Perhaps I ought to start positive and report that the absolute craziest Republicans running for state wide offices all lost.
Alas, the Missouri GOP now exists on a scale which starts at extreme idiot and slopes down to mumbling paranoid nutcase.
The bottom line is that we have less than 75 days till early voting starts, meaning we must educate ourselves about the Republican candidates so that we can adequately, repeatedly teach our neighbors what they might be electing if they look at the wrong side of the ballot.
Current lieutenant governor Mike Kehoe carried the primary for governor. A few of his priorities from his campaign website…
- End “enemy ownership” of Missouri land. This one perplexes me: without scads of shipping containers and a horrific amount of work, you really can’t get Missouri’s topsoil to China. And, the core real estate will always be in Missouri. Plus, if we have a war with¢ China (not a suggestion), they won’t be able to use the land they legally bought in Missouri anyway.
- Eliminate the income tax. Last Fiscal Year Missourians paid around $9 billion in income tax. How to replace that? Kehoe believe in the Ronald Reagan Trickle Down approach. “If we put more money into Missourians ‘ pockets and they spend it, the ripple effect into our economy will make it work,” Kehoe said. [KFVS 12, 8-5-24] Again, last year sales taxes (taxed based on spending) brought in a tad under $3 billion. Will eliminating an income tax under 5¢ on the dollar really cause Missouria’s to buy three times as much taxable stuff?
- Expel illegal immigrants. Most Republicans have supported this for decades, yet, it hasn’t happened. Why? Non-certified workers work cheap. They pay Social Security and Medicare tax they’ll never get back (subsidizing the rest of us), and, without immigrants who will roof our homes and pick lettuce? Plus, the process of detaining, holding court hearings and repatriating even a few of the estimated 80,000 undocumented people living in Missouri will cost a fortune and fill most every jail in the state.
In other words, Kehoe’s goals are reality challenged.
Speaking of reality challenged individuals, current attorney general Andrew Bailey won his primary. On voting day The New York Times, very politely, ridiculed his try to get the U. S. Supreme Court to make New York release convicted felon Donald Trump from his gag order. He wants the convictions voided too because that’s an affront to Missourians who want to support The Donald. Actually, Bailey gets so much bad national press for his charges at windmills that he’s become a cottage industry for freelance reporters. It’s hard to find a national media organization – including FOX News – which takes him seriously. Unfortunately, most of our fellow Missourians don’t follow the national media (except for FOX). If elected, Bailey could launch another 500 stupid lawsuits without scoring a single win.
Remember when the secretary of state was a quiet, task-orients position? Jay Ashcroft politicized the office with crystal meth. This year’s Republican candidate is Senator Denny Hoskins, a leader in the Freedom Caucus.
To his credit, he laid out a raft of things he plans to do – protecting gun rights, keeping “filth” out of schools, cutting state spending and such. Too bad he also (like Kehoe) backs voting only with paper ballots counted by hand. No feeding ballots into tabulating machines, instead teams of workers – more reliable than machines, he claims – will count every ballot.
Ok, let’s look at election results from St. Louis County this primary: per the election board’s website, about 30% of voters voted. In all, countians cast a bit over 187,000 total votes for governor.
It is hoped that 70% or more of voters, or, around 450,000 people will vote in November. Now, the county will have more than 100 ballot variations due to different legislative districts, municipalities, schools and such. Add in judges and propositions and some ballots may have 50 individual races/items to tally. So, 50 races x 450,000 voters x 4 counts each (for quality control) x 2 judges per ballot divided by 100 ballot variants…forget about it. With luck they might have kinda correct counts by Black Friday.
Your mission (which you cannot in good conscious reject) is to inform yourself and your neighbors about the risk Kehoe, Bailey, Hoskins and their ilk pose to Missouri. If they even get small parts of their radical agenda passed it will create chaos. If they get several of their proposals in law it will effectively cripple state government. The risks are too great to ignore.
Now, after your get others to dirty their pants by sharing the truth about this GOP ticket, remind them that there is an alternative, a sane and safe course of action.
Vote for Democrats in November.
Glenn Koenen