As
we get to another upcoming election that I’m blogging about, I might as well
skip the part where I explain why I’m blogging about it and just switch to the
part where I explain the race in question. The incumbent governor of Missouri
is Republican Mike Parsons. He is running for reelection. He is being
challenged by Democrat Nicole Galloway.
Mike
Parsons was not elected governor of Missouri. But he was elected lieutenant
governor. After the previous governor, Eric Greitens, had numerous scandals and
ultimately resigned from office, Mike took over. I forget what else he’s done
offhand.
Of
course, we should get to any issues that he has. There was a possible tax credit
controversy that I don’t quite understand. He might have benefited from it
going one way and just happened to get what he needed to when things went a
certain way. I didn’t quite understand it.
There
was also an appointment controversy over the fact that he appointed a new
lieutenant governor when it seemed like it was outside of his power to do. The
Missouri Supreme Court ruled in his favor to make a new number two despite the
fact that it would seem the constitution of the state stated that this wasn’t
allowed. What is worth noting is that you’d think there would have been enough
time to do a special election for it since he took office in June and the
primary in 2018 wasn’t until August that year, which would have given plenty of
time for all sorts of candidates to come into the race.
Now
there may come a time when I start doing an analysis of various governors after
they have left office in a different political blog. The main reason for that
is so I can talk about all of the men and women who were governors during the
coronavirus. Now, Mike wasn’t doing stay at home orders at first due to, I’m
not sure. Maybe he just didn’t want to. He eventually caved in after numerous
cities did what he wasn’t doing. But he fails to reign in the issues that
constantly are happening at Lake of the Ozarks. I forget if Missouri is doing
badly compared to other states in terms of coronavirus which could be due to
the fact that less people live there.
He
has made some controversial statements recently. The first one is covered in
this article as he wound up telling people not to vote if they felt too sick or
worried about going to the polls. He also is not expanding voting by mail,
despite the fact that many want to do it during times like these that are going
on today.
Another
point of controversy with him relates to the couple who were pointing guns at
protesters who support the Black Lives Matter movement. He said that he might
pardon them and we still don’t know if they will have charges filed against
them yet at all.
Perhaps
the biggest controversial thing that he has done or said relates to his
dismissive way he is treating coronavirus during the school reopening debate. While
it might be more like an ordinary sickness in the future, it isn’t like that
yet as it is more like the flu when it first spread as a pandemic a century ago
near the end of World War I. For one, there is no vaccine yet. For another, the
infection rate remains high. This article explains a good deal about why
reopening schools is a bad idea while including his ignorant quote about it.
Now
let’s get to Nicole Galloway. She is currently the only woman who holds state
wide office in Missouri and the only Democrat as well. (This obviously excludes
people who represent only part of the state, unless my information is wrong.) She
would be the first female governor of the state of Missouri if she wins the
election. She does have experience as she currently holds office and had held
others too. I believe that she’s the auditor of the state, whatever that means,
but am not sure right now as I forget to note it while preparing this post.
She
is not without controversy of her own as there were possible issues with the
Sunshine law being broken by her based on something that seems dumb relating to
texts she got that were then deleted automatically. Since the Republican
Attorney General seemed to clear her of any wrongdoing (and I haven’t even seen
this touched upon in ads), then I wouldn’t worry about this being that big of
an issue right now.
There
is a dumb seeming thread to me among the political ads that I see in Missouri. It
seems that all a Republican has to do to win is call an opponent too liberal
and this liberal loses. How can they be duped so easily? I can only hope that
this fails at some point in time, but am not sure that it will this election
since Democrats seem posed to do badly with governor elections this year based
on polls last I checked.
Now
I might as well close this with the endorsement of who I think should win and
thus, who people should vote for in the general election in the state of
Missouri. While Mike is currently saying that he won’t run in 2024 if he wins
this year, I say that it isn’t worth keeping him around for now. The only good
vote of someone who would actually care about Missouri is Nicole Galloway
and if you can vote in Missouri this election, then vote for her for governor.
