PR Firm Hired To "Swift Boat" The Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan

Allies of Governor Matt Blunt are bankrolling a campaign to "Swift Boat" Missouri's Non-Partisan Court Plan and replace it with a system where politicians pick judges.  And they have enlisted in that effort a PR firm that specializes in hatchet jobs just like the one they are currently committing on Missouri's Non-Partisan Court plan.

Today, Tim Scheiderer of CRC Public Relations spent part of his day trying to push around an editorial that his firm placed in today's Wall Street Journal. (It's a regurgitation of GOP talking points, so I won't bother linking to it.)

Anyway, since he made a personal appeal to me via email to blog about it, I decided to go ahead and write this post.  (Note to the geniuses that are paying their very high fees--Please keep spending your money on this type of cracker-jack PR judgment.)

No doubt, the folks behind this effort are hoping Missouri ends up with a system where the Chamber of Commerce bankrolls Supreme Court campaigns and elects judges who will ensure that the interests of average citizens will no longer get a hearing in Missouri courts. (That's how they do it in Texas, and those campaigns made fellows like Karl Rove, and political consultants like him, very rich.)

Most of you are probably thinking, but who is CRC Public Relations? I've never heard of them.  Are they in Jefferson City, or St. Louis or where?  Nope, wrong time zone.  It turns out that the brain trust in charge of doing in Missouri's Non-Partisan Court Plan isn't based in Missouri at all.  Instead, they're in Alexandria, VA.

And here's the best part.  This is the same firm that was in charge of doing PR for the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth.

So Tim, you're right, this is a great topic for me to post about.  But somehow, I doubt this is what you had in mind.