SEISMIC SHIFT IN MISSOURI POLITICS?

Missouri, a heartland swing state, has been trending red for some time now. The excesses of the Bush Regime and the rubber stamp and extremist Republicans seem to have changed that. In his race to retain his senate seat wingnut incumbent Jim Talent only managed to get 47% of the vote and Democrat Claire McCaskill, a moderate Democrat is far more representative of the state. Missouri has 9 congressional districts divided between 4 Democrats and 5 Republicans and it looks likely that Sam Graves (MO-06) will be forced into retirement next year by Democrat Kay Barnes. Most stunning of all was the SUSA election poll for next year's Missouri governorship. Extreme right wing governor Matt Blunt looks like one of the most likely GOP governors to lose his seat. The poll shows him with the support of only 38% and with Attorney General Jay Nixon beating him decisively. Blunt has the support of only 28% of women and Nixon beats him in virtually every demographic group, even in Blunt's native Ozarks, the most backward and Republican part of the state (represented in Congress by his reactionary and uber-corrupt father, Roy).

But that isn't today's news. Today's news is about State Senator Chris Koster. Yesterday Koster resigned as chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus. He spent the day on the phone with his major backers telling them that the GOP has moved way too far to the right and gotten way too extreme for a moderate voter or a moderate legislator. He is officially switching parties today-- like so many Republicans in neighboring Kansas have already done.

Koster, a candidate for attorney general next year, will hold news conferences in Columbia, Harrisonville and St. Louis. In a news release, he promised "a speech that may transform the political landscape of Missouri."