Martin Swings at Steelman on Day One, Smears SEIU Along the Way

Speaking yesterday afternoon with conservative radio host Mike Ferguson on Columbia's KSSZ after announcing his bid for the U.S. Senate, Crazy Ed Martin wasted no time in outlining the reasons why he thought former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman should not be the Republicans' choice to take on Claire McCaskill next year.   Martin's initial criticisms focused on the fact that Steelman has previously held elected office, the fact that some labor groups have supported her in previous campaigns, and her opposition to "tort reform."  

MARTIN:  Primaries -- elections are supposed to be about choices.  So, primaries are good when they give us a choice.  I think you, you know, obviously, when they become nasty and counterproductive they can be bad.  But they should be about our public record and the principles, and people should be able to look us in the eye and say, "What are you about?"

And you, know, Treasurer Steelman has had a -- most of her adult life has been in elected office.  And so she has a very public record. And I think, you know, we're going to have to go through that.  And she's going to have to contrast with me.

I will tell you, one of the things that I've heard in the last few months I hadn't known was that she's received the endorsement of SEIU during her career, that she was comfortable with the public sector unions and their, their ideas.  And I think that's very worrying. 

Because that, that -- two of the major issues that are really distorting our American democracy and our federal system are the presence of public sector unions, which are used -- SEIU, over here in St. Louis, we call 'em the purple beaters. You know, they beat people up at our tea party events.  And so, we're very aware of the public sector unions distorting the American democracy by taking our tax dollars and then using those dollars against us to elect liberal Democrats and sometimes Republicans.  So that's a big deal.

The other one is tort reform. We haven't seen a lot of Republicans who oppose tort reform. And Treasurer Steelman is, you know, opposes tort reform in her public record. Those two are pretty big issues. 

But there's going to be a lot more. We have to talk about what the future's about.

Listen:

Note how Martin went out of his way to smear anyone who happens to be a part of of SEIU, alleging that "they beat people up at our tea party events."   This is no doubt an allusion to a scuffle at an August 2009 forum hosted by Rep. Russ Carnahan.  A few people were indeed arrested outside the forum -- including an SEIU employee and the Post-Dispatch's Jake Wagman -- and later charged with misdemeanor ordinance violations.  That said, Martin's Glenn Beck-like allegation that any association or connection to SEIU is problematic because of what a few individuals did on an emotionally-charged night is downright silly. 

The forum became the subject of months of tea party conspiracy theories that made my eyes cross; Adam Shriver at St . Louis Activist Hub has a comprehensive rundown of the tea party allegations and rhetoric. It's still not entirely clear how the fight started, but it's obvious to all that Martin is trying to smear everyone connected to SEIU with an isolated incident that doesn't represent what the group is about. 

As Ed said, "there's going to be a lot more."