The Source

POLITICO: A Confusing Tarp Maze in Mo. Races

A Confusing Tarp Maze in Mo. Races

An ad blitz meant to boost Robin Carnahan’s Senate aspirations may be complicating the efforts of her brother’s reelection in the House.

....

The ad gave the Republican challenger, who is trying to flip the deep-blue district once held by Rep. Dick Gephardt, an opening too seamless to resist.

“Even the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is criticizing Congressman Carnahan!” read a release from the Martin campaign Monday. “We can only assume its criticism includes all Democrats since, the bill passed largely due to the support of Democrats. When Carnahan’s own party comes out in such a strong, critical and public manner against him — it speaks volumes.”

READ THE FULL STORY

In, Out, Blame Bush...

Charlie Dooley Hires Baghdad Bob

Nixon Shaking Up House

Two prime slots just opened up in the Jay Nixon's administration. Department of Natural Resources Director Mark Templeton is heading to become Executive Director of a BP oil spill trust fund, and Mary Nelson is heading to the Administrative Hearing Commission.

We can't help but think that Templeton's departure is a throwback to the E.Coli-Gate scandal, in which Templeton was infamously suspended for his role in failing to report dangerous e.coli levels in Missouri lakes. As Jason Noble from the Star points out, his role and prominence in the DNR was greatly diminished after his return - it must be hard to bounce back from that sort of catastrophe, and Templeton probably knew his days were numbered. 

We're not sad to see him go and we doubt many are. Despite Nixon's half-hearted platitudes about Templeton's departure, we have a very hard time believing that Nixon's performance review would be so positive if the press wasn't watching.

Here's hoping Templeton doesn't screw up as much at his new job, where a lot of people will be counting on him. Replacing Templeton (for now) is the Nixon Administration equivalent of a political temp agency, Kip Stetzler, who couldn't do any worse than Templeton even if he tried.

The other departure is Mary Nelson, Nixon's former director of boards and commissions. She's turning her stripes in for a cushy job in the Administrative Hearing Commission, the same position that the Senate wouldn't let DNR screw-up Joe Bindbeutel have. More interesting than where Nelson is going, however, is who is going to replace her.

With rumors of John Watson's impending departure from the Governor's manse, we're left wondering if these departures are just coincidence or if they point to a bigger wave of staff turnover in the near future.

Four score...

Regional Growth Consultants Hits Troubled Waters

Drama struck everyone's favorite scrappy part time political consulting firm earlier this week, when we noticed that Chris Benjamin and Danny Powell apparently forced their remaining partner, Kevin Garner, out of the business. Or maybe he left on his own - rumors are still swirling.

We half wonder if Chris Benjamin and Danny Powell ordered Garner to go into foreclosure as an act of solidarity with their financial troubles, and then fired him when he refused.

It was enough to make us curious what exactly was going on, and we decided to take a quick look at the financial state of their consulting firm. We heard that they have had 18 clients in this primary season, and looked up their results and how much they paid RGC.

Federal Offices:
(U) Clint Hylton (MO6) - $2,427

State Representatives:
(L) Darrell Curls - $1,000
(L) Gary Grigsby - $3,934
(L) Will Royster - $8,000
(L) Jeremy Ploeger - $3,200
(L) Jim Barrett - $11,538
(W) Tommie Pierson - $5,136
(U) Mike Talboy - $2,500
(U) Gary McKiddy - $350
(U) Patty Johnson - $4,549
(U) Richard Trueba - $278
(U) Jim Stoufer - $6,106
(U) Zac Maggi - $250
(U) Courtney Cole - $1,566

County/City Offices:
(L) Sandra Riley (Cass County Clerk)
(L) Jerry Dudley (Cass County Collector)
(W) Juan Alonzo (Incumbent, Mayor Raymore)
(U) Sandy Krohne (Platte County Clerk)

Totals:
Losses - 7
Wins - 2
Unchallenged (No Primary) - 9

That puts RGC at a win/loss ratio of 22.22% - something that might shed a lot of light on why the company is almost half the size it was a few months ago.

To know more we have to dig deeper into the numbers:

We totaled up all of their receipts reported to the MEC and FEC for the 2010 election cycle, and only found $79,941.27. An optimistic, back-of-the-envelope calculation on how much passed straight through to printing and phone vendors reduces that amount to approximately $40,000 gross.

$40,000 is before taxes and overhead and payroll. Overhead is probably low, given that their company still works out of a PO Box, but their payroll has been as high as five people (Danny Powell, Chris Benjamin, Kevin Garner, Chris Moreno, and Kelly Powell). It’s not even clear to us that they’re earning a minimum wage equivalent for their work.

RGC simply couldn't sustain its current staffing levels, although that may not be the entire story of why every partner who hasn't been in foreclosure has left the firm. For that we can maybe just look back to the win record.

We can definitely see why they're in trouble.

New Forecast Shows Democrats Losing 6 to 7 Senate Seats

New Forecast Shows Democrats Losing 6 to 7 Senate Seats
FiveThirtyEight - NYTimes

Particularly vexing to the Democrats might be their standing in Missouri and Ohio, where the Republican incumbents —  Christopher S. Bond and George V. Voinovich — are retiring and identifiable members of the G.O.P.’s establishment have been nominated to replace them: Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the former Republican Minority Whip, and in Ohio, Rob Portman, the former congressman who served as trade representative and budget director in the Bush administration. And so far, the Democrats’ strategy of Bush-bashing does not seem to be resonating in these states. Mr. Fisher has only about a 20 percent chance of prevailing in Ohio, according to the model, and Mrs. Carnahan – once considered  a  strong nominee – has about a 1-in-10 chance of doing so in Missouri.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Did you Hear that Emanuel Cleaver is Tough on Spending?

Neither did we, until we saw his somewhat unlikely sounding "SAVINGS SPOTLIGHT". According to Cleaver:

"You asked for more efforts to reduce the deficit, crack down on wasteful government spending, and impose fiscal discipline. The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (enacted into law), according to the CBO, will cut the deficit by $19 billion over the next 10 years."

Small talk, considering that the budget deficit for 2010 is $1.17 trillion - and that even if we could count all of those savings today, it would take more than 70 similar announcements to balance this year's budget. To eliminate the national debt completely, we'd require thousands of "SAVINGS SPOTLIGHTS" from Emanuel Cleaver - and that's assuming he could figure out a way to balance the budget, which he clearly hasn't.

It's not news that there are serious and systemic problems with government over-spending that won't be resolved by (a) voting for massive spending increases and (b) making negligible spending cuts. Emanuel Cleaver isn't even using a scalpel to try to cut the budget. He's using tweezers.

News flash: That's not going to work.

The stunning effect of Cleaver's budget discipline.

If anything, Cleaver's savings spotlights show that he doesn't have a grasp of how bad our budget is or the steps that would actually be needed to balance it.

Jeff Smith Released from Prison

Jeff Smith Released from Prison, Admitted to Halfway House
St. Louis Post Dispatch - Political Fix

Convicted former State Sen. Jeff Smith is back in town, but not quite free yet.

The felonious ex-lawmaker, who was sentenced to federal prison in connection with a 2004 political cover-up, was released from a minimum-security facility in Kentucky this week and transferred to a halfway house in the St. Louis area.

Smith, 36, was sentenced to a year and a day in custody, but, with 47 days of "good time" credit, he is eligible for release from the halfway-house Nov. 18.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Charlie Dooley Can't Handle Debates

After being asked to participate in four debates, Charlie Dooley decided that one was quite enough - a little weird, coming from a candidate who calls his opponents 'nobodies' and claims that he has nothing to fear in his re-election bid.

By our count, it has been more than three weeks since Dooley acknowledged his invitations to four separate debates. One of Dooley's excuses for not wanting to debate (aside from being corrupt) is that everyone already knows what he stands for. So why bother debating?

We'd apply the same sort of logic to producing broadcast TV ads, or any of the other $935,148.26 in expenses the Dooley campaign has reported in this election cycle - actions that point to Dooley's acute awareness of his vulnerabilities.

Charlie Dooley, filming a TV shoot to tell people what they already know about Dooley? Not likely.

It seems like there's a serious and fundamental disconnect between what Charlie Dooley says and what's actually happening on the ground, and it's raising a lot of eyebrows.