Election 2012

Republican congressman Todd Akin has made good on his promise to stay in the Missouri Senate race against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill.

Tuesday's final deadline for Missouri candidates to remove their names from the ballot came and went at 5 p.m. as Akin continued a bus tour across the state. It's a final confirmation that he's resisting calls from within his own party to drop his bid.

The presidential candidates have yet to meet in a face-to-face debate. But last week in Des Moines, Iowa, ag leaders witnessed a preview of sorts during a Presidential Forum on Agriculture held in advance of the annual meeting of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.

Two small items in the New York Times from the Democratic Convention caught my eye.  The first was that Rahm Emanuel, the Mayor of Chicago, is now leading a Democratic SuperPac, one of those new types of fund-raising organizations, trying to pry big dollars loose from liberal donors.  Some of these donors have refrained out of principled opposition to SuperPacs.  Others have more personal reasons.  For example, George Soros has taken a pass because he could not get face time with President Obama.  So it will be a tough sell.

This week on the show, a report on what’s holding up the farm bill; and regular contributor Terry Smith weighs in on the Democratic National Convention.

I again asked students in my American Political Parties class at Columbia College if President Obama’s acceptance speech was a success and if it changed their minds about him.  Of the six who sought the bonus points, four went in supporting Obama and none changed their minds.  Most comments were about the emotional power of the speech and how good a public speaker he is.  The criticisms were of the lack of specifics.  One was very positive despite her feeling that he had made little progress on his promises from four years ago.

Lawmakers are returning to Jefferson City for their annual veto session, which begins Wednesday at noon.

House and Senate leaders will attempt to override Governor Jay Nixon’s (D) veto of a bill that levies local sales taxes on out-of-state vehicle purchases.  The issue has heated up, as Nixon’s supporters are running radio ads urging Missouri citizens to call their lawmakers and tell them not to override the Governor’s veto.

Nixon calls the bill a retroactive tax hike on anyone who’s bought a vehicle outside of Missouri this year, while GOP leaders say it will provide much-needed revenue to local police and fire departments and encourage car and boat buyers to shop in Missouri.  Speaker Pro-tem Shane Schoeller (R, Willard) admits the chances of overriding the veto of the vehicle sales tax bill are slim.

Will be updated.

The Missouri Farm Bureau political action committee announced that it's sticking by its endorsement of Congressman Todd Akin as he faces incumbent Claire McCaskill in the race for US Senate.

In a release to the media, FARM-PAC, made up of trustees from the farm bureaus in every Missouri county, say that they again "overwhelmingly" voted to support Akin.

A Cole County judge has upheld a ballot summary prepared by Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D) for a proposed constitutional amendment that would expand the governor’s role in appointing State Supreme Court judges.

The ballot language for Amendment 3 asks:

"We heard some facts being spun" Thursday night when President Obama and Vice President Biden gave their acceptance speeches at the Democratic National Convention, report the watchdogs at FactCheck.org.

They and other independent fact checkers have compiled, just as they did at last week's Republican National Convention, a list of those things said by the two parties' standard bearers that don't quite add up or may give misleading impressions.

President Barack Obama will take the stage tonight (Thursday) in Charlotte, North Carolina, to cap the Democratic National Convention.  In 2008, Obama narrowly lost in Missouri.