Approaching The End Of The Bond Era

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.

In a normal year, Kit Bond would be right in the middle of the presidential race here in Missouri.  But this year, his favored candidate got sidelined early in the process and the two aides he sent back to Missouri earlier in the year to run things are now sitting up in the bleachers watching.

Bond's clout is so diminished within the MO GOP that one of his aides, whom Bond thought would be the handpicked successor to Hulshof, chose not to even run.

The presidential election this year holds nothing but bad news for Bond.  He and McCain loathe one another, mostly because McCain doesn't believe in the earmark system that Kit Bond has relied so heavily on to retain his Senate seat and any semblance of real clout he has in Washington.

Either a McCain or Obama victory in November is likely to move toward true earmark reform, thus stripping Bond of any major purpose, and taking all the fun out of being in Washington for him.

Bond is one of the few people in Washington for whom both a McCain and an Obama victory would result in dramatically diminished relevance. 

And his local politics is about to get even more complicated.  The race for Governor between Hulshof and Steelman works badly for Bond no matter how it turns out. 

If Hulshof wins the primary, but loses the general--a reasonable scenario, Bond would have a highly ambitious and impatient politician looking for an office to run for.  The pressure he would mount to push Bond aside would be high.

Should Steelman win the primary--an increasingly likely scenario, Hulshof would be in the same impatient  purpose-seeking position, only a few months earlier.

And if Steelman loses the primary, she would almost certainly begin positioning for a run for Bond's seat immediately.  She would have nothing to lose by running in a primary against Bond, and she would start quickly in case he decided to retire, without regard for Bond's feelings, as tensions between the Steelman and Bond camps are at stratospheric levels.

Add to that the fact that Peter Kinder is likely to be unemployed after November, you have the makings of a real collision of ambition among the young turks, with Bond--a relic from the past--standing in the way.

In addition, Bond will become increasingly politically vulnerable if earmark reform takes hold in Washington. As a Governor, Bond was largely a centrist problem solver.  But as his party changed, Bond realized he needed to become more extreme ideologically to protect his right flank from a primary challenge (The right has never truly accepted Bond as one of their own, largely because of lifestyle issues.)

In order to offset Bond's ideological lurch to the right, Bond took on the role of pork king to try to build appeal to the middle.  He has essentially used federal funding as a way to buy friends and third party validators for his re-election efforts.

If meaningful earmark reform comes to pass, Bond will be just another fossilized DC right wing politician.

So, as I said, for now, Bond will still keep making noise as if he is relevant.  But the Bond organization is in a steady state of decline with the speed of that deterioration accelerating with every passing day. 

If he hadn't been behaving like such a miserable human being over the last few years, I would almost feel sorry for him.