Free Republic

(Oct. 20, 2010) — At speech after speech throughout Missouri’s Fourth Congressional District, Republican candidate Vicky Hartzler has drummed home a simple theme: “Fire Nancy Pelosi!” Some Hartzler supporters even wear buttons to campaign rallies pushing for Pelosi’s ouster as Speaker of the House, arguing that the best reason to oust 17-term incumbent Democrat Ike Skelton is because of his support for Pelosi and her advocacy of other items on the national Democratic agenda. Skelton, like nearly all other Democrats in the House of Representatives, has voted repeatedly for Pelosi, a self-identified liberal Democrat from San Francisco. That’s standard practice...

(Oct. 20, 2010) — Republican candidate Vicky Hartzler spent most of her campaign for Congress this year as a financial underdog. Faced with the daunting prospect of running against 17-term U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Hartzler raised $497,000 during the primary election season and spent most of it to defeat State Sen. Bill Stouffer, who raised almost as much money in a hard-fought primary battle. Until recently, campaign finance reports showed Skelton had raised $1.9 million and spent only $773,000 of his warchest, mostly on radio and television ad buys questioning Hartzler’s commitment...

(Oct. 18, 2010) — Vicky Hartzler, the Republican trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, the 17-term Congressman who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, has clearly identified herself as a Christian conservative. She served as spokesman for the successful campaign in 2004 that amended the Missouri state constitution to prohibit gay marriage, and she’s the author of a book entitled “Running God’s Way; Step by Step to a Successful Political Campaign.” So what sorts of sermons does she hear on Sunday mornings in the church in Harrisonville where she’s attended for three decades? Just before leaving on vacation, Hartzler’s...

(Oct. 13, 2010) — A national news and opinion website associated with liberal causes has targeted Vicky Hartzler for an organized campaign designed to drive up Google and other search engine rankings to “get as many undecided voters as possible to read the most damaging news article about the Republican candidate for Congress in their district.” The Daily Kos may not be widely known in rural Missouri, but it’s a major factor in the “netroots” movement within the Democratic Party and liberal or “progressive” politics on the national level. Founded in 2002, its writers include former President Jimmy Carter, current...

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (Oct. 11, 2010) — A second retired general has endorsed U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Last week Tuesday, the Skelton campaign announced the endorsement of Maj. Gen. John Havens, who retired in 2001 after serving as the adjutant general — the top post — in the Missouri National Guard. Havens now lives in St. James. However, Skelton isn’t the only candidate in the race to receive military endorsements from retired senior leaders. Skelton’s opponent, Republican Vicky Hartzler, has been running advertisements blasting Skelton with retired military personnel accusing him of...

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (Oct. 9, 2010) — The Republican seeking to unseat U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton has agreed to attend a Tuesday evening candidate forum sponsored by the Waynesville-St. Robert Senior Citizens Center, but in an announcement for a Friday afternoon press conference at the state capitol in Jefferson City, Vicky Hartzler blasted Skelton for his “decision to avoid speaking to and taking questions from the people he represents.” Less than an hour before Missouri Republican Party Executive Director Lloyd Smith was scheduled to begin a Monday afternoon telephone press conference attacking Skelton’s refusal to debate Hartzler, Skelton’s campaign manager...

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (Oct. 4, 2010) — U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton’s friend and colleague, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, will be debating her Democratic challenger, Tommy Sowers, on his home turf of Rolla later this month on Sunday, Oct. 17. However, Skelton so far has refused requests by his Republican challenger, Vicky Hartzler, to have either debates or candidate forums with both present. A Missouri Republican Party spokesman announced today that Missouri Republican Party Executive Director Lloyd Smith will be hosting a 3 p.m. Monday media conference call to discuss why their candidate is willing to debate Skelton, who so far...

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (Oct. 4, 2010) — Barely half an hour before a Republican press conference castigating Cong. Ike Skelton for not participating in candidate forums or debates, Skelton spokesman Jason Rauch announced that his candidate will be coming to the Waynesville-St. Robert Senior Citizens Center candidate forum on Oct. 12. The leader of that organization, Lela Randolph Dyl, could not immediately be reached for comment. The dinner preceding the event is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. and run until 6:30 p.m., with the candidate forum following at 7 p.m.

(Sept. 30, 2010) — This fall, Missouri residents might vote out the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, replacing U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, a conservative Democrat who describes himself as “the soldiers’ Congressman” in campaign material, with a member of a church which until a few months ago was known as Harrisonville Mennonite Church. Mennonites have been pacifists for centuries and have generally opposed military service, though some have served in various non-combat positions within the military. However, Hartzler’s campaign spokesman emphasizes that she is not a pacifist and does not agree with some views historically held by Mennonites....

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (Sept. 11, 2010) — Running against an incumbent with three decades of seniority is hard, especially when the incumbent has raised $1.9 million compared to $497,000 for the challenger. As of the last campaign finance reporting deadline, U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, a Democrat from Lexington, has spent $773,000 of his $1.9 million warchest, and much of that has gone into television advertising blasting his Republican challenger, Vicky Hartzler, a former state representative from Harrisonville. Hartzler cited those ads in a speech to those attending the Pulaski County Republicans’ fall picnic, held Sept. 11 at the Charles Bassett...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (Sept. 7, 2010) — While Republican congressional candidate Vicky Hartzler was able to raise and spend more money than her primary opponent, State Sen. Bill Stouffer, she doesn’t have anywhere close to the funding of the man she hopes to unseat, U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton. According to campaign finance reports released shortly before the August primary election, Hartzler raised $497,699 and spent $255,936 in her quest to win the Republican nomination; Stouffer spent about the same amount of money and had about $196,000 left, according to his last campaign finance report before the primary election. However, despite...

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (Sept. 6, 2010) — As a conservative Democrat and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, few were surprised when U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton’s re-election campaign began running television advertisements noting that “this year the VFW honored Ike with their Congressional award and said ‘our military, veterans and families ... have no better friend in Congress.’” However, other claims in that advertisement have drawn fire from supporters of Republican challenger Vicky Hartzler, including a section of the ad stating that “Hartzler called for a freeze on funding for veterans’ hospitals” which cites the Pulaski County Daily News...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Aug. 23, 2010) — A recent television interview with congressional candidate Vicky Hartzler by a Kansas City-area television station has led some to question how much Hartzler knows about the military, but campaign spokesman Steve Walsh says the interview put both Hartzler and incumbent U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton in a bad light. “Let’s face it; neither of them came off well,” Walsh said. “The impression you get from watching the Channel 41 report is Vicky Hartzler is suggesting that Missouri somewhere has a naval base, and that is, of course, ridiculous. She is fully aware there is...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (Aug. 25, 2010) — In a Wednesday afternoon conference call with statewide Missouri media, Lloyd Smith, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, explained why he believes voters in a mostly rural district that includes both Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air Force Base may be ready to unseat U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, the state’s longest-serving congressman who also serves as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. The Republican candidate is Vicky Hartzler of Harrisonville, a former state representative who was also the state spokeswoman for a Missouri ballot initiative that barred homosexual marriage statewide. “This...

SEDALIA, Mo. (Aug. 20, 2010) — For the first time since the mid-1990s, U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton has lost the endorsement of the Missouri Farm Bureau’s political action committee. The trustees of Missouri’s 4th Congressional District FARM-PAC announced Friday morning that they’ll be endorsing Vicky Hartzler, a former state representative from Harrisonville, over Skelton. “It has been a long, long time since we didn’t endorse Skelton, and for a long time before that, we made no endorsements,” said Charles Bassett, a rural Dixon resident who chairs the 4th Congressional District FARM-PAC. The Farm Bureau endorsement could reflect an important shift...

SAINT ROBERT, Mo. (July 28, 2010) — State Sen. Bill Stouffer knows he’s in an uphill battle trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton. When he visits military installations, he routinely sees everything from dog kennels to major training facilities named after Skelton, who as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has brought literally billions of dollars to Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air Force Base. So why would anyone ask voters in a county like Pulaski, where Skelton is widely credited with saving Fort Leonard Wood from closure, ask voters to close out Skelton’s congressional career of more...

SAINT ROBERT, Mo. (July 28, 2010) — It’s hard to avoid being attacked during a political campaign, but Pulaski County’s own legislator, State Rep. David Day, says he knows State Sen. Bill Stouffer well and believes recent attacks on him by former State Rep. Vicky Hartzler miss the mark. Stouffer and Hartzler are the two leading Republican candidates to replace U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, a longtime Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee and represents one of the most conservative congressional districts held by a Democrat. Skelton has rarely had aggressive opposition, but this year both Hartzler and Stouffer...

SAINT ROBERT, Mo. (July 28, 2010) — As one of the two leading Republican candidates seeking to replace U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, State Sen. Bill Stouffer said he rather than former State Rep. Vicki Hartzler or any of the other candidates is best qualified to replace a conservative Democrat with a conservative Republican in Congress. Speaking Wednesday morning at the Sunshine Café in St. Robert, Stouffer said anyone who wants to unseat Skelton after more than three decades needs to be able to understand farmers and rural Democrats. “I think I am the...

Red Skelton loved America. In one of his most famous soliloquies, Red Skelton re-enacted a lesson about the American Flag taught to him by his childhood teacher, Mr. Laswell. [See the video above and please visit Red's website here for more.]

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee says he opposes repealing the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gays serving openly in the military. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., told reporters Tuesday that he traveled throughout his congressional district over the Memorial Day recess, shortly after the House voted to repeal the ban, and the issue "just wasn't raised" by his constituents. Skelton said he still opposes the bill because he wants troops' opinions surveyed first.