War Erupts in Twain Country
Tough Primaries for Open Seat
Roll Call Staff
MACON, Mo. — If native son Mark Twain designed the set, legendary Republican henchman Lee Atwater wrote the script.
While GOP primary candidates readied themselves to deliver their well-worn stump speeches less than three weeks from the Aug. 5 primary, dozens of local conservative diehards mingled on the courthouse green here early one recent evening. Baked goods were stacked for a later auction and children stampeded on the vast lawn.
But by night’s end, the otherwise Twainsian scene — located just an hour west of Samuel Clemens’ birthplace — twice nearly erupted into madness. As the cattle call for Republicans seeking the open 9th district seat got under way, Alan Wyatt, a Republican county commissioner, allegedly assaulted a state Democratic Party videographer. And Lisle Moore, the husband of candidate state Rep. Danie Moore (R), cornered the young Democratic hand and threatened to beat him up, as the last of the auctioned pies found new homes.
“Did you film my wife, Danie Moore?” Lisle Moore, a local bail bondsman and gun dealer, said to the videographer. “Because if you ever do it without my permission, I’m going to kick your ass.”
(Moore later lunged for a Roll Call reporter who took a photograph of the escalating confrontation.)
Although decidedly less aggressive than Moore or Wyatt, many Republicans in retiring Rep. Kenny Hulshof’s (R) district agree that there is widespread frustration with the November ticket and the party’s direction this year. And they are readying themselves for a less-than-ideal political environment in which the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is planning to put 50 GOP House seats in play.
Making matters worse, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), is opening at least one campaign office in Hulshof’s district, in Pike County, and his Missouri strategy will include running up the score not only in urban centers, but in collegiate-heavy central Missouri and traditionally Dixiecrat Mississippi River towns — all of which are located in the 9th district.
President Bush won the vast, northeastern Missouri district with 59 percent of the vote four years ago, and Congressional Republicans have controlled it comfortably since Hulshof knocked off conservative 10-term Rep. Harold Volkmer (D) in 1996.
Rick Shoemaker, a Republican who attended the recent candidate forum at the courthouse and owns a Sinclair gas station nearby, considers himself “right in the middle of the energy debate.” Shoemaker said former state tourism director Blaine Luetkemeyer (R) is the strongest candidate to replace Hulshof and that he will vote for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), although he “wasn’t my first choice.”
Shoemaker also is preparing himself for the worst for Hulshof’s district come Election Day.
“This district can swing either way,” he said.
Bread-and-Butter Issues
In interviews during the candidate forum, Luetkemeyer and state Rep. Bob Onder, the two self-funding Republican frontrunners, said skyrocketing energy costs are far-and-away the No. 1 issue in rural areas of the district, where it’s not uncommon for voters to drive a dozen miles or more to buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk.
And once 9th district voters actually arrive at the grocery store, the candidates said, they are greeted with high prices for bread, milk and other staples impacted by the high costs of diesel fuel, fertilizer and animal feed.
A Missouri Farm Bureau survey out earlier this year showed state residents were paying about 5 percent more for a typical basket of groceries in the first three months of this year than they did in the first quarter of 2007.
“As you travel around this district, what most people talk about are gas prices,” Luetkemeyer said. “It is basically underpinning the inflationary trend of our entire economy.”
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