Some Thoughts On The November 4th Midterm General Election
The television commercials before the August primaries were constant; especially Steve Stenger vs Charlie Dooley and Bruce Rauner attacking Pat Quinn, rather than his primary opponents. I’d hoped for a little relief between the primary and the general election, three weeks from today. It seems like right after the primary ended the election commercials continued, except for St. Louis County Executive, those only picked up again recently.
Illinois
Both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on behalf of Enyart and Bost. And one of the worst-kept secrets in national politics is that when those committees get involved in a contest, the messaging becomes largely indistinguishable from other hotly contested races throughout the country. (St. Louis Public Radio)
It’s clear from both sides that Bost is a Tea Party conservative, the type that shut down the federal government a year ago:
In a truly misguided display of chutzpah, some members of the Tea Party are congratulating themselves over a supposed “historic victory” in the government shutdown debacle. Yet the shutdown gang led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas extracted no concessions and instead hurt the GOP’s nationwide reputation and shaved GDP growth. (Forbes)
Bost wouldn’t change Congress at all, he’d have no impact on spending other than adding to it by refusing to extend the debt limit. Vote Enyart!
Republican Bruce Rauner falsely claims in a TV ad that Illinois leads the Midwest in “job losses” under Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. In fact, Illinois has experienced job growth — albeit small — since Quinn took office. (FactCheck.org)
Rauner’s big push is taxes — cuts for billionaires like himself. You think Illinois has fiscal problems now, it’d be far worse if Rauner got his way:
Once again we are testing the question: Can tax cuts pay for themselves? The answer– yet again– is a resounding no.
We’ve tried this experiment time and again. And tax cut proponents such as economist Art Laffer continue to insist they can turn fiscal dross to gold: Cut taxes deeply enough and the resultant boom in economic activity will boost revenues. Magic. Painless. Everything a politician would ever want.
Except this is fiscal snake oil. Over the past few years, Brownback and the Kansas legislature have gone all-in on this theory. The good news: They have left little room for ambiguity (though Brownback and his defenders are scrambling to find some, given the dismal results of their ambitious experiment). (Forbes)
Bruce Rauner reminds me of embattled Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.
Kansas suffered by far the largest decline in overall year-over-year receipts — a fall of 21.9 percent. The U.S. average drop was only 1.7 percent.
The institute said Kansas’ decline was “mostly attributable to legislated tax changes.” The state had a stunning 42.9 percent reduction in individual income tax revenue in the April-June period compared with a year earlier. The national decline was just 7.1 percent. (Kansas City Star)
Please don’t vote for Rauner!
St. Louis County
The August 9th shooting of Michael Brown, just four days after the primary, is affecting the general election for St. Louis County Executive:
The schism among St. Louis County Democrats split wide open Wednesday with the endorsement of the Republican nominee for county executive — Rick Stream — by a coalition of black officials angered over what they characterized as “years and years of disrespect” by party leaders. (Post-Dispatch)
For those unfamiliar, Democratic nominee Steve Stenger is close with Prosecutor Robert McCullough, whom many think should’ve recused himself in the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson case.
I personally don’t care for Stenger or Stream. The race includes Libertarian Theo (Ted) Brown, Sr and Constitution party candidate Joe Passanise.
Missouri voters also have to decide on some constitutional amendments, I’ll post on those before the election.
— Steve Patterson