MOScout Daily Update: Long for Senate Buzz Builds - Emery Loans Himself $100K - Patterson Spreads $$$ - Nice Hartzler Number - Thiel Hearts Schmitt and more...

Long for Senate Buzz Returns

The buzz surrounding a possible US Senate entry from Congressman Billy Long is heating up again.  Various observers point to some data points…

·         “He did go to DeKalb Lincoln Days last month.  That’s a long haul.”

·         “[The buzz is] probably a result of him losing weight and showing up at events like CPAC.”

But one insider thinks there’s steak behind the sizzle… “I think he is running.”

We’ll see…..

July Quarter Scooplettes

Today is the deadline for the quarterly campaign finance filing.  A couple early tidbits…

·         50 House Reps and candidates received checks ranging from $300-500 from Missouri Alliance, the PAC supporting Rep. Jon Patterson. Patterson continues to travel the state building support for his yet-to-be-announced campaign for Floor Leader.

·         Ed Emery loaned $100K to his 4-CD congressional bid. 

·         Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler will report about $900,000 raised in the quarter, ending with a balance of nearly $1.5 million.  That should give her highest total among the candidate committee in the race.  Of course, super PACs is another story…

·         Paypal founder Peter Thiel contributed $250K to Eric Schmitt’s super PAC.  See a list of Schmitt’s biggest supporters here.

·         Lucas Kunce, Democrat running for US Senate, hit the $1M raised mark.

COVID 3rd Wave: Time for Message Discipline

KCStar reports that “Springfield-area health officials want state funding for a temporary site to care for the influx of COVID-19 patients overwhelming the city’s major hospitals, signaling the pandemic has reached a new, dangerous crisis point in southwest Missouri.  CoxHealth and Mercy, along with local health and emergency management leaders, have asked the Missouri Department for Health and Senior Services (DHSS) and the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) for an ‘alternative care site,’ citing a rapid rise in hospitalizations driven by the highly-contagious delta variant…”

It's unlikely that this outbreak will remain regionalized in Southwest Missouri.  Even the best counties in Missouri (Boone, St. Louis, and St. Charles) have vaccination rates below 50%.  This looks like a problem we’re all going to be dealing with sooner or later.

The solution is obvious: get more people vaccinated.  But vaccinations, incredibly, have been a political issue. 

The governor, and other Republicans, should be repeating with campaign-like messaging discipline that the vaccines are safe and effective, and that getting vaccinated is good for your health and good for the economy.

Instead, their message has been muddied.  For example, the governor issued a statement against the federal “agents” going “door-to-door to compel vaccination,” a phantom menace of his imagination.

It’s time to drop the rhetoric pretending that a vaccine mandate is an actual threat, and focus on saying loudly and clearly that the vaccines are safe and effective.  They are good for your health and good for the economy.

ESA Suit Coming?

Post-Dispatch reports on Governor Mike Parson signing the Education Saving Accounts legislation.  See it here.

But unmentioned is the talk that there could be a legal challenge to the legislation.  One line of attack would be that the law is a “special” law because it doesn’t apply to the whole state.  Another is that the role of the state treasurer exceeds his constitutional role.

We’ll see….

BYOW (Bring Your Own Workforce) State?

The new CNBC ranking of states that are “best for business” puts Missouri right dab in the middle, ranking #25.  See the rankings here.

But what’s interesting is how the components of the scoring added up to Missouri’s placement.  Take a look here.

Missouri received Ds and lower in eight categories (infrastructure, education, workforce, access to capital, etc).  However, in the “cost of living” and “cost of doing business” categories, Missouri scored As.  When averaging out, we ended up right in the middle.

We’re a cheap place to do business, but you gotta pay for a lot of extras.

Nimble Nixon

Jay Nixon’s biggest impediment to running for U.S. Senate is Jay Nixon. His long record is ripe for attack - although as a political player, and as an attorney, Nixon has proven nimble in moving to multiple sides of issues.

Prime example: Nixon, now a partner at the silk-stocking Dowd Bennett law firm in Clayton, is part of the legal team suing the National Football League and the Los Angeles Rams in City of St. Louis Circuit Court over the team’s move back to Los Angeles from St. Louis.

In the lawsuit, set for trial in January, The Nixon legal team’s argument is that the NFL bypassed its own relocation guidelines when team owners voted for the Rams’ return to L.A. If Team Nixon prevails, the plaintiff lawyers’ share of a monetary award could potentially run into a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars

But a newly circulating Christian Science Monitor story from March 1995 quotes then-Missouri Attorney General Nixon threatening the NFL with a restraint-of-trade lawsuit if team owners DIDN’T allow the Rams to move to “the city of their choice.”

The full Nixon quote: “The NFL teams are separate, independent businesses that compete with one another on and off the field...If the other NFL teams and the Rams' competitors act as a cartel to stop them from doing business in the city of their choice, it would be a classic restraint of trade. We're not going to stand by on the sidelines and let the smoke-filled-room cartel of the NFL take away what we've earned.''

Of course, to long-time Nixon watchers, this is just Jay being Jay.

Shippy to Victory

Press release:  Victory Enterprises is proud to welcome veteran political operative Steele Shippy back to the team! Steele is returning to VE after spending the last several years building strong, grassroots coalitions for ballot issue campaigns and candidates.  As Senior Campaign Consultant, Steele will be focused on expanding VE’s national footprint of successes, working to deliver victories for clients by utilizing more than a decade’s worth of experience in campaigns from municipal to presidential….

What It Means

In the building the question is: who takes Shippy’s chief of staff job for Pro Tem Dave Schatz?  It’s not an easy job, and it’s only a one-year gig.

New Committees

United for Principled Politics Political Action Committee was formed.  Its treasurer is Lora Tipton.

$5K+ Contributions

Uniting Missouri PAC - $25,000 from Midwest Cement Company Inc.

Uniting Missouri PAC - $10,000 from SEG Investments LLC.

theLOUpac - $20,000 from Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc.

Midwest Region Laborers' Political League Education Fund - $7,781 from Laborers Supplemental Dues Fund.

Citizens for Proposition 1 - $10,000 from Civic Progress - Jefferson City Chamber of Commerce.

Birthdays

Happy birthdays to Adriane Crouse, and Dionne Flowers Baker.