Franklin County Democrats

Pathetic

In St. Charles, an exurb of St. Louis and one of the state’s largest GOP counties, Paul supporters sought to elect their own chairman and adopt their own rules when proceedings opened – both of which are part of standard caucus rules and procedure. But as they argued with the caucus chair, Paul supporters held video cameras – against caucus rules, according to a GOP official who was there – and things became contentious.

“It turned into a little food fight within the caucus, between the caucus chairman trying to control the caucus and certain elements, I guess with Ron Paul, trying to be heard,” said Tom Kipers, a former chairman of the St. Charles GOP, who attended the caucus at Francis Howell North High School.

An off-duty police officer, hired as security, eventually fielded a trespassing complaint against the Paul supporters and notified on-duty police in the area municipality of St. Peters, who, along with police from other jurisdictions, arrested two Paul supporters and ended the caucuses early. A joint-jurisdictional police helicopter arrived on the scene. Kipers said about 10 officers arrived in total.

So ten cops and a police helicopter had to be dispatched to an event where Republicans were simply trying to nominate their presidential candidate. How much did that cost taxpayers I wonder? The radicalized movement conservatives of today’s Republican Party can’t even muster enough civility towards one another to get through even this most basic election process, let alone compromise with members of the Democratic Party on complex lawmaking procedures. Why do so many rural Missourians continue to believe Republicans can run the government more effectively when they can’t even get through their own caucuses without it turning into mayhem? I don’t get it.

Franklin County 2nd District Commissioner, Ann Schroeder, announced today that she will not be running for reelection this year, but will instead run for State Representative in the 109th district (the new 109th that is), according to FCDCC Chair, Clyde Voelkerding.

“Ann is our first announced state rep candidate this year. Very exciting news!,” Voelkerding said.

There is some speculation that teabagger and resident Islamophobe, Rep. Paul Curtman (R-Pacific), will be running for the same seat.

More details to follow.

From the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute:

The unemployment rate, currently above 9 percent, is projected to remain high for a long time. For example, the current Blue Chip Economic Indicators consensus forecast puts the average unemployment rate for 2012 at 8.3 percent. The agreement to raise the debt ceiling just announced by policymakers in Washington not only erodes funding for public investments and safety-net spending, but also misses an important opportunity to address the lack of jobs.  The spending cuts in 2012 and the failure to continue two key supports to the economy (the payroll tax holiday and emergency unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed) could lead to roughly 1.8 million fewer jobs in 2012, relative to current budget policy.

Remember how job creation was central to the GOP’s campaign efforts in 2010? It’s all they could talk about. How any level-headed American could have fallen for that line after the excruciating Bush economy that took surpluses and turned them into record deficits and netted the worst track record on jobs is beyond me. But what the manufactured debt ceiling “crisis” shows is that Republicans were never serious about job creation (they’ve not proposed a single jobs bill since taking back the House); but more importantly, the policy ideas that they were willing to blow up the nation over may actually cost jobs.

Remember this ad from last fall? Now that we’ve gotten a pretty good look at the Republican agenda during the last 6 months it seems more relevant now than ever.

Check out this website hosted by Vote Missouri to confirm your registration, find your polling place, and get a sample ballot so you can be prepared when you vote.

https://mcvr.mo.gov/Elections/VoterLookup/

All you will need to do is enter your name, address, date of birth, and County of residence.

I printed a sample ballot for all voting members of my family. They can be prepared to vote which will make the process fast and easy for them and other voters!

For months we have been hearing media pundits relentlessly pushing the “Democrats are doomed” narrative. Now that there appears to be a shift in the polling data and the so-called “enthusiasm gap” seems to be closing in the final days of the campaign, a new narrative is emerging from the right: “Democrats are going to steal the election through voter fraud.” They are even making the wild claim that the now de-funded and defunct community organizing group, ACORN, has re-emerged.

Here’s a video sample of the nuttery from TPM:

I’ve never bought into the enthusiasm gap nonsense. The enthusiasm is still here for Democrats it’s just been more measured (and also we tend not to be a bunch of media-hog loud mouths). Make no mistake, Republicans are going to have a good night next Tuesday, so it seems especially ridiculous that they would be banging the massive voter fraud drum ahead of that. One would think Democrats would be doing it. But there may be some method to this madness.

Expectations have been raised so high for Republicans this year that anything short of a total rout will be seen as a colossal failure. Remember, conservatives can never be wrong. Therefore, there must be some external and sinister force at work in the world to explain why reality did not match expectations. Allegations of voter fraud this soon may be the GOP laying the groundwork for that effort if things don’t go as planned.

A better possibility for these kooky claims is that the GOP is less likely to take control of the Senate than the House, and many of the Senate races they do lose will be by razor thin margins. If they can allege voter fraud they can prevent some of the winners from being seated for months or even a year and further gum up the works, as they did with Sen. Al Franken in 2008-09.

Keep an eye on this one, especially if there are some surprises next Tuesday. And I think there are going to be.

I’ve always looked up to Rep. Mike Frame in District 105 for his tenacious fundrasing ability. He’s one of the best.  He does it the old-fashion way. He pounds the pavement and phones his supporters constantly. Raising between $20,000 to $40,000 is within what I would consider to be a respectable range for a state representative district such as his, which takes in parts of eastern Franklin and western Jefferson counties. But Frame has exceeded that and has raised an impressive $55,000 so far this election cycle with total expenditures of about $34,000 and about $17,000 cash on hand. That’s pretty good for this stage of the campaign.

I only use Frame as a point of reference because when I looked at Dave Schatz’s Missouri Ethics Commission filing for his bid for State Representative District 111, which takes in parts of Franklin, Crawford and Gasconade counties, I had to pick my jaw off the floor.

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