Column:
Democrats should target Missouri's 8th District
Turning blue would be in the district's best interests.
Published April 23, 2009
This week I'm not going to write about the usual happenings in Jefferson City or Washington. Instead, I'm going to lay down some electoral analysis on my home congressional district, Missouri's 8th.
The 8th Congressional District is one of the largest districts geographically in Missouri and encompasses 28 counties. It stretches from the Bootheel north to Farmington, then over to Rolla and then down to Taney County close to Branson.
U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., has been representing the district since her husband, Bill, died in office in 1996. He held the seat since 1981.
I decided to write this column when I read Chaffee resident Rick Vandeven's letter to The Southeast Missourian criticizing Emerson's voting record on the various bailouts. Vendeven called her a socialist for voting for the TARP bill and omnibus spending bill which violates "an unspoken value system that rewards honesty and hard-working individualism" in Missouri's 8th Congressional District. (Remember now, both of those were written under former President George Bush.)
As you will read, Emerson is not the most conservative member of Congress, so Vandeven might be on to something with his flippant use of the word "socialist." Missouri's 8th is an R+15 on the Cook PVI scale, which means the district leans heavily to the right based on averages of the past two presidential elections (Columbia's district, the 9th, is R+9, but as you saw in the last election, could be flipped to the blue side.)
Emerson only has a 56 percent conservative rating from The American Conservative Union for 2008, which is down from 60 percent in 2006 and way less than her lifetime rating of 81.43 percent after 12 years in office. Considering that, I guess Emerson could be called a socialist relative to the district's voting preferences.
So when Democrats are strategizing for the 2010 campaigns, they must consider the question: Is Emerson becoming more moderate the longer she is in office, and does she still represent her very conservative district despite its preference for U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor-esque policies?
Surprisingly, yes and yes.
Despite being very conservative, Missouri's 8th district is the 14th poorest in the nation. Its poverty rate is 18.2 percent, and the median household income is $27,865.
Emerson has represented this constituency well over the last few years. In 2007 she co-sponsored the Feeding America's Families Act with Democrat U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and took the challenge to live off the federal food stamp weekly assistance payment of $21.
She's become more moderate on other issues as well. Also in 2007, she was among a group of moderate Republicans who approached Bush with concerns on the direction of the Iraq War. In 2005, she voted with the Bush administration on stem cells, but later changed her position.
Considering the district's voting tendencies, I'm glad Emerson is a moderate when a far right-winger could be elected from there. Her biggest threat for now may actually be from a primary challenger (Vandeven?).
So what should the Democrats in the 8th do? If they ever want to recapture the district -- or any rural, right leaning district -- they must build a bench of candidates starting at the county level and in the state legislature.
Campaign resources (read: money) are finite. It would cost at least $1 million to run an effective campaign for Congress when the same amount of money could fund dozens of county and state legislature candidates.
It's a slow process, but I think it's the only way to one day turn the district blue.
Nate Kennedy is the chairman of the Young Democrats of Missouri College Federation. He can be reached at nkennedy@themaneater.com.