Eric Greitens and Memorial Day

I admit it, I wasn’t a fan of Governor Greitens, but I did believe he was due a fair date in court. Apparently things weren’t going his way, so he resigned for reasons of his own.
There are going to be other legal woes facing him, but no longer from the Missouri House, which can now move on to other issues facing the state. The entire debacle was compounded by an overzealous Democratic prosecutor, who apparently engaged an inept private investigator. Now people are trying to follow where the backing monies were coming from to fund both the governor and the prosecution.
It sounds like a lot of politics were involved with people blindly following their particular political feelings and alliances. Anyway, it was in Missouri’s best interests that he resign, rather than allowing this sore to fester further.
While going door -to-door, I hear about people like Greitens, Senator McCaskill and President Trump. I try to keep my campaign away from those conversations for two reasons. One, if they feel strongly enough to mention these people to me, they have probably already made up their minds, and nothing I can say will alter their held opinions. Two, even if I am elected, I have absolutely no say in national level politicians or federal issues. I will be trying to focus on the issues I can do something about, such as infrastructure help for our smaller communities and also working on bringing industries to the larger ones. All of the 51st District communities ought to have their priorities looked at by their representative, and members of those communities should give him or her advice and support as they work to alleviate their concerns.
One representative cannot do much more than voice an opinion and use their vote, but if they study the issue, works with all other representatives and works hard to make their views known, then they may be able to influence the final bill, and then decide if they will support it or not.
Just because a bill is proposed by a Republican is no reason for me to not study and evaluate it, and similarly, if there is a bill sponsored by a Democrat, I will not blindly support it.
I am willing to wager that I will generally find more in common with rural-based bills than I will with bills from St. Louis, Kansas City or Springfield where monies are involved, as those cities generally get the lion’s share of the funding. There are times when the rural areas need equal funding. A huge proportion of Missouri citizens are rural based, and they are the backbone of the state. If a major industry leaves St. Louis and people lose their jobs, it is a bad deal for everyone, but there are other industries, and major cities tend to absorb those losses better than a smaller city could with one of its industries failing.
Also, no matter what happens in the larger cities, we must rely on our agri-businesses to be our base support. There is no way we can survive if our farmers, grain terminals, shipping and food processing people fail. We need to keep them in mind in all negotiations, and continue to realize that they are the backbone of Missouri’s economics.
I took last week off from writing this blog as there was little new to report. Melody and I did do our door-to-door work in Mt. Leonard, Grand Pass and Malta Bend. I spoke to a lot of supportive people. There have been a lot of familiar faces in those towns from my days at the Habilitation Center. I am ready to enter this new month with a few visits to city council meetings, a few union meetings, and I have a few groups wanting to discuss my campaign with me. I get questionnaires in the mail on a regular basis. I try to see if they are far right wing or left wing, and I try to stay away from those, as I would be wasting their time, as well as mine. Those groups that I do respond to tend to send a lot of e-mails and call me on the phone quite often. Some are supportive and others may not be on the same page as I am. I do find that many are focused on just one issue. A few of them even state that they are “no compromise.” I am all about compromise, so those get tossed as soon as I read that comment.
I hope that everyone had a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend. We bar-be-qued and had some family time, but now I am itching to get back to work. I hope to see a lot of you shortly.