I don’t know what makes me more ashamed for my state, the fact that someone created fake money accusing Senator Obama of being a socialist and secret Muslim or the fact that people actually (truly) believe that load of bullshit.

Even Missouri is now in play.  Polls have been showing the race tightening, but current polling shows a nearly double-digit lead for Senator Obama!  If you look a little deeper into this data you see the major support for Obama is coming from our two major cities, KC and St. Louis, which is not unusual.  The rural areas are too Conservatively Christian and vote Republican in lockstep.  However, Senator McCain’s leads in those regions are small enough to put my state in the toss-up category.  It would be nice to see Missouri go for Obama; to see my state vote for something other than God, guns, and gays.

Mother Nature reminds us once again that even the Midwest isn’t immune to earthquakes.  Thanks, Mom!

So, Missouri’s most despised governor in decades is not running for re-election.  Why?  Well, according to Matt Blunt he’s achieved “virtually everything” he set out to do.  Just what is that?  To alienate most of the state, including people in his own party?  Well, bravo.

The more likely answer here is that Blunt knows he can’t beat the popular Jay Nixon who is not only a very well-liked state Attorney-General but a smart man who could easily wipe the floor with Matt Blunt in any debate.  It would take daddy Blunt’s friends to start swift-boating Nixon for little Matty to have even a chance.  It will be interesting to see who steps in to take Matt Blunt place.  There are several high-ranking and well-known Republicans in Jeff City, but most of them are of the rabid right-wing type, which may or may not pose a problem for Jay Nixon.  Regardless, Missouri’s gubernatorial election just became interesting.

If there’s a state in dire need for an infusion of blue, it’s my home state of Missouri.  Jay Nixon may be our best, and at this time only, hope to achieve that.  Almost from day one Matt Blunt has been an unpopular and ineffective governor who allowed politics to trump the well-being of Missouri’s citizens.  I don’t know if our state would have been better off with Claire McCaskill, but it could not have been any worse.  For me, Nixon is not a perfect candidate.  He tracks mostly moderate on most issues, but on the issues of health care and educations his ideas a rather progressive.  However, Nixon is an aggressive litigator, which is not necessary a bad thing since he’s done a lot of good for Missouri and his No Call, while flawed, was a great creation, but his support for the death penalty leaves a sour taste in my mouth.  On abortion, Nixon has aggressively fought against any law attempt to circumvent Missouri’s current anti-abortion laws.  He says that’s because he required to uphold the Missouri constitution and the law passed by the legislature.  That’s an easy to avoid taking a stand one way or another.

All that being said, it looks like Jay Nixon is currently sitting in a good position to beat Matt Blunt.  Nixon has only lost two election, both for US Senator, and every time he’s won it’s been with 60% or more of the electorate.  However, no one should count out Matt Blunt.  He can be an aggressive politician and thanks to daddy Blunts deep pocketed friends and will most likely outdo Nixon in donations.  What Nixon has going for him is his popularity in the state and the fact that President Bush currently has a state-wide approval rating below 40%.

Drury University is smack into the middle of Roy Blunt, conservative Republican land, so you would not expect such a well-known university — at least well know in the state of Missouri — to extend health insurance benefits and other services to same-sex couples.  Hell, Missouri State University’s teachers couldn’t even get the university’s president to extend their non-discrimination policy to cover sexual preference.  Something like this is unheard of in this area and I have no doubt people will protest the decision and threaten to keep their kids out of the school because, of course, the fact the university will now cover same-sex couples would mean they’re trying to push a homosexual agenda on poor, defenseless, impressionable students.

Well, it certainly hasn’t taken long for copycats to start mimicking Seung-Hui Cho, and it’s right here in Missouri.  A 30-year-old asshole sent threatening emails to professors at Missouri State University (fomerly Southwest Missouri State University) in Springfield, MO, which caused a 45-minute lockdown to ensure students and professors were safe.  For his stupidity, the man will be charged with a felony count of making a terorist threat.  I hope they throw the book at him.  Shit like this should never be tolerated, especially considereing the world we live in these days.

A good friend of mine who knows that I blog here asked what I planned to do now that Democrats are back in power.  "What will you have to bitch about now?" she asked.  Well, first of all, President Bush is still in office for two more years and there is quickly and election coming up; two years can pass by pretty damn quick.  Second, I don’t always agree with Democrats, so I’m sure there will be plenty for me to "bitch" about.  Third, this blog is not, and never has been, an anti-Republican blog; more of an anti-Bush blog.  There are still of lot of things to talk about that are important to me:  the increasing number of American who live in abject poverty and have no access to minimum levels health care, we still have men and women in Iraq, I’m still frightened as hell of al Qaeda, I’m still scared that we could be attacked again, I worry about the state of our economy, I worry about how my mother is going to pay for her medication, so on and so on.  Just because Dems are in office doesn’t mean all the bad things go away.

Moreover, Missouri is still under the control of Republican ideologues and while Claire McCaskill beat Jim Talent to be out Senator, Missouri still trends Conservative and is only becoming more Conservative.  We have a governor’s election coming up in a couple of years and I want nothing more than to see Matt Blunt booted out of office.  Not because he’s a Republican, but because he has been a terrible leader for our state.  Not to mention, Republicans have stranglehold on almost all of the state offices.  If there is one thing this election showed, Democrats are not down for the count in Missouri.  Many of them may have lost, but many of them also came pretty damn close.

So, here it is nearly three in the morning and I wake out of a dead sleep to find that Claire McCaskill has been elected Senator of Missouri!  I was wrong:  she did hit the 50% mark!  Oh, and there’s more!  The stem cell initiative has won  with 51% of he vote AND if Dems maintain their leads in Montana and Virginia they will have the majority in BOTH houses of Congress!  Who knew something this great could possibly happen!  Somebody should  check on John McCain since he threatened suicide if the Dems won back the Senate.

THIS IS A GREAT DAY FOR MISSOURI!

According to Missouri’s election website, Claire McCaskill has pulled into a slight lead over Jim Talent, 48.7% to 48% and 15,000 votes separating them.  The Stem Cell research initiative is also making a comeback.  Right now, as of 12:15 CST, the yes votes are 10,000 ahead of the no votes.  With remaining votes most likely coming from KC and St. Louis, Amendment 2 may just pass, if by a small margin.

If McCaskill can pull off a win, it would be nice to see it be by 50%, but with the other parties pulling in 3
% of the vote that probably won’t happen.  Oh, well, a win is a win.  Talent himself didn’t win by a 50% margin when he defeated Jean Carnahan four years ago.