The top Republican candidates for governor provided the clearest glimpse of what’s to come in the primary campaign during a forum Saturday at the party’s Lincoln Days gathering — and it featured some sharp elbows.
The verbal blows onstage reflect a new reality for a party that’s been dominant in state elections for nearly eight years. Republicans now face noticeable factionalism in their legislative supermajority and on the campaign trail.
Lincoln Days weekend in Kansas City is one of the biggest events for the party each year. Much of the weekend features speeches from top elected officials, mingling opportunities for party activists and officeholders, and the chance for aspiring candidates to meet some of the party’s most ardent volunteers.
The forum featured four gubernatorial candidates: Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, state Sen. Bill Eigel and Joplin businessman Chris Wright. Kehoe, Ashcroft and Eigel have raised millions of dollars in their bids to succeed retiring Gov. Mike Parson, while Wright has raised about $20,000.
Despite forum organizers placing restrictions on how candidates could attack or criticize each other, the roughly 45-minute event included several passive-aggressive barbs.
For instance: Ashcroft and Eigel both alluded to Kehoe’s support for boosting either sales taxes or gas taxes to fund the state’s transportation infrastructure. Eigel said “to have somebody stand up on this stage today, who has backed the largest tax increases in Missouri history, tried to present themselves as a tax cutter — that's why people hate politicians, folks.”
Ashcroft also said proceeds from the gas tax were “unaccountable” to the public since they are under the control of appointed Highways and Transportation Commission members — as opposed to the legislature. He also chastised the growth in the state budgets over the past few years, driven largely by an influx of federal money coming to the state.
“And when people talk about wanting to have low taxes, you can't have low taxes and double and triple the size of your government,” Ashcroft said. “It doesn't work when people say they want lower taxes, but they grow your government. Well, they're just saying something that just ain't true.”
For his part, Kehoe noted that he has supported more than $2 billion in tax cuts for Missourians. He also said after the forum that funding the state’s transportation infrastructure is an important economic and public safety priority. “It's critical to Missouri families, school buses, ambulances that drive across those roads and bridges,” he said.
While Kehoe largely refrained from directly or indirectly criticizing the other candidates, Eigel dinged both Ashcroft and Kehoe in his closing statement when he said, “Don't be afraid of the message that we can't take our state back because I don't have enough lobbyist money or I don't have the right last name for my dad.” Ashcroft is the son of former Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft.
“I got involved with politics when I realized that our government is out of control. And there's a reckoning needed all over this country,” Eigel said. “And I think that I got into this, just like millions of Missourians are getting into this political discussion right now, because of everything that is wrong in our government, everything that they're hearing from politicians and all the broken promises that they're tired of seeing.”
Ashcroft replied that despite coming from a political family, he initially aspired to be an civil engineer as opposed to running for office. But he said that in 2014, he chose to get involved in the political arena by running for state Senate because he felt he could do better than others running on the GOP ticket.
“Now's the time for choosing: Are we going to pick words, or we're going to pick actions?” Ashcroft said.
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Categories: Missouri, Government & Policy