Look at the recent Daily Bits on the website. Super delegates. President Whack a Mole.

2020               General Election

“Politics ain’t beanbag.” Not in Missouri.

Nicole Galloway https://nicolegalloway.com/ is Missouri’s State Auditor. She is running for Governor. Missouri’s politics of the last few years provides a context for her current job and her candidacy.

She became State Auditor after the previous elected State Auditor, Tom Schweich, committed suicide during his campaign for Governor. A Republican, the reports were that he was distressed by a “whispering campaign” claiming that he was Jewish. An Episcopalian, he did, apparently, have a Jewish paternal grandfather.

We need to recognize that depression is the principal cause of suicide. An Episcopalian being maliciously mistaken for a Jew is not a likely reason for suicide,

Mike Parson is the incumbent Governor. The former Lt. Governor, he became Governor when Eric Greitens resigned from the job. Greitens had been a dream candidate. No rumors about him being Jewish. He is Jewish. He grew up Jewish and a Democrat. He did convert – to Republicanism. A Rhodes scholar, a Truman scholar, he studied philosophy at Oxford where he got a doctorate. A former White House Fellow under GW Bush, a former Navy SEAL deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, he has a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, was an Oxford Blues boxer, and ran marathons in less than three hours.

As Governor, he initiated ethics reforms and signed a “right to work” bill into law. He opposed Medicaid expansion and eliminated a variety of regulations. He introduced a Foster Care Bill of Rights to improve the lives of children. He supported state funds for religious schools, called out the National Guard early to prevent Ferguson-like protests after a St. Louis police officer was found not guilty of murder. He personally led a clean up of a vandalized Jewish cemetery.

He resigned, of course, after being indicted. His former mistress charged him with abuses, among them taking nude pictures of her without her consent. He was also indicted for improper use of donor lists. Charges were dropped when he resigned. There is more to say about Greitens’ mess. Not now. Now Nicole Galloway is running for Governor against the incumbent.

The incumbent, Mike Parsons became Governor upon Eric Greitens’ resignation. Parsons spent six years in the army in the military police. He returned home to farm and to serve in the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate –pledging not to vote to raise taxes. As Lt. Governor, he faced controversies about gifts from lobbyists. As Governor, he has been a Republican. He proposed repeal of a constitutional amendment to conduct nonpartisan redistricting and signed a law making an abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy a criminal act.

Nicole Galloway is running against Mike Parsons and against the political chaos of the past few years. She brings the temperament of a math major, a CPA, a Certified Fraud Examiner, and a former County Treasurer to the task. She complains public money has been given away, wasted, and stolen.

Nicole Gallaway touts her record uncovering wasted or stolen money, successes that led to criminal indictments.  As State Auditor she found a hospital had $90 million in inappropriate bills (She may find more if the next step is to look at the management company the hospital used.) She discovered a County Collector had embezzled $300,000 and a small city clerk was forced to return $100,000 after receiving stolen property. Recently, she found that a counseling firm was billing both the County and Medicaid, a group of businessmen were using funds from a special tax district to pay off their own debts, and a police chief and town administrator was stealing money. She succeeded in protecting the anonymity of a whistleblower who had complained of misuse of sales tax funds.

She has been subject to scrutiny. A right wing organization hired Greitens’ lawyer and sued to obtain documents. Nicole Gallaway turned over a bunch, but successfully insisted that non-substantial documents were not required. The organization further complained that she did not turn over documents from her cell phone because messages were deleted after 30 days.

Since that complaint Nicole Galloway has created guidelines regarding self-destructing documents and led a campaign to encourage local and county documents to follow public document guidelines that prohibit using applications that automatically destroy or delete documents. She proposed legislation prohibiting self-destroying public documents. The proposal passed the House, but died in the Senate. She had made government transparency her issue and strengthened ownership of that issue with those campaigns.

“Politics ain’t beanbag.” Nicole Galloway ran a tough campaign to be elected in her own right – defeating Republican attorney Saundra McDowell. McDowell had a lot to be criticized about. Her law practice had failed. She and her husband had financial problems and weren’t paying their bills. Their landlord sued them successfully for $30,000 in unpaid rent and fees, garnishing her wages and her husbands. It got worse. She was accused of not meeting the residence requirements for a State Auditor. When she raised the issue of disappearing cell phone message documents, the Republican District Attorney, now a US Senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, investigated and found no evidence of any wrongdoing on Nicole Galloway’s part.

Nicole Galloway https://nicolegalloway.com/ can take care of herself. Running for Governor of Missouri as a Democrat is hard. Border states like West Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri have become deeply Republican. Donate. Volunteer. Do what you can to help Nicole Galloway win this election. Missouri may feel far away for you. When one more state has a Democratic governor, it is another state that minimizes the possibility of gerrymandering its own legislature and the US Congress. It affects your life.

Democrats can win Governorships anywhere. In 2019, Democrats won Governorships in Louisiana and Kentucky. A Democrat lost a close race in Mississippi. More to come for 2020

Missouri                   State Auditor Nicole Galloway

North Carolina        Inc. Roy Cooper

North Dakota          House Minority Leader Josh Boschen

Vermont                   Ex Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe

Washington             Inc Jay Inslee

Several states have competitive Democratic primary races. Frontrunners may emerge. We may have to wait for the primary.