MO's Congressional Delegation

More on Todd Graves' ouster as US Attorney... From AP:

Former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of Missouri likely was forced out of his post two years ago because of opposition from Missouri Sen. Kit Bond's office, a Justice Department investigation concluded Monday.­  Story Continued »

­A remarkable revelation in the findings of a special report released recently on an investigation into the Bush U.S. Attorney scandal and the departure of Todd Graves from the Western District of Missouri.  From page 331 of the report (emphasis added)...­

C. Reasons for the Removals of Individual U.S. Attorneys

In Chapters Four through Twelve, we analyzed the reasons proffered by Department officials for the removal of each U.S. Attorney. Those chapters demonstrate how flawed the removal process was, and the evidence in those chapters also contradicts the Department’s initial claims that U.S. Attorneys were removed for performance reasons.

In January 2006, Missouri U.S. Attorney Todd Graves was the first U.S. Attorney told to resign. As described in detail in Chapter Four, while our ­investigation into Graves’s removal was hindered by the refusal of Goodling and key officials in the White House to be interviewed, the evidence showed that the ­primary reason for Graves’s removal was complaints from the staff of Missouri Senator Christopher S. “Kit” Bond. Bond’s staff urged the White House Counsel’s Office to remove Graves because he had declined to intervene in a conflict between Senator Bond’s staff and the staff of Graves’s brother (a Republican Congressman from Missouri). Thus, it appears that Graves was told to resign because of a political dispute among Missouri politicians, not because of an objective assessment of his performance as U.S. Attorney.

Todd Graves has repeatedly asserted that his dismissal from the U.S. Attorney's office was the result of his "refusal" to prosecute certain politically motivated vote fraud cases --an assertion that has always been unsupported by little to no evidence.  Unfortunately, Graves' self-justifying rationale has often been passed along uncritically by members of the press. 

Richard Monroe is the Democratic Candidate facing Roy Blunt in the seventh district Congressional race.  His campaign is gaining more and more momentum as voters in this district learn of the voting record and position stands of Blunt.  Mr. Monroe is out on the campaign trail daily, talking to the voters of the district, and is drawing good crowds in the traditionally Republican areas of Jasper, Newton, and McDonald counties.

It occurred to me that the Missouri Republican Party is in the midst of a historic transitional era.  If you step back and think about it a moment, this election cycle is likely to be the beginning of the end of Senator Kit Bond's career.

Here's the ad the Barnes campaign just went up with in response to the attack ad Graves launched late last week.  Keep in mind, Sam Graves is starting his campaign with a negative attack on Barnes. 

That tells you an awful lot about him.  Special Interest Sam knows he can't run on his Washington record.

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It's been an up and down recent stretch for GOP Congressional primary candidate and Jeff Roe client Blaine Luetkemeyer.

Though Luetkemeyer has reportedly lost his campaign fundraiser, Heather Grote, he has managed to find financial support in some surprising places.  

For instance, solid work by Luetkemeyer to haul in double-max checks from his jobless, twenty year-old college student nephew.  Scandalous.  What's a college junior doing giving $4,600 to his uncle's crummy Congressional campaign instead of taking it to the riverboats?

Jo Mannies pulls a nice quote from a statement by DC political operative Dick Morris in support of Sarah Steelman:

"...Congressman Kenny Hulshof, is too tied to the Washington establishment to win in Missouri, especially with Congress’ current dismal ratings,” Morris is quoted as saying. “Voters in Missouri often send their state officials to Washington to clean things up, but rarely invite Washington politicians to move to Jefferson City to dirty things up!…”

Morris's point may be familiar to FiredUp readers (like Sarah Steelman) as we made largely the same observation back in January:

Brock Olivo, the former social studies student who has never voted but is now vying for the GOP nomination in Missouri's Ninth Congressional District, is trying to parlay his civic inexperience into valuable votes on Primary Day.  

His clever gambit?  Filing two different Federal Election Commission candidate committees, each with a different spelling of his own last name!

Here on the FEC website, we find the candidate committee filing for:

OLIVO, JAMES BROCKMAN     ID: H8MO09112
 CHALLENGER

Office Sought:      House
State:      Missouri
District:      09
Party:      REP (Republican Party)

But here, on the very same FEC website, we also find:

OLIVIO, JAMES BROCKMAN     ID: H8MO09120
 CHALLENGER

Office Sought:      House
State:      Missouri
District:      09
Party:      REP (Republican Party)

So both Brock Olivo and Brock Olivio have now made initial filings for a Congressional campaign committee.  For Brock's sake, I hope the Olivo and Olivio campaigns don't split his vote. 

When the U.S. Senate's Committee on Rules and Administration held a hearing yesterday to discuss whether Photo ID Voting Laws lead to disenfranchisement, University of Missouri academic Jeffrey Milyo was among those who were present to give testimony.

The primary reason for Milyo's inclusion in the panel was his recent publication of a study purporting to show that photo ID voting laws had no adverse effect on voter turnout in 2006 elections in Indiana.  And while Milyo's testimony poured forth easily for the committee when he was talking about his contention that Photo ID laws do not disenfranchise voters, he became less erudite when the simple question arose of how his research had been funded.

Just over one hour and forty-eight minutes into the hearing, video of which is available online here, Milyo has an interesting exchange with a committee member, Senator Chuck Schumer.  Story Continued »

Today's RollCall newspaper featured big news (subscription required) for long-suffering residents of Missouri's Sixth Congressional District.  The Capitol Hill tab notes that Democrat Kay Barnes leads the most recently added wave of candidates into the DCCC's "Red to Blue" project --an initiative specifically geared toward those with the best chances of knocking off Republican incumbents.

From the story:

“These candidates have come out of the gate strong, and the Red to Blue program will give them the financial and structural edge to be even more competitive in November,” DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) said. ...

The 13 new Red to Blue participants include former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes, challenging Rep. Sam Graves (R) in Missouri’s 6th district

A delusional Kenny Hulshof this weekend:

When Missourians think of "Blunt" and "Carnahan," they think "politics," Hulshof said. When Missourians think of the name "Hulshof," they think " ‘farmers,’...

More likely, when Missourians think of the name 'Hulshof' they think 'thousand bottle wine collection.'

From Arizona comes another chapter in the growing book of DC Republican corruption:

Indicted Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi should resign his U.S. House seat immediately, Gov. Janet Napolitano and the head of the Arizona Democratic Party said Wednesday. ...Renzi had announced he would not seek re-election to the District 1 seat last August, before he was indicted by a federal grand jury on 35 counts involving land deals.

A glance through the FiredUp! archive provides a reminder that one of Renzi's biggest allies and supporters is from right here in Missouri:  Story Continued »

In his last bid for re-election, Rep. Roy Blunt accepted more than $230,000 from PACs and individuals involved in the Oil and Energy Industries.  Unfortunately for Big Oil, those contributions went to a man who no longer serves as a leader of the Congressional majority.  But despite Blunt's vast reduction in personal power in a Democratically controlled body, the Energy Industry is still getting some of its money's worth.

Witness today's piece in National Review Online authored by Roy Blunt, in which he goes to the mat to defend oil companies from legislation that might cut into their hefty bottom lines:  Story Continued »

The St. Louis P-D's Jake Wagman has this today on the Political Fix blog:

Olivo, the former Mizzou football star now running for Congress, has never voted before in an election, public records show.

Reached today, Olivo confirmed that he has never cast a ballot, in Missouri or anywhere else.

I wonder where Wagman came up with the idea to check into Olivo's voting history (or lack thereof)?  Story Continued »