The Results Come In: Victory, Mostly

Well, all of “my” candidates won, except for Jeff Morrison, whose early recovery, right before I posted my last post, disappeared and never came back. That's too bad, but like I said, I'll be rooting for Ted House anyway, come November.

Keep reading to find out why I feel sorry for Democratic Governor Bob Holden and why the perception that “less cosmopolitan” Missourians (i.e. supposedly those of us outside Kansas and St. Louis Cities) aren't the bigoted ones. Got your attention with that one, eh?

The Marriage Amendment seems to have passed enthusiastically (based on 3700 of just under 4000 precincts reporting). It seems it passed with a small margin even in Kansas City and St. Louis counties, failing most notably in St. Louis City (no, I'm not contradicting myself here, St. Louis city isn't in any county, St. Louis County boarders the city limits). Anyway outside of KC and St. Louis county, it seemed to win counties by an average of a 60 point advantage. St. Charles county voted for it with a 40 point advantage (which is, incidentally, the state wide margin of the win 70 to 29).

The casino amendment failed (more good news — it would have been a shame to ruin the Branson Tri-Lakes area with a casino) by a 12 point margin 44 to 56. This passed, not unexpectedly, in both St. Louis City and Kansas City, but failed in St. Louis county and seemingly most every place else).

Now, about the bigot comment above. Martin Lindstedt was running as, in his own words, a “racist candidate” for governor with a platform of eliminating benefits to all but Caucasians. He said he wanted to return the state to “1875 when that white man was superior.” This guy even had a militia that he bragged about on his candidate information page on the Post-Dispatch web site. Scary. But here's the thing: many would probably say he'd do better in, say Stone and Taney counties (in the Ozarks) than in St. Louis City. But throw away those notions of country conservatives. State wide, this scary fellow won 1.1% of the Republican primary vote for governor. That's about what he got in Stone and Taney counties (and most other counties — in St. Charles County he got .9%), but in urban, liberal St. Louis City, he earned nearly 2%!

And finally about “Guv Bob.” I feel sorry for him. Yeah, I don't agree with him on most issues. I think he did a bad job on a lot of things. But I don't think he was a terrible governor. As a person, he seemed just fine, free from any scandals or corruption as far as I know (I can be politically across the aisle and still like politicians — brace yourself — I admit on occasion to liking President Clinton). It just seems like a cruel political fate to lose your reelection bid to an overzealous person of your own party during the primary. Claire McCaskill seems to have almost the same views as Holden, but is a new face, which I think voters thought would be more “electable.”

While I admit I thought this too, and was hoping for that reason he'd win the primary instead… I also kinda hoped so just because I thought he deserved the chance to win or lose because people either agreed or didn't agree with him as compared to Republican challenger Matt Blunt, not because democratic voters apparently thought his mediocre term might be a liability necessitating a new face on the same policies. Ending one's political career in the primaries after several decades working one's way up to governor seems to be the worst possible way for a politician to go.

So, yes, I sort of hoped he would keep “holden on”… until November, of course.