The bad news about the 2010 midterm elections, from our point of view, is plain enough.
President Barack Obama will face a bitterly divided Congress for the second half of his term.
Missouri is a blood-red state.
The Missouri Democratic Party still has not confronted its own racial barriers and irrational addiction to highly paid outside consultants to properly engage its reliably progressive black base.
The Missouri Legislature is now virtually the Missouri Republican Legislature; its agenda will be even more rural and less diverse than before.
Mayor Francis G. Slay brazenly put the interests of his single largest campaign donor, Rex Sinquefield, before the public safety of our city.
The statewide passage of Proposition A – which will force St. Louis to defend its critical earnings tax at the polls every five years – threatens an already struggling city with a new chronic crisis in credit worthiness, fiscal security and public safety.
There is also good news, however.
Obama’s party kept control of the U.S. Senate, and the critical electoral states of California and New York withstood the voter surge from the right.
Missouri, where Democratic campaigns mostly were battered by this surge, showed it still has a progressive base in the urban and suburban areas, if it can be engaged and unleashed.
That progressive base helped U.S. Rep Carnahan, an early and strong supporter of Obama, defeat one of the worst Republican candidates on any ballot in the nation for this midterm.
More specfically, African Americans in North County very clearly provided the needed votes to reelect County Executive Charlie A. Dooley, who trailed his Republican challenger all night until the largely black districts in the county reported.
As for Proposition A and Slay, it is reassuring to know that some of his irresponsible actions and futility as a regional leader – something we have forcibly discussed for years – has now been laid bare for everyone to see. The consequences for the city and region of this latest example of feebleness by the city’s chief executive officer remains to be seen.
Comptroller Darlene Green and a contingent of aldermen and officials fronted by Stephen Conway opposed Prop A early, then were joined later in the campaign by aldermanic President Lewis Reed.
It is possible a different, bolder leadership could emerge from the local struggle to defeat Prop A – an effort that was very effective in the city of St. Louis, despite a massively funded campaign. The city defeated Sinquefield and Slay on Prop A by more than two to one – 68 percent to 32 percent, a margin of 32,222 votes.
While it received fewer raw votes, a citywide proposition that voices non-binding support for local control of the city police won by an even wider margin, 69 to 31 percent.
Compassionate animals lovers throughout our state also have Missouri’s urban base to thank for the passage of Proposition B, which will muzzle the worst abuses of dog breeders.
If Missouri Democrats finally learn that they need to thoroughly embrace and engage their African-American base, and St. Louis finally learns that it keeps entrusting its future to a weak leader in Francis Slay, then the 2010 midterms could prove to be a painful but productive lesson.
