Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Stay tuned...it's gonna be worth the wait...

This is a very busy time for me. First of all, we are doing some facelift stuff at WTWC. I spent one entire day fighting code to install Blogads (the "Advertising Liberally" folks) on that site. I was the first person to install it after some sort of server issue or upgrade or something. When I finally got the code, I first got typepad. Lets just say that didn't work and leave it at that, because I would need quite a lot of Glenmorangie 18-year-old Scotch, so vicious would be the flashback to htm-hell, if I get into that - and Costco is closed this time of night. We are also adding a custom masthead and some other professional-looking features since we have moved up a rung and are getting linked consistently by "A-list" political blogs. I have sort of morphed into something of an “Editor in Chief” over there (teach me to have an idea and act on it, huh?) Anyway, the responsibilities there have been enough to keep me busy all by themselves.


But it doesn’t stop there – hell that doesn’t even register as a speed bump!


The second thing is a new site that will be rolling out in a few days - I'll have more to say about that in a day or two when it is a wee bit closer - anyway, I have agreed to try my hand at media relations for this noble cause, and as such, I have been applying myself to getting ready for the task soon to be at hand. Since the focus is Missouri politics, specifically getting Missouri Democrats elected, I have been studying up on the importance of my state in the electoral scheme of things. After all, if I'm gonna do this thing, I'm gonna do it right.


It's a strange sensation, to suddenly feel a sense of permanence. (I assume that is what this is.) I have bounced billet to billet to college to college to billet to billet to billet...Then, one day, seven years ago it stopped. We sort of looked at one another and said “What now?” and we came to the last place he called home and I latched on like Ed Sawyer. My husband grew up just blocks from where we now live. He attended elementary through high school walking distance from the front door of our building. Me? I had grandparents who farmed in the MO 6th but I was only there once or twice a year. I voted there, however, mostly absentee, even after I got married, until I had kids. Then I voted where ever we were stationed – you do that when your kids are in the schools. (Ask Nancy Boyda how that fact worked out for her last November. My claim to punditry fame is calling that race from day one, because I understand the military vote and what motivates it.)


Anyway, I guess this is it. I’m here, and I have been for almost seven years. That is longer than I have ever been one place in my life. (Although we were in Wichita three times and if you go cumulative, KC has a couple of years to go.)

Don't get the wrong idea - this is all perfectly cool with yours truly. Hell, this is where the fight is, and I have family ties going back six generations in this state via one set of grandparents. I even had the foresight to be born a few weeks early while the folks were on leave and visiting my Missouri grandparents.


It was Karma, I tell ya.

Anyway – like I said, I’m here now, and I’m staying here, and I am of the species animalius politicus, When you look at the big picture, where the hell else would a political animal even want to be in 2008?


Missouri has what amounts to a Governor’s Mansion up for grabs, so weak is baby guv. We also have a 5/4 split in the U.S. House with Republicans currently enjoying the majority, but that could change. Missouri also has a Republican Party in turmoil. We are possibly on the verge of a split between the sane and insane branches of the Republican Party. The sane branch is led by former Governor and current Senior Senator Kit Bond, and the insane branch is led by the Blunt/Graves unholy marriage of minions to ideologues. A civil war is brewin in the MOGOP, and I am calling the play by play, what with having intermittently had front row seats for the Kansas Republican Party psychodrama that has unfolded over the last two decades.


With eleven electoral votes, two major cities led by Democratic mayors, an evenly split Senate delegation, a House delegation split as closely as an odd number can be using whole numbers, a Republican governor in trouble and facing a strong Democratic challenger in the states Attorney General (traditionally a springboard to the mansion – and no senate race this cycle – Missouri is crucial. All eyes need to be fixed on us, and Democrats from border to border and coast to coast need to adopt a Missouri Democratic candidate and support them to the best of their ability. (I will be defending this thesis shortly.)


Anyway – That is what I have been up to – I promise I haven’t abdicated – exactly the opposite in fact. We are entering the election season, whether you like it or not. The game is afoot and I came to play.


No, let me rephrase that...I didn’t just come to play – I came to win.

No comments: