John Danforth

So, surprise, surprise, Former Senator John Danforth is set to endorse Mittens Mitt Romney.

Danforth will announce his support for Romney in St. Louis, where Romney will be attending fundraisers.

Danforth goes on to say that Romney's ability to turn around a company - which was really along the lines of get rich quick by raiding Bain Capital for all profits, and then layoff thousands of workers - is one of the key reasons he's endorsing the former Massachusetts Flip-Flopper In Chief.  I guess if you want someone who's going to allow Wall Street to continue raiding American workers' pensions and savings, and then turn around and allow corporations to ship thousands, if not millions of jobs overseas, then Mitt's your man.

All things considered, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised that Danforth is choosing to endorse a serial flip-flopper who can't keep his own opinions straight, after all, this is coming from a guy who has endorsed right-wingers on the fringe of the republican party and then turned around and whined about how embarrassed he is about the things those same sorts of fringe republicans say.

Senator Danforth, one question: if you're so embarrassed by the field of GOP Presidential candidates, are you equally embarrassed by your man Mitt sitting idly by the time a fellow candidate got racous applause for executing 234 people?  The time they booed the gay solider while he is serving his country in a war zone?  Are you ok with Mitt not taking the opportunity to stand up for those without health insurance while the crowd hooped and hollered about letting those folks die?

Way to pick a winner loser.

On KTRS yesterday (FF to ~7:00), Former Sen. John Danforth had some choice words in describing his fellow republicans, especially those running for president:

I’ve been watching some of these republican debates and they’re just terrible. Terrible.  How many have they had?  Something like nine, ten, something like that, it seems like every week there’s a debate and, uh, and it’s embarrassing for me as a republican to watch this stuff.

Tell us, sir, what exactly has been so embarrassing about your fellow republicans?

What have been the big applause lines in these debates? Well, a statement that the governor of Texas is responsible for killing 234 people on death row.  Or that we favor torture. Or that we’re creating a fence on the Mexican border that electrocutes people when they try to cross it. Or when people show up at the emergency room at hospitals and they’re not insured don’t treat them. And that, I mean these are the big applause lines, people just hoop and holler when they hear all that.

Yep. I have to agree, those are some pretty despicable and embarrassing statements coming out of the mouths of your fellow republicans.  I'd be ashamed, too.  But by all means, do go on.

It doesn’t have anything to do with the republican party that I was a part of. This is just totally different. And all of these people who are saying this, y’know, and claiming that, y’know, they’re for all this stuff, they also sort of ostentatiously say, “Oh, we’re very religious people.  We really, we’re just very pious, Christian people.”  They were for torture, and electrocution of the people on along the border and all of that. That doesn’t have anything to do with, is contrary to the Christianity that I understand.

Let's just stop right there.

This isn't the party Danforth was a part of?  He didn't endorse Ed-Minuteman-Martin in 2010?  Pretty sure he did.

Instead of distancing himself from the republican party he claims to be embarrassed by, why doesn't Danforth start by calling out the extremists republicans in our own home state like Martin? Or Akin, who thinks that, "At the heart of Liberalism is a hatred for God."

Danforth claims later on that he dislikes divisive politics, but let's be honest, he's continually endorsed candidates who do nothing but spread fear and division across Missouri and our country.

Senator Danforth, start reforming your party with constructive criticism instead of continuing to endorse the same divisive republican politicians you claim to be embarrassed by. Show some leadership.

John Danforth has repeatedly expressed his desire for bipartisan compromise in Washington. In a new piece for Politico, he writes: 

Compromise, the capacity to work out our differences, is the essential element of workable politics. Compromise was made essential by the framers of our Constitution who created a system of checks and balances so that each side of an issue is unlikely to get everything it wants. In today’s world, when the extremes demand pure ideology, compromise is difficult without rebuilding the center.

Danforth has a history of being a voice for the ever-diminishing moderate center of the Republican Party. This is a good thing. But despite his talk about finding politicians willing to work on finding common ground, he has thrown his support behind some of the most divisive candidates Missouri has to offer. 

Take Ed Martin for instance. Danforth supported him in his 2010 Congressional race. Ed likes to call elected officials "the devil" and thinks Barack Obama wants to keep people from being saved by Jesus Christ. And he really likes to suggest that if government gets control of health care, bureaucrats will start killing old people. 

Senator Danforth has also thrown his support behind Peter Kinder. Lost in the recent Kinder-related drama is the fact that Peter Kinder is an extremist. (Unless most Missourians agree that there is "great prevalence of virulent anti-Semitism from the Left" and an"astonishing explosion of lefty Jew hatred." Not to mention that he also thinks government provided heath care would lead to bureaucrats using death panels to decide who lives and dies.)

A couple hundred people clicking “like” on Facebook wasn’t enough to entice former Senator John Danforth to run for Governor.

When asked by KMOX’s Charlie Brennan if he would like to announce that he’s a candidate for Governor in 2012, Danforth answered “No” followed by a chuckle. Danforth then told Brennan he’s “all for” Kinder.

Danforth, an ordained Episcopal priest, says Kinder’s recently revealed involvement with a former Penthouse Pet and stripper, doesn’t bother him, “I just think we’ve got to decide enough of this trying to humiliate people and pouring through their past and embarrassing them. Let’s look at the whole person and whether the person is qualified and whether this is really a decent human being and Peter is clearly all of that.”

"American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that I know God's will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility."

Originally published in the New York Times in 2005.

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IT would be an oversimplification to say that America's culture wars are now between people of faith and nonbelievers. People of faith are not of one mind, whether on specific issues like stem cell research and government intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, or the more general issue of how religion relates to politics. In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.

John Brunner has let it be known that he's willing to be wooed as a possible replacement in the 2012 Senate race for second-tier candidates Todd Akin and Sarah Steelman.    

But with a $10,000 check to Peter Kinder last week, Brunner looks like he may be more suited to run in the Volunteer State than the Show-Me State. 

Brunner also wrote checks to Missouri candidates from the same Tennessee address for at least three contributions in 2010 -- to Tom Schweich, Allen Icet and Charlie Dooley. 

At some point after the check was reported to the Missouri Ethics Commission, someone in the Kinder or Brunner camps changed the address for his big check. The MEC website now displays: 

Last month, former Sen. John Danforth was endorsing Ed Martin and writing silly one-sided op-eds accusing Democrats of destroying the democratic process.  But now he's a Concerned Moderate again, and we're supposed to forget all that.  This weekend, Danforth was asked to comment on a potential tea party challenge to Sen. Dick Lugar in Indiana. 

The notion the extremists in the Republican Party -- people like the man he just endorsed to serve in Congress -- might be elected is very troubling to Danforth.  As quoted in the New York Times:

If Dick Lugar...having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.

Citing "the political atmosphere" of the current election cycle that he's endorsed and helped perpetuate, former Sen. John Danforth would like everyone to be impressed with his efforts to elevate the discourse with his new John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University. 

The ideas and goals of the Danforth Center for Faith & Politics are important and commendable, but this is the same John Danforth who just endorsed Ed Martin and penned a ridiculously one-sided piece about negative campaigning for the St. Louis Beacon, right? 

Martin embodies everything Danforth claims to loathe -- he says Barack Obama and Russ Carnahan are working to take away your "ultimate freedom to find your salvation, to get your salvation," stated publicly that Robin Carnahan is "the devil," and  "orchestrated a taxpayer-funded character assassination unlike anything ever seen before in Missouri government" --  but none of these public facts seemed to matter last month when he went out of his way to support Martin.  

I sincerely hope that the Danforth is successful in his efforts with the center.  But he's going to have to stop endorsing dishonest unethical extremists and actually condemn their lunacy if he hopes to maintain any credibility as a high-minded centrist. 

 KMOX's Michael Kelley has a good column this morning about the disconnect between former Sen. John Danforth's blind partisanship in recent weeks.  His conclusion: 

I am hopeful that these recent lapses in statesmanship are just a bump in the road.  Politics is messy now and its times like these that we need our idols to be above the mess and lead by their example.

Read the whole thing here. 

"Hey Ed -- If you ignore all those things I said about how people like you are bad for America, I'll ignore everything I know about your political career."

Honestly: how does former Senator John Danforth reconcile (a) his stated belief that allegedly moderate Republicans should take on the extreme elements of their party with (b) his endorsement of Ed Martin, a man whose politics are everything that Danforth claims to loathe. 

First, let's recall how Danforth presents himself to the public as a moderate Republican.  From a 2006 profile in the Washington Post.

'ST. JACK' AND THE BULLIES IN THE PULPIT
John Danforth Says It's Time the GOP Center Took On The Christian Right

Jack Danforth wishes the Republican right would step down from its pulpit. Instead, he sees a constant flow of religion into national politics. And not just any religion, either, but the us-versus-them, my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God, velvet-fist variety of Christian evangelism...

"The Republican Party has been taken over by something that it's not," Danforth says over a suitably austere lunch of steamed vegetables in a well-appointed 40th-floor St. Louis club overlooking the Mississippi. "How do traditional Republicans put up with this? They put up with this because it's a winning combination, for now. It won't last."

That is the question, isn't it, Senator? "How do traditional Republicans put up with" an extreme, unethical, serial liar like Ed Martin?  Especially in a race that even Republican pollsters say Martin won't win.  It's not even a "winning combination" here.

Just this summer, Martin told local right-wing radio listeners that Barack Obama and Russ Carnahan are "taking away that freedom. The freedom -- the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation."  He told supporters of his anti-stem cell campaign last year that SOS Robin Carnahan is "the devil" who "doesn't need to be honest, doesn't want to be honest." Martin "orchestrated a taxpayer-funded character assassination unlike anything ever seen before in Missouri government." Is this the kind of record a mainline Episcopal priest typically endorses?   

Martin has shamelessly told voters that Democrats want to kill old people with the new health care reform law, and has lied about how the law will impact abortion policy. Is Danforth down with candidates who lie like this? 

The Senator also says he doesn't like the way Republicans have used same-sex marriage as a wedge issue.  So then what does he say when Ed Martin dishonestly 'translates' an answer about federal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy into a shot about gay marriage? 

I could go on, but I think the point is made.  If Danforth wants to be thought of as a moderate Republican, he should act like one.  But in sweeping Martin's garbage under the rug and endorsing him without comment on the lie and outrageous claims of Martin's campaign, he's made himself complicit in the extremism he claims to deplore.

Politico's Dave Catanese posted a series of interesting tweets on Saturday about Tom Schweich's campaign for State Auditor.  In chronological order:

• 8:38 PM - Bad buzz about Schweich from even those who support him. He's steamed he has a primary when he cut a deal. Ala [Florida Governor Charlie] Crist, welcome to the NFL.
   
• 9:14 PM - GOPer says Schweich needs to learn from @RoyBlunt in approach. Roy takes his licks, but smiles, brushes off like Jay-Z. Schweich gets mad.
   
• 9:32 PM - Schweich should devote a speech to his $500 contrib. to @clairecmc. Say if the GOP wants to b party that excludes indys, it won't prevail.
   
• 9:41 PM - No, @allenicet [primary opponent Allen Icet] doesn't inspire. But Schweich is turning people off. RT @davesmith3: @davecatanese is @alanicet really crushing it THAT much?

John Ashcroft endorsed Roy Blunt today.

With former GOP Sen. Ashcroft, former GOP Sen. Jim Talent and former GOP Sen. Jack Danforth in his camp, Blunt seems to have locked down the crucial old-white-dudes-who-used-to-be-in-Congress demographic -- an elusive bloc of voters one generally wouldn't expect to support a candidate like Roy Blunt.

Tony Messenger has an interesting piece today in the Post-Dispatch about John Danforth's criticisms of Roy Blunt's Senate candidacy, Danforth's public support for Thomas Schweich as an alternative candidate, and how that conflict may impact Blunt's fundraising at upcoming events and party unity in general.

Reading the article, I find it a little odd that Blunt doesn't want to call Danforth's frank assessment of Blunt's considerable campaign baggage a "conflict." That's a "strong word," Blunt says. What, exactly, would he prefer it be called?  Conflict seems like a kind word.

The pro-Roy Blunt and anti-Thomas Schweich forces are working to nip this whole Senate campaign thing in the bud.  Schweich says he's "flattered" by the attention, and what he calls a "vintage Washington-style smear campaign" against him. For now, anyway. 

Via JohnCombest.com, we see that Townhall.com blogger Matt Lewis is particularly concerned with Sen. Danforth's alleged hatred of conservatives, Schweich's service at the UN and the fact that Danforth and Schweich have worked together.

Meet John Danforth, former Republican Senator from Missouri and diplomat in the George W. Bush administration. After leaving the Bush administration, he has made a career out of attacking conservatives and Republicans. 

He co-founded the Republican Leadership Council with Christie Todd Whitman to advance social liberals within the Republican Party. He also led the fight as honorary co-chair of the 2006 ballot initiative to support embryonic stem-cell research in Missouri.  You get the point. He’s not a conservative...