the fact that the rally was overhyped and largely a failure.

I also recently criticized Post-Dispatch reporting generally, and Jake Wagman's reporting specifically, about the fact that they were stretching out the Claire McCaskill plane flap over a long period of time with numerous articles containing a dubiously small amount of additional substance. I would argue that no similar scrutiny or perseverance has been applied to examining the records of Ed Martin or Roy Blunt. However, today Jake Wagman published an impressive investigative piece on Peter Kinder billing taxpayers for what seems to be political or personal expenses, and Wagman did a fantastic job of collecting and organizing the information. Of course, in order to completely refute my previous criticisms and show me to be a frothing-at-the-mouth unhinged liberal blogger with an overzealous desire to criticize honest reporters, Wagman would have to continue to report on all of the twists and turns of the upcoming discussion of Kinder's records as he did with Senator McCaskill, and also to apply similar diligence to the records of Roy Blunt and Ed Martin, but he at least appears to be off to a good start.

Of course, none of this is to say that we don't need to continue building a progressive media voice in St. Louis via ForwardSTL. ForwardSTL was never intended as a replacement of the traditional media; it ideally will be a supplement to the traditional media that will ensure that a certain demographic of news and opinion consumers get the content they desire. Unlike the St. Louis Tea Party and Ed Martin, I don't want to see the Post-Dispatch go out of business, and I recognize the fact that they provide the region with crucial information. However, I do think we need to be diligent in keeping them honest, and that will include both criticizing them when they do their jobs poorly, and praising them when they get it right. Jake Wagman did a fantastic job on the Kinder story, and I hope this good work continues during some remarkable and important political times.

Wagman: McCaskill Voting To Protect Middle Class Is "Cultivating An Image"

Ed Martin is running for something, and that inevitably means that his buddy Jake Wagman at the Post-Dispatch will be publishing a string of nonstop attacks on Martin's opponents. This past week, Wagman has been stretching out the McCaskill-paying-her-taxes-late story with a eye for trivial details that was never applied to, for example, Roy Blunt. Today's hit piece was questioning whether Claire McCaskill's wealth would be a liability for her.

Here's the most absurd part:

That type of financial wherewithal is a stark contrast to the image McCaskill has cultivated in nearly three decades of politics in Missouri — where she has traveled the state in an RV and stumped with her mother — and in Washington, where she has fought to increase the minimum wage and railed against Wall Street bonuses.

Actually, voting for the minimum wage and railing against Wall Street bonuses are not "cultivating an image." They are standing up for members of the non-leisure class.

But this is exactly what's wrong with our modern media, and with Jake Wagman in particular. The media is supposed to inform the citizens about issues that matter. Of course, what really matters are the policies under discussion and the effects those policies would have on people's lives. But this is precisely what the modern media does not want to discuss, for a number of reasons. First of all, it's hard work to understand policy, and some reporters are stretched thin and others are busy watching the Cardinals. Second, describing policy opens them up to charges of "bias" from people who have an interest in distorting reality. Thus, today's media adopts the cowardly position of "Democrats say this, Republicans say that," on all policy issues, and then does "investigative reporting" on relatively trivial issues like whether McCaskill has money. When I say "relatively trivial," of course I realize that having a lot of money can affect someone's judgment; however, it's not nearly as important as the actual political positions a person takes. Senator McCaskill's track record has consistently been one of standing up for the middle-class (at least, relative to the current D.C environment).

So here we are, with a mainstream media that inevitably focuses on the trivial while leaving readers uninformed about the actual issues. And this plays right into the Republican Party's hands since, after all, an informed public would never tolerate Republican's nonstop pandering to corporate giants who screw consumers, screw taxpayers, and don't even live up to their own stated ideology of "loving free markets."

In Surprise Upset, Pinnacle Entertainment Overtakes Rex Sinquefield for Scrooge of the Year!

Heading into yesterday's Scrooge of the Year Party hosted by St. Louis Jobs with Justice, it looked like Rex Sinquefield would run away with the title after his successful effort to threaten St. Louis and Kansas City governments with the elimination of the earnings tax. Sinquefield had over 400 votes, and only one of the other candidates had even reached 100 votes. However, Unite Here stepped up to the plate for their candidate, Pinnacle Entertainment, who muttered a giant "Bah Humbug!" while stomping on the rights of workers who had voted to unionize earlier in the year.

The St. Louis Tea Party Leadership (hmmm, wonder who might have nominated them) finished a distant third.

Results from the JwJ website:

Pinnacle Entertainment beat out Rex with a whopping 2544 votes!
Rex Sinquefield was the first loser with a solid 1910 votes!
St. Louis Tea Party Leadership finished in 3rd place with 505 votes!
Senator Roy Blunt elected 4th place with 370 votes!
Peabody Coal finished 5th with 279 votes
Write-in Candidate Riverview Garden’s District Superintendent Clive Coleman finished in 5th place with a respectable 143 votes.

It was a great event with lots of local celebrity organizers and activists in attendance. If you didn't make it this year, you should definitely put it on your calendar for next year and remember to VOTE!

Check out some pictures of the party below the jump:

Missourians Urge Sen. McCaskill: Extend Unemployment Insurance Now!

Jobless workers, community activists and union members stood in the freezing cold on Tuesday in St. Louis, part of actions across the country for the AFL-CIO Day of Solidarity with the unemployed. They called on Senator Claire McCaskill to immediately restore unemployment insurance for a year for the million jobless workers currently without any aid, delivering petitions signed by thousands of Missourians.

Right before leaving for the Thanksgiving holiday, Republicans Akin, Blunt, Emerson, Graves and Luetkemeyer voted to deny this critical lifeline to jobless Missourians. To remind the public about the catastrophic results of the vote, and to demonstrate the urgency to Sen. McCaskill, participants formed a soup line down Delmar Blvd. The Depression-era image of people standing on the streets, in the cold, waiting for a free meal was more than symbolic. If immediate action isn't taken, millions of jobless workers and their families will literally have no options this winter.

Fifteen million Americans are currently unemployed, with over 278,000 in Missouri. By the end of December, 2 million people will have lost this critical lifeline unless Congress acts to extend unemployment insurance.

Lloyd Schultz, jobless worker from St. Louis said, "I can't wait to go back to work. Unemployment insurance is the only thing keeping many of us with a roof over our heads and food on the table this winter."

Never before has Congress let unemployment benefits expire when this many people have been out of work. Missouri AFL-CIO President Hugh McVey said, “Time is running out for Congress to take action before massive pain—and even homelessness—hits long-term job-seekers. Our society and our government must not ignore our friends, family and neighbors who are unemployed through no fault of their own.”

What you can do:

• Watch the AFL-CIO video on unemployment insurance and write Congress at http://www.aflcio.org/lifeline
• Call Senator McCaskill TODAY at (877) 662-2889
• Spread the word to your friends and family. When you Tweet about the issue, please use the hashtag #ExtendUI and direct people to get involved at http://aflcio.org/ui
  

Consequences of Republicans Blocking Unemployment Benefits Are Worse Than We Thought

Recall that Todd Akin, Roy Blunt, Jo Ann Emerson, Sam Graves and Blaine Luetkemeyer all voted to block unemployment benefit extensions. Republicans in the Senate are similarly preventing passage.

And now it turns out that the consequences are worse than we expected. And we already thought it was pretty bad. Kudos to Fox 2 News for being all over this story, and particularly Charles Jaco:

 

And previous reporting on the subject:

 

Tea Party Tells Blunt "We Will Not Back Down"...Then Backs Down

From two days ago:
But since Roy Blunt publicly defended his stance on earmarks yesterday morning, there has basically been complete silence from the St. Louis Tea Party on the issue. In fact, since yesterday, the tea party has attacked Claire McCaskill, who supports earmark reform, multiple times and not said anything critical of Blunt. Ennenbach hasn't said anything critical of Blunt. Hennessy hasn't said anything critical of Blunt. So basically, they completely backed down.

But the real question is, will they be held responsible? The media gave them coverage for their so-called "pressure" on Blunt (BTW, while national groups encouraged people to call Blunt about earmarks, the St. Louis tea party did not). So shouldn't they also cover it if the tea party completely backs away from their threats?

Roy Blunt Brushes Aside Tea Party Nonsense

As was pointed out both here and at FiredUp Missouri, the St. Louis tea party's claim that they were somehow surprised by Roy Blunt's support of earmarks was nothing short of laughable. Blunt had always supported earmarks, and did nothing to suggest otherwise during the campaign. However, the tea partiers tried to pretend that Roy Blunt signing the "tea party treaty," which said nothing whatsoever about earmarks, was somehow an agreement by Blunt to no longer be the Washington D.C. wheeler-dealer that he's always been.

Well, Roy Blunt put that nonsense to rest today. During an interview with KZRG, Blunt points out (what was obvious to all) that he's never made any secret about his views:


So will the tea party continue to pretend that they didn't know who Blunt was before the election despite his long history in Congress? Or will they finally admit that their decision to not support Chuck Purgason put someone in office who stands for absolutely none of their stated principles.

Will Blunt Join McCaskill and Obama in Fight Against Earmarks?

The St. Louis Tea Party has been engaging in some political theater lately, pretending to be surprised that Roy Blunt still thinks of earmarks the same way he's always thought of earmarks. But it's worth noting that both President Obama and Senator Claire McCaskill have come out against earmarks. President Obama made them a focus of his weekly address:



And here's what Senator McCaskill had to say:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - As one of Congress's leading proponents of earmark reform, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill made the following statement following President Barack Obama's weekly address in which he called on all members of Congress to help reform the earmark process.

"Earmark reform has been a lonely fight for a long time, so it's encouraging to have others taking this issue seriously, especially among Democrats since I will be the only senator from my party opposing earmarks after the new year," McCaskill said. "The bottom line is that tax dollars shouldn't be doled out based on politics or secret deals, and it's time both Democrats and Republicans join together to stop them."

McCaskill has been leading the battle against earmarks since she was elected in 2006. In addition to never requesting any earmarks, she has introduced legislation to ban the practice. She views earmark reform as one way to help return fiscal responsibility to Washington. Her other efforts to curb government spending include a proposed cap on discretionary spending, pay-as-you-go legislation, and cracking down on federal contracting waste and fraud.

What a great opportunity for Roy Blunt to cooperate with Democrats on meaningful reform!

Roy Being Roy

Bill Hennessy, co-founder of the St. Louis Tea Party, was shocked, shocked he tells you, to find out that Roy Blunt supports earmarks:

When you vote for a candidate for high office, sometimes you do so with fingers crossed. You just don’t know how they’ll handle the new responsibilities. Will they succumb to pressure and influence? Or will they remain true?

It's hard to even keep track of how many things are wrong with Hennessy's opening paragraph.

You have to cross your fingers? You just don't know how "they'll" handle new responsibilities? Actually, Roy Blunt has been in Congress since 1997 and was a member of the House leadership, so it was quite easy to know how he views earmarks. He views earmarks the same way he always has, and nothing about the campaign suggested otherwise.

"Will they succumb to pressure and influence?" Technically, it's impossible for Roy Blunt to succumb to pressure and influence, considering that he's been doing the bidding of the powerful and influential throughout his career. That's who he is: there's nothing to succumb to.

Will they remain true? Of course. He remains true to who he always was. Again, there was never any reason to suspect otherwise.

It's truly remarkable to see Hennessy write about Blunt as if he is some unknown entity just entering the national stage. However, I suppose that's the only position the St. Louis tea party can take to try to salvage their dignity after the elections. The reality is that they lost to Russ Carnahan, lost the Charlie Dooley, and lost in their opposition to Prop B. The only tangible effect they had on the election was the fact that they prevented Chuck Purgason, someone who actually exemplifies tea party values, from winning the Republican primary against Roy Blunt, a classic Republican insider. So, in order to simultanously claim that they are both (1) influential and (2) something other than an astroturf group that supports the same old establishment Republican Party, they have to thread the needle by pretending that they had reason to believe that Roy Blunt the Senator who somehow legislate fundamentally differently than the way Roy Blunt has always legislated. It, of course, defies credulity, but that's hardly anything new for the St. Louis tea party.

Will St. Louis Tea Party Challenge Senator Earmark? Doubtful.

(Bill Hennessy wearing a Roy Blunt sticker at the primary celebration)

I noted a while ago how the St. Louis Tea Party, unlike other tea party groups around Missouri, was completely unwilling to support conservative primary challengers to Washington insider and Big Spender Roy Blunt. In fact, many of them admitted they supported Blunt in the primary. The St. Louis tea party tried to justify this by claiming that Blunt was a new man and "had gotten the message" from them. However, when Blunt was recently asked by the Wall Street Journal if he had changed at all over the past five years, he basically said no:

He waves the query away with, "Hey, well, I've been a pretty conservative member of congress," and then he changes the subject.

In other words, their claims that Blunt was somehow a new man were ridiculous, as anyone could have predicted.

And given that Blunt beat Carnahan by a whopping 13 percentage points in a year where basically any Republican would beat a Democrat in a statewide race, it's pretty safe to say that, ironically, the St. Louis Tea Party actually prevented a tea party candidate (Chuck Purgason) from being elected to the Senate.

What remains to be seen, however is whether they will attempt to exert any pressure whatsoever on Blunt. The tea party has expressed strong support for an earmark ban. Cofounder Dana Loesch, for example, has criticized both Senators McConnell and Inhofe on their support of earmarks:

As far as I know, however, she hasn't said anything about Roy Blunt. Jen Ennenbach, described as the "spokesperson" for the St. Louis tea party, has said she "hopes" Roy Blunt will support the ban:

However, their suggestions, or rather "hopes," are unlikely to be taken very seriously. Roy Blunt has been dubbed "Mr. Earmark" and, more recently, "Senator Earmark." It seems unlikely he will even address the "hopes" unless the tea party makes a lot of noise.

And, for a couple of reasons, it doesn't seem like a good idea for them to press the issue. First of all, doing so would likely remind people of just what an un-teaparty like candidate they supported in Missouri, when genuine alternatives were available. And second, their pushing the issue of earmarks would likely reveal just how truly weak they are, as Blunt would almost surely ignore them.

Either way, it should be an interesting six years.

Roy Blunt Generating Headlines By Running Away

Roy Blunt's intense fear of anyone who might ask him a question is now generating local and national headlines. NBCActionNews in Kansas City had a headline "Roy Blunt Refuses to talk about a campaign controversy" and wrote the following:

Blunt greeted supporters with smiles.

But when reporters wanted to talk, Blunt was on the defensive, saying he would take only one question.

So it was about the controversy over letters he wrote to try to help an immigrant woman 20 years ago.

When asked about his previous false statements, here's what happened:

Blunt would not say whether he knew the woman.

When he's asked again, Blunt returns and forcefully repeats what he said before:

"We put a statement out on that at the time. And it's exactly accurate. You read it , you know what it says."

Blunt then walked away for good, storming out of the event without taking any other questions.

KMBC's Michael Mahoney also wrote about the incident in a post titled, "Blunt Gets Testy With Reporter Over Immigration Charge."

Blunt was also featured in a Huffington Post article titled Roy Blunt Flees Questions About Alleged Employment Of Illegal Immigrant.

Maybe Blunt should spend the rest of his time before the election hanging out with the St. Louis tea party. That way, he can completely avoid getting any tough questions from reporters.

Roy Blunt is STILL Running Away From Reporters

What I wrote a week ago:

First Roy Blunt ran away from a citizen asking him what he thought about the Chamber of Commerce potentially using foreign money to attack Robin Carnahan.

Then Roy Blunt ran away from reporters outside the 2nd debate he lost against Carnahan.

And now Blunt ran away from a meeting with the Post-Dispatch editorial board because there was going to be a very scary six whole protesters outside:

Blunt spoke to the editorial board by phone. He was scheduled to appear in person, but changed plans after a small group of protesters -- maybe half a dozen -- gathered outside the Post-Dispatch building downtown, holding signs accusing Blunt of hypocrisy on immigration.

What is with this guy? What's he so afraid of?

And now:



The reason Blunt doesn't want to answer is because his previous statement was dishonest.

Blunt is projecting exactly the type of Senator he would be: completely, and I mean completely unresponsive to the will of the people and the most basic requests for information.

h/t FiredUp Missouri

Roy Blunt Runs Away...Again

First Roy Blunt ran away from a citizen asking him what he thought about the Chamber of Commerce potentially using foreign money to attack Robin Carnahan.

Then Roy Blunt ran away from reporters outside the 2nd debate he lost against Carnahan.

And now Blunt ran away from a meeting with the Post-Dispatch editorial board because there was going to be a very scary six whole protesters outside:

Blunt spoke to the editorial board by phone. He was scheduled to appear in person, but changed plans after a small group of protesters -- maybe half a dozen -- gathered outside the Post-Dispatch building downtown, holding signs accusing Blunt of hypocrisy on immigration.

What is with this guy? What's he so afraid of?

Uh Oh: Roy Blunt Does Not Recall

Roy Blunt has an immigration problem. And, as noted by FiredUp, the biggest problem seems to be that his statements that Dora Narvaez never worked for him contradict both her comments and his own letter.

Today, according to the Post-Dispatch, his denial has shifted into a "I don't recall." From the daily:

Speaking to the Post-Dispatch editorial board today, Blunt said his family never had a "housekeeper," though they did occasionally have someone, Blunt said, clean their home.

But Blunt said neither he, Roseann or their three children remember Narvaez filling that role.

"We often had somebody who would come in maybe twice a month," Blunt said. "None of us remember her ever doing that."

Of course, it's a little more difficult to prove that "I don't recall" is a lie than "she never worked for me." But it's a little late for that. HIs campaign already said the latter.

Also, as noted by RBH at Show Me Progress, Blunt also now claims that he doesn't know if he ever met Navaez, which is funny since he said yesterday that, "She simply helped out at church events."

ht/ FiredUp Missouri.

Roy Blunt's Immigration Problem(s)

News sources are reporting that the Blunt campaign is defending itself from allegations that Blunt had hired an illegal worker and tried to use his office to help her get her citizenship. From Jo Mannies at the Beacon:

The Missouri Democratic Party released documents today that it says shows that Republican U.S. Senate nominee Roy Blunt attempted to use his post 20 years ago as Missouri secretary of state to aid a woman from Nicaragua who was seeking asylum in the United States.

In a 1990 letter on official state letterhead, Blunt wrote that the woman "has done some work for Roseann,'' his wife at the time. The letter was addressed to Gene McNary, then the head of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. McNary previously had been St. Louis County executive.

The state Democratic Party also released 1989 documents from the INS pertaining to the woman, Dora Navaez, that are stamped "employment not authorized." Attached to Blunt's letter to McNary was a lengthy letter from Navaez to Roseann Blunt, in which the woman lays out her immigration problems and her request for asylum.

Corey Platt, speaking for the state Democratic Party, said the documents show that Blunt "used government resources to reach out to Gene McNary'' and that he or his family had employed an illegal immigrant. Platt asserted that the incident showed Blunt's practice of "using his office'' to help friends and relatives. Blunt has been a congressman for 14 years from southwest Missouri.

I see three issues raised by this case:

First is the question of whether Blunt abused his office by reaching out to McNary. I'm not familiar enough with the case or with the general practices of politicians to evaluate this claim. Obviously, politicians help out constituents in dealing with government agencies quite often; in fact, many constituents get pissed if elected officials don't help them out with these issues. So I'd need to see more to be convinced that Roy Blunt did something beyond the pale on this issue (and yes I realize that Navaez, as someone who was not a citizen, is not technically a "constituent," but I think it's related to that general practice).

Second, there's the hypocrisy. Mannies writes the following:

The Kansas City Star reports that it got ahold of Navaez and that she said she had been the Blunts' housekeeper.

Given Roy Blunt's stance on immigration and that Navaez was not authorized to work in the U.S., it would be pretty amazing if he had hired her to do housework. This issue has the potential to be pretty damaging.

Finally, and in my mind most importantly, is the fact pointed out by Sean at FiredUp that the Blunt campaign's statements seem to contradict the statements of the woman and the original letter. Blunt's spokesman claims that, "the woman merely helped at some church events, and was never employed by the Blunts." However, the Kansas City Star wrote the following:

A woman who identified herself as Narvaez spoke briefly with The Star. She said she had worked as a housekeeper for the Blunts for several months in 1990."

Furthermore, the original letter from Blunt stated:

Dora Narvaez has done some work for Roseann [his wife]," and asks McNary to do anything he can "to provide information and an early resolution of this request."

So it strongly appears that Blunt is claiming, in contradiction with his own letter and with the comments of Navaez, that she never worked for him. This might get very interesting, espcially considering that Robin Carnahan has already been making a strong move in the polls and Roy Blunt has been running away from reporters.

Roy Blunt Runs Away From Reporters

This is pretty remarkable:



Robin Carnahan wins on both style and substance. She deserves to be our next Senator. Can we pull it off?

CNN's Lame Poll

I was really shocked last week when a poll came out from CNN/Time that showed Roy Blunt leading Robin Carnahan by 13 points. Naturally, all the state Republicans were proclaiming that the race was over (but even they clearly didn't believe it, since they continued attacking Carnahan). I've been wondering why this poll would be sooo much worse than any others I had seen (even the Republican-leaning Rasmussen). Well, I after discussing it with some friends, I finally looked at the internals of the poll, and I found a couple amazing gaps.

First of all, they listed N/A for "non-white" respondents:

They also listed N/A for the 18-34 age group:


In other words, the poll was completely missing two major demographics that would be far more likely to vote for Carnahan. And since from what I hear Robin kicked some serious butt in the debate today, this just might be an interesting race yet!

And while we're on the subject, put me in the Rachel Maddow camp of saying we should be talking about Roy Blunt's support from the foreign-funded, pro-outsourcing U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove's secretive Crossroads group all day long: