Missouri GOP director Lloyd Smith to speak at Emerson picnic

Lloyd Smith returns for a public event in Southeast Missouri tonight after spending four months in his new role as executive director of the Missouri Republican Party. He said he'll bring a message that the Show Me State is in good shape for the GOP.

Smith, longtime chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson and her late husband Bill Emerson, will be the keynote speaker for Emerson's annual picnic at the Arena Building. Smith secured his current job through the work he did to help turn Southeast Missouri solidly Republican and by managing statewide campaigns, including Jim Talent's two bids for the U.S. Senate.

Doors to the picnic open at 4:30 p.m., with a program focused on energy legislation known as cap-and-trade to begin at 5:30 p.m.

Looking out to 2010, Smith said the GOP has a daunting task to hold control of the Missouri House of Representatives, where a shift of eight seats could cost the party its majority. The party is also defending the U.S. Senate seat held by Kit Bond, who is retiring.

Term limits will force 55 members of the 163-member Missouri House to step aside in 2010, and 36 of those seats are held by Republicans. The GOP must also defend a handful of other seats held by members who have decided to seek other offices, he noted.

"The key to 2010 is obviously working extremely hard for the top of the ticket, which in this case is the U.S. Senate race," Smith said.

Republicans will also try to wrest control of the state auditor's office away from Democratic incumbent Susan Montee and defend their 23-11 majority in the Missouri Senate.

Voters, Smith said, will reward Republicans for prudent stewardship of the state's finances. "Voters feel that the Republican Party has done very well," Smith said. "Look at our candidates, even the ones who are running for the first time, are running on a platform of fiscal conservatism."

The mechanics of party building have also not been neglected, Smith said. The party expects incumbent lawmakers to raise money and make it available to help candidates in need.

"We have done a better job of recruiting the right kind of candidates, making sure they are well-funded and given the right kind of expertise," Smith said.

The U.S. Senate race will likely be a choice between Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt of Springfield, a Republican, Smith said. He said he's not discounting the candidacy of state Sen. Chuck Purgason, R-Caulfield, and worries a hard-fought primary will leave the winner with an exhausted treasury and tarnished image.

Democrats believe Blunt has already tarnished his image through comments questioning the wisdom of Medicare and Medicaid during discussions of health-care reform.

On Medicare and Medicaid, Blunt said on a Columbia, Mo., radio station in early July that "you could certainly argue that government should have never gotten into the health-care business, and that might have been the best argument of all to figure out how people could have had more access to the competitive marketplace. The government did get into the health-care business in a big way in 1965 with Medicare and later with Medicaid. And government already distorts the marketplace. A government competitor would drive all of the other competitors away."

In a stop Friday in Cape Girardeau, Nixon said the Medicare comment will have its place in the campaign.

"Medicare is a very popular program that has provided for senior citizens a consistent, affordable health-care option," he said.

Blunt's statements about Medicare should be considered in the context of a Washington debate over further government involvement in providing health insurance.

"I have no doubt that Roy Blunt supports Medicare," Smith said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

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Pertinent addresses:

410 Kiwanis Drive, Cape Girardeau, Mo.