A year out, and the MO 06 is already heating up

The 2008 elections might still be 53 weeks hence, but it is already getting brutal in the Missouri 6^th.

For the first time since Sam Graves slid into the seat in 2000, he is facing a real challenger in the person of popular former Kansas City mayor Kay Barnes, and it is already getting nasty.

This race is quite possibly going to be the nastiest fought battle for a seat in the entire 111^th congress. Graves is, without a doubt the meanest sonofabitch in the Missouri delegation, if not the entire congress. He routinely uses that white-trash, trailer-park minion of Rove, Jeff Roe to wield a hatchet – but Kay is highly skilled with a scalpel. May she show Roe his black little political heart before it stops beating. I think he – and Graves – may have made a tactical error in conflating winning elections against sacrificial lambs with successful electoral strategy. Graves has been a nasty, negative campaigner from day one, starting with the Republican primary in 2000.

[keep reading]

In 1999, the National Republican Congressional Committee recruited Teresa Loar, a moderate Republican to challenge popular conservative Democrat Steve Danner, the son of long-term and much-loved Congressman Pat Danner. Then late in the election cycle, Danner stepped aside, guaranteeing that a first termer would be elected in November 2000.

Congressional attack dog DeLay saw a chance to put a junkyard cur in that seat, and there was no room for an ethical moderate Republican who would work for the constituents instead of the Party Agenda. DeLay wanted an acolyte, he wanted a swaggering jingoistic goon, and he was gonna have one, no matter what. Roy Blunt and Tom DeLay called Loar personally, telling her, in essence, “Step aside, little lady.”

When she didn’t, Roe unsheathed the long knives. They went through her trash, they followed her, they staked out her home and office, they stalked her like paparazzi, getting in her face and snapping pictures nonstop.

Sam Graves is busily trying to paint Kay Barnes with the Nancy Pelosi brush, making sweeping statements like “She’s going to be very frustrated because the 6^th is not like San Francisco.”

And that is the kind of garbage that makes this daughter of the 6^th just want to slap the jackass silly. I went to high school in the 6^th, I am the same age as Graves, and I know a dozen jerks just like him. No kidding the 6^th isn't like San Francisco! You don't say! Why, I would have been totally confused without Sammy setting me straight. (Get it? That was a poke at San Francisco and the Camp cover. Geez, Sam, try to keep up. These are the jokes, Son...)

We tire of your antics. The 6^th has a history of flipping regularly, the people are not as homogeneous as Graves would like to think. A whole bunch of us have been to college - hell, some of us have even been to europe! For the most part, we aren't scared of brown people, don't think terrorists are gonna blow up the courthouse in Trenton, And are more concerned about CAFO's than gay marriage. Shoot, a whole bunch of us realize that our marriages aren't in jeopardy if the gay people we know are given equal standing in their relationships.

Graves is banking everything on xenophobia and immigration. And yeah, we are concerned about the problem of undocumented labor, and the drain on our schools and healthcare systems - but we are also smart enough to cypher two and two and come up with four. We know that deporting ten million people en masse would wreak economic havoc. We also realize that if they would get the CAFOs under control, a lot of our problem with immigration would be solved as a byproduct.)

Graves has been the most loyal of Bushies, and it’s going to bite him in the ass. He can’t run away from his support of Bush on virtually every issue. His unflagging support of a war that the district wants over yesterday would probably be enough to sink his chances in 2008.

But then, he followed aWol off the SCHIP cliff. Bush isn't running next year, but Graves is. And that is gonna hang him. The people of the 6^th are fed up with the dirty politics, the lies, and the loyalty to Bush. They went for McCaskill last November, and they passed Amendment 2 with a comfortable margin. So keep misreading and underestimating us. And by all means, continue the way you have.

I already have my little black dress picked out for January 20, 2009!

There's more: "A year out, and the MO 06 is already heating up" >>

It's Official! Barnes is in!

At 12:30 central Kay Barnes will announce her candidacy for the MO-06 congressional seat, currently occupied by Sam Graves. She is making the announcement at a press conference in front of her 94-year-old mother’s house in St. Joseph surrounded by four generations of family.

Come January 2009 – Kansas City will be boasting not one, but two former Mayors in the House of Representatives. This will tip the 5-4 balance of the Missouri delegation to favor the Democrats. (I'm dancin' in my jammies here!)

Sam Graves managed to secure the seat in 2000 after a close race with Steve Danner, and hasn’t really faced an opponent capable of mounting a campaign against him since. His opponent in the 06 mid-terms, Sara Jo Shettles, gained the endorsement of the KC Star, but still managed to garner only about 40% of the vote after a vicious and slanderous barrage of smear from Graves and the trailer-trash version of Karl Rove, the loathsome toad Jeff Roe. (Here is the gist of the story…over 20 years ago Ms. Shettles sold advertising for the pop-science magazine Omni. Omni was a Bob Guiccione publication, so Ms. Shettles was a pornographer. Ro(v)e called her answering machine and did a burlesque routine. Classy guy.)

Sara Jo Shettles is, I’m sure, a very nice lady and would have done a fine job in the House. But she didn’t have a couple of the requisite ingredients to push back against the Graves-Ro(v)e slime machine. She didn’t have the money, and she didn’t have the name recognition. Barnes has both, in spades. I almost forgot…the endorsement of Walter Cronkite is a given…He is her first cousin.

It doesn’t hurt Barnes any that the Graves brand name is being tarnished by the US Attorney scandal – Sam Graves is the brother of Todd Graves, one of the ousted US Attorneys – and the only one who had another side-scandal working that involved the long-standing Missouri tradition of patronage for political donors in the form of MO Department of Revenue fee offices. Every license plate in Missouri is issued by a political crony, and it’s that way no matter which party controls the Governor’s office.

Jeff Ro(v)e predictably dismissed the challenge, of course. I think he said something about values or some such. It was pretty much whipping a dead horse. Oh yeah, I remember now…Sam Graves represents the values of the 26 counties of the 6th district, Barnes represents the values of the 26 blocks of downtown KC. She will have a very difficult time convincing people in St. Joseph and the Northland that downtown Kansas City should get a second member of Congress. (I wonder if Ro(v)e noticed that Missouri's senior Senator, Kit Bond, has not ruled out endorsing Barnes over Graves? I sure did! Graves has problems in his party. I don't know what he has done, but he has pissed off a lot of the states Republican powerful.)

Well, I have something Ro(v)e might not. I have relatives and deep roots in the tall corn of the MO 06. I’ve actually bought the tags for my car in a fabric store on the town square of a rural county in the 06. My relatives and their neighbors are not happy. The Republican franchise is tainted up there right now. Iraq and Medicaid cuts have poured vinegar in the Republican's milk and they can't take the rural areas for granted any longer.

Given the choice between someone who spent the last eight years in Washington doing a mediocre job, and someone who spent the last 8 years leading the biggest city in the district to revitalization and prosperity – I have every reason to believe they will select the girl from St. Joe done good.

There's more: "It's Official! Barnes is in!" >>

This is the guy Kay Barnes has in her sights

A quick visit to CongressPedia provides focus to and reasons for why Sam Graves should be unseated in the next election.

He consistently gets a 100% approval rating from the National Right to Life Committee, and a “Zero” from NARAL.

He consistently votes the interests of the right-wing special Interest group Americans for Tax Reform (the Grover Norquist policy thugs) gives him a score of 100 on a 100-point scale. Taxpayers for Common Sense, however, only gives him a score of 17.

On gun issues he is in the NRA’s stable of reliable votes, earning a grade of A. Organizations backing gun control give him failing grades.

His full voting record can be found here, along with complete text of bills. The most recent are at the top.

And I didn’t even get into his nefarious connections with the disgraced and indicted – but still shameless – Tom DeLay and the thousands of dollars of PAC money DeLay funneled his way.

An interesting aside that I discovered when I waded into the fever-swamp of the Graves record: The Sunlight Foundation rated the official websites of congressional members in February of this year. Web sites were rated on a 100 point scale, evaluating content, usable information and updates on legislative activity; as well as legally required disclosures about travel and personal finances. A score of 40 was considered passing.

Graves received a 32.

There's more: "This is the guy Kay Barnes has in her sights" >>

If You Liked Her as the Mayor, You'll LOVE Her in Congress!

.

Meet my Beloved Mayor. Her name is Kay Barnes. She will be exiting city hall gracefully after two wildly successful terms in office on May 1, leaving on a high note with a popularity rating that has been phenomenally high all eight years she has been in office. Her success in office is evidenced by the cranes punctuating the skyline, and the revitalized downtown.

She is going to take Sam Graves seat away from him in November 2008, and then KC will have two former mayors in the Congress.

I simply find it a wholly intolerable situation that Sam Graves (R MO 06) has a seat in congress in the first place. The word 'apostasy' seems an understatement when applied to that situation. The man is an embarrassment to Missourians and an offense to decent, thinking people everywhere. He is not our finest offering; that is certain. Since election night 2000, I have been plotting his political demise from the district to the south.

I live and vote in the Missouri 05/State Senate 10. My zip code is the bluest Missouri has to offer. My zip code is literally – and figuratively – as far left as the state goes. I want this blue tint to spread, because we have it pretty damned good, and I think all my fellow residents should be so fortunate. Being a liberal, I want to share, not just hoard the good stuff for myself. In this case the good stuff is responsive and responsible Democrats elected to office. Part of that good stuff I want to share is Kay Barnes.

I always have an eye cast toward future elections. When Kay Barnes sold her Ward Parkway mansion and moved north of the river a couple of years ago, I took note. She moved from the Missouri 05 to the Missouri 06. The 05 is solidly Democratic and currently represented by Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver II – Mayor Barnes predecessor at City Hall. A congressional bid in the 05 after her wildly successful time in the mayors office would have most likely involved a primary challenge to a sitting Democrat. Why would she do that when she could gain a seat for the Democrats and unseat an embarrassing stereotype in the process?

Graves has not had any serious competition since taking his seat. Sarah Jo Shettles earned the endorsement of the KC Star in the 06 midterms, but she garnered less than 40% of the vote.

Kay Barnes would not be such an easy opponent. And with vast personal wealth, she would be able to push back in the media against the Graves slime machine. Prime Graves: His opponent in November, Ms. Shettles, once sold advertising for Omni magazine. Because Bob Guiccioni owned Omni, he charged that she had worked for the porn industry. He is a typical right-wing bully, and his low-rent tactics would wither in the face of a pro like Barnes.

The Missouri 06 is largely rural, covering area from KC North all the way to the Iowa line, and reaching east to within a hundred miles of Illinois. Vast – but empty. The population growth that is happening in the MO-06 is all happening in Kay Barnes neighborhood – or Kansas City North.

She will go into the race with higher name recognition than anyone he has yet faced, perhaps with name recognition higher than Mr. Graves himself. Additionally, there has been very little negative reporting about Kay Barnes in the entire eight years she has been Mayor.

This is the race that will turn Missouri purple, after too-long in the red. It will shift Missouri’s nine-member House delegation to 5 Democrats and 4 Republicans. Our Senate delegation is split, and will be for the foreseeable future (McCaskill, Democrat, just elected in Class I and Kit Bond, Republican, Class III).

The Washington Post agrees with me:

The district's electoral history suggests the potential for real competitiveness. Although President Bush won the 6th relatively easily in 2000 and 2004, Sen. Claire McCaskill showed that the district's voters are willing to vote for the right Democrat. After losing the district by more than 20 points in her 2004 gubernatorial race, McCaskill narrowly carried it in 2006 over incumbent Sen. Jim Talent (R).

The Virginia Tech massacre turned the spotlight last week to gun control, a political hot potato that has been dormant in recent years on the national stage. But cross a presidential campaign with the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, and you're going to get a gun debate -- another volatile wedge issue to define the crowded 2008 field.

Mayor Barnes will have credibility on the gun issue – KC has a lot of gun crime, and she and her Mayor Pro Tem Alvin Brooks have been effective on the issue on the local level. Her experience as a mayor of a large, urban area with a gun problem will be an asset, and the events of the last week have primed the long-overdue debate.

One thing is for sure – a farmer in Mercer County that hunts deer, quail and pheasant – and who sends the kids off to one of the state schools at Columbia or Springfield or Maryville or Warrensburg – is not identifying with the image of the V-Tech shooter staring into the camera, brandishing his guns and babbling incoherently. They more likely identify with the parents of the victims. Kay Barnes has dealt with the issue in real-time. Sam Graves has, for the last six years, offered mealy-mouthed platitudes and pablum.

There's more: "If You Liked Her as the Mayor, You'll LOVE Her in Congress!" >>