As most of you know, quite possibly one of the looniest members of the incoming Republican freshman class is Vicky Hartzler, who toppled House Armed Services Committee chairman Ike Skelton in MO-04. It had been a matter of time before this district would go Repub. At R+14, this was tied for the sixth most Republican district to be represented by a Democrat.
But based on Hartzler's profile, we might have a chance--a small one--of at least temporarily taking this district back in the near future. Hartzler is violently anti-gay--to the point of almost being a one-trick pony. If that sounds familiar, it's very similar to the profile of Marilyn Musgrave, the author of the Federal Marriage Amendment. And yet, despite representing a distinctly Republican district, Musgrave is out of a job. That alone gives me hope that we can take out Hartzler.
Mother Jones did a profile of Hartzler back in November, which showed just how single-minded she is about opposing gay rights. Back in 2004, she led the effort to place a gay marriage ban in Missouri's constitution.
Doug Gray, a political consultant who was on the other side of the Missouri amendment fight, says anti-gay bias is central to Hartzler's identity. "It's a core issue for her," he says. "Vicky is biased. She has always been very motivated by this issue." A spokesman for Hartzler's campaign says she's "not prejudiced against anyone": "She just thinks certain things are a traditional part of society—marriage being one of them."
Hartzler's amendment was a bit of a red herring: Gays would not have been able to marry in the state, regardless. After all, Missouri is one of many states where you could still be fired for being gay, and the state has no law granting hospital-visitation rights for gay couples. Gay rights supporters had a hard time getting across the point that, since Missouri has a state law banning gay marriage, gays and lesbians wouldn't be able to get married even if the amendment failed.
Gray also said that during the Repub primary, Hartzler and her main opponent spent most of their time out-homophobing each other.
There's a reason that MO-04 kept sending Skelton to Congress even as it got redder over the years. We once had a pretty solid base there, in Kansas City's eastern suburbs. However, as Kansas City lost population, a lot of that territory ended up going to MO-05. It got replaced with some more Republican territory in the Ozarks. The rural areas already had a social conservative tint (a couple of the kids from "Jesus Camp" come from this area, if that tells you anything). To me, it seems to indicate that the voters over there may tilt right, but actually expect their congresscritters to be somewhat competent.
Also, it seems to me that MO-04 is very similar in character to Musgrave's district, CO-04. Both are mostly conservative rural districts, but with a pretty hefty percentage of their vote cast in areas where Dems can run it up enough to win. Witness what happened to Musgrave in her three reelection bids. She was so focused on anti-gay activism that she paid almost no attention to constituent services. It also helped (from our perspective) that despite professing to be a tongue-talking Pentecostal, she was laughably corrupt. As a result, she barely held on to her seat in 2004 and 2006 largely because her Dem challengers went gangbusters in Fort Collins. Betsy Markey finally took her out in 2008. Granted, Markey was only a one-termer, but on paper, this is a district that we should have had no business even competing in. Given how similar Hartzler's profile seems to be to Musgrave's, Dems in MO-04 should be ready to pounce if need be.