Finding a path

Daniel Desrochers

This week, Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Arizona, was caught changing his campaign website to remove statements that he believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Masters is running in a state President Joe Biden won by a narrow margin. In doing so, he flipped a state that produced former Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, a staunch conservative who paved the way for former President Ronald Reagan, for the first time since former President Bill Clinton’s reelection bid in 1996. Before that, the last Democrat to win Arizona was former President Harry Truman.

It’s not uncommon for someone like Masters to attempt to soften his image for the general election after a contentious primary. The voter base in a general election is much different than the ideologues who typically vote in a primary and in order to have a chance to win, Masters has to broaden his appeal.

But the whole affair made me curious about what was going on in Missouri’s U.S. Senate race, particularly if Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, the Republican nominee, has made any changes to his issues page after winning a contentious, crowded Republican primary.

He has not.

Under the section that says “Election Integrity,” Schmitt proudly touts his role in filing an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to delay the certification of presidential electors.

“In the 2020 election, when glaring illegal actions involving our sacred elections surfaced, Eric authored and led the brief supporting the Pennsylvania Republican Party against the unbelievable and unconstitutional actions of the Pennsylvania courts,” the site says. “He also authored and led a brief in support of Texas’ lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin before the United States Supreme Court, and he was joined by 17 other states.”

The argument was rejected by the court. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election and the cases brought by Trump’s campaign and their allies were overwhelmingly rejected by the courts.

The argument against Pennsylvania’s courts is the same made by U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, who was the first member of the U.S. Senate to say he would object to the certification of the election.

The difference between Masters attempting to soften his image and Schmitt staying on his current course is a reflection of the divided political landscape. Schmitt doesn’t have to try and soften his image — in fact is better off not softening his image, politically — because of the current strength of the Republican Party in Missouri.

It’s also an illustration in how politicians are often forced to move to meet their voting base.

In the modern iteration of politics, candidates are more often rewarded electorally for being fighters than they are for cutting deals or providing services to the people of the state.

Schmitt was once hailed as a moderate in the Missouri state senate, the person Democrats talked to if they wanted to make a deal. The current iteration of Schmitt is a guy throwing things into the path of rollerblading Democrats, hoping they’ll trip.

More from Missouri

A Boone County Circuit Court judge issued a ruling on the child custody case between former Gov. Eric Greitens and his ex-wife Sheena Greitens. But the court shielded the judgment from the public, entering it under a level six security clearance, a designation typically reserved for sensitive information and grand jury indictments. Filings in a Texas court reveal it was attempt to protect the privacy of the couple’s children.

Here are headlines from across the state:

And across Kansas

A Trump-appointed former federal prosecutor said he could not support Republican gubernatorial nominee Derek Schmidt in November’s election because of Schmidt’s decision as Kansas attorney general to sign a brief in support of a lawsuit challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in several swing states. The amicus brief, led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, was filed in support of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to get the U.S. Supreme Court to extend the deadline to certify presidential electors as former President Donald Trump’s legal team worked to get state legislatures to reject the outcome of the election.

The latest from Kansas City

In Kansas City …

Have a news tip? Send it along to ddesrochers@kcstar.com

Odds and ends

Will Schmitt sue?

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Attorney General Eric Schmitt was in talks with other Republican attorneys general to sue the Biden administration over their plan to eliminate $10,000 in student loan debt on federal loans and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.

Chris Nuelle, Schmitt’s spokesman, said the Attorney General made it clear last week that he was looking into legal options to block the plan.

The Biden administration would be canceling the debt under a law Congress passed after 9/11 that allows the executive branch to make changes to the federal student loan program during a national emergency. It’s the same law former President Donald Trump used to suspend student loan payments in the midst of the worst of the pandemic.

Conservatives, however, said Biden may be stepping out of his authority by using the waning COVID-19 pandemic to cancel loans and pushed back on the notion that the government should cancel any student loan debt, saying it’s unfair to people who have already paid off their loans.

The Biden administration criticized lawmakers who made that argument last week, pointing out that some were beneficiaries of PPP loans, which went out to businesses during the pandemic and were forgiven by the government.

The Tea Party express

Remember the Tea Party, the 2010 movement that formed in opposition to President Barack Obama and completely reshaped the Republican Party — ushering in an era of politicians like U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, more intent on ideological purity than compromise?

Well Tea Party Express, a group which calls itself the largest and most aggressive Tea Party political action committee in the country, weighed in this week in the campaign for Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District, endorsing Republican Amanda Adkins.

The group cited Adkins endorsement from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (who uses the same political consultant as Adkins), calling her a “commonsense conservative.”

It’s an interesting endorsement as both Adkins and her opponent, Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids, are attempting to emphasize their moderate bona fides to win support in the competitive district.

Still, both Adkins and Davids need to lock up their respective bases — and for Adkins that means the more conservative voters who identify with the Tea Party. Endorsements typically have little impact on voters, but can help signal to certain groups of people which candidate they should support.

Twitter trend

The other day, Trudy Busch Valentine, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Missouri, wrote on Twitter “I’m the woman who’s going to make sure Eric Schmitt never gets a seat in the U.S. Senate.”

A candidate saying they think they’re going to win their election is not really noteworthy, but it seems to be a part of a pattern I’ve noticed where Democrats — particularly those facing uphill battles — send out these milquetoast cheers on the social media platform.

They’re obviously intended for engagement — 19 hours after the tweet it had nearly 5,000 likes and more than 1,000 retweets — which, in turn, the candidates hope turns into grassroots donations.

And while I understand it logically (little work, on message, brings engagement) I still genuinely wonder why people retweet and like it.

Maybe it’s like the wave at sporting events where like a select few people are really, really into it and the rest of us just kind of go along with it because everyone else is standing and you don’t want to seem like a fuddy duddy.

Bah humbug.

Happy Friday

Read this story about lawns (trust me, it’s more interesting than it sounds). I was at a wedding in Ireland last weekend, where I took a shot called a “Baby Guinness.” Also both the live band and DJ ended with this Dublin club song called Maniac 2000 that’s... well, just listen to it.

Enjoy your weekend.

Daniel Desrochers is the Star’s Washington, D.C. Correspondent
Daniel Desrochers is the Star’s Washington, D.C. Correspondent

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