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Debate over minors carrying guns has implications beyond the Missouri House
State Rep. Lane Roberts is not someone most would deem a “RINO,” or Republican In Name Only. The three-term Joplin Republican served as the director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety and as Joplin’s police chief, having previously led police forces in cities throughout Washington and Oregon, where he served as president of the […]
Five things I got wrong in 2022 — and what (if anything) my mistakes mean for 2024
Political prognosticators fill thousands of column inches and hours of airtime making predictions, and love to say “I told you so” when they’re right. It would be helpful if more pundits stepped up to confess – and reckon with – their misfires. In that vein, here are five of my mistaken predictions from the 2022 […]
Has stark polarization between Missouri Republicans and Democrats led to detente?
The year was 1990. St. Louis County Executive H.C. Milford, a Republican and kindly insurance broker who rose to power when his predecessor Gene McNary received a federal appointment, was seeking election to a full term against a hard-charging three-term county prosecutor named George “Buzz” Westfall. Milford, an accidental county executive who was, by all […]
The five silliest things candidates told me during Missouri’s primary season
The American polity is dangerously divided, and people are deadly serious about politics (which isn’t irrational, since policy outcomes are indeed life or death for many). But it helps occasionally to pause and laugh at some of the dumb things candidates of both parties do. Indeed, it is one of our only common threads these […]
Missouri’s GOP Senate primary as a hand of Texas Hold ‘Em, part four: The river
Back in September of 2021, I asked: If each U.S. Senate primary candidate held a Texas Hold ‘Em starting hand, what would they be, and why? If you’re still following the series, then I assume you have some basic familiarity with poker. This spring, I provided an update, with a column describing the flop — […]
Missouri’s GOP Senate primary as a hand of Texas Hold ‘Em, part three: The turn
Back in September I asked: If each U.S. Senate primary candidate held a Texas Hold ‘Em starting hand, what would they be, and why? As a refresher, in Texas Hold ‘Em, two cards are dealt face down to each player, while five “community cards” are dealt face up in three stages — a group of […]
Flash of GOP unity created a Missouri 2nd District even Harry Potter can’t turn blue
In 1992, Jim Talent was a nerdy, 30-something policy wonk with wire-rimmed glasses and a head of brown anchorman hair looking to skip a rung on Missouri’s political ladder and win a seat in Congress. He did it, edging one-term Congresswoman Joan Kelly Horn 50%-48%, a win attributed in no small part to the selfishness […]
Eric Greitens will never drop out of the Missouri Senate race | Opinion
Listen to this. Read this and this. Watch this. If you still doubt that Eric Greitens is a threat to anyone he deems an enemy, and potentially even to himself, then you may also believe O.J. Simpson spends his days searching for the real killers. And yet recent polling in the wake of the latest […]
Missouri’s GOP Senate primary as a hand of Texas Hold ‘Em, part two: The flop | Opinion
Back in September I asked: If each U.S. Senate primary candidate held a Texas Hold ‘Em starting hand, what would they be, and why? Five months later, it’s time for an update. But first, the rules. In Texas Hold ‘Em, two cards are dealt face down to each player, while five “community cards” are dealt […]
The U.S. Senate is broken. Missouri’s talking filibuster could fix it
U.S. Rep. Willard Duncan Vandiver coined Missouri’s motto during an 1899 Philadelphia speech. “I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats,” he said, “and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.” As a former state senator who still haunts […]
A 2022 wish list for Missouri politicos
In most jobs, most of the time, you determine your own destiny. If you’re a salesman who wants to sell more copiers the next year, you make a plan to develop more leads, make more calls every morning, get more sits and refine your pitch to close more effectively. If you’re a software engineer who […]
The biggest threat to Missouri’s 2022 legislative session? Ambition | Opinion
Former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton liked to say that the minute you put your name on a ballot, you lose 50 IQ points. Trust me: He was only half-kidding. It’s not just that political neophytes do dumb things once they decide to run for office. It’s that ambition often clouds the thinking of even […]