Free Republic

Union Violence: An African-American is beaten up at a political rally by thugs shouting racial epithets, and after three months his assailants are charged with the moral equivalent of jaywalking. Why wasn't it a hate crime? The beating of Kenneth Gladney by people wearing the purple shirts of the Service Employees International Union outside a Missouri health care town hall meeting three months ago met all the classic definitions of a hate crime. Time was, the beating of a black man outside a protest rally, and the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators, would be headline news. Gladney was working...

Democrat Robin Carnahan and Republican Roy Blunt are dead even in the first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey of the hotly contested race for the U.S. Senate in Missouri.

Democrat Robin Carnahan and Republican Roy Blunt are dead even in the first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey of the hotly contested race for the U.S. Senate in Missouri. Both candidates capture 46% of the vote in a new telephone survey of Missouri voters. Two percent (2%) favor some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are not sure which candidate they will vote for. Blunt, a member of Congress since 1997, has held the number two GOP position in the House, serving as minority whip. His son was governor of Missouri from 2005 to 2009. Carnahan, currently Missouri’s secretary of...

Missouri state Sen. Bill Stouffer is seeking the 2010 Republican nomination to oppose veteran Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton. Stouffer recently filed a statement of candidacy and a statement of organization to organize a campaign in Missouri's 4th, a Republican-leaning district that includes all or part of 25 counties in central and western Missouri. "Enough is enough," Stouffer told CQ Politics Friday. "We've lost sight of what the role of the federal government is. We forget that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states, not to dictate to the states, and I'm concerned with the deficits...

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the likely 2010 GOP nominee for Senate in this perennial swing state, says he doesn't want to talk anymore about whether President Obama was born in the United States, the Springfield News-Leader reports. But Blunt still doesn't seem to be giving up on it as a legitimate issue, either. Blunt said last week that "I don't have any reason not to believe" that Obama is a natural-born citizen -- but at the same time he said the Birthers had a "legitimate question" about Obama's birth certificate. Well, the local media in Missouri is now asking him...

Two prominent Republicans today endorsed the bid of U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt for the U.S. Senate. The Associated Press reported that former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder announced their support for the Congressman’s campaign.

. . . . . Elected Republicans should govern by the principles they profess in campaign rallies and advertisements. Those principles were once the difference between the parties. . . . . . The Republican Party, at its best, is a party of broad ideas and principles. For example, those who tend to vote Republican believe in limiting the size and scope of government and respect the guarantees of individual freedom and liberty of our Constitution. They respect life and its diversity; and they understand that free market capitalism, the glue that holds the Republican Party, and our nation, together,...

Greene County prosecutor Darrell Moore says he is running for a southwest Missouri congressional seat. Moore joins an already crowded field of Republicans seeking to replace Rep. Roy Blunt, who is running for Senate in 2010. While announcing his candidacy Thursday, Moore said he would make balancing the federal budget his top priority. He also stressed health care reform, stabilizing Social Security and bolstering national security. Moore, of Springfield, has served as Greene County prosecutor since 1999. Other Republicans who already have declared their candidacy are state Sen. Jack Goodman of Mount Vernon, Springfield auctioneer Billy Long and Ozarks Technical...

With the upcoming retirement of Sen. Kit Bond, Republicans across the state are wondering who will run to replace the Godfather of the Missouri GOP. My sources confirm that Congressman Roy Blunt is seriously considering a run for Bond’s seat.  In a press release on his website, Blunt says, “There is no doubt that if Senator Bond’s name was on the ballot in November of 2010 he would have won handily.”The question is, can Roy Blunt win?  The likely opponent for Blunt would be current Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.  For those outside of Missouri, the Carnahan family has...

Bond is the third Republican Senator to leave the chamber in 2010 -- following Sens. Sam Brownback (Kans.) and Mel Martinez (Fla.) down that path. Democrats are expected to heavily target all three seats. Bond's retirement ends a long -- and, at times, rocky -- career in Missouri politics that began more than four decades ago when he ran and lost a race for Congress. In 1970, Bond bounced back to be elected state auditor and two years after that was elected governor of the Show Me State. In 1976 he was defeated for re-election but in 1980 reclaimed the...