Missouri: The Shear-Me State

With just under a fortnight to go until the biennial madness known as US General Election Season subsides, coverage from around the world increases along with the robo-calls and mud-slinging 30-second adverts. Recently, the BBC's Kevin Connolly breezed through Missouri and commented on our election mood, as well as his affinity for our nickname. Unfortunately, he only touched on the sentiment toward Washington and barely touched on state issues that also face Missouri voters.

Had Mr. Connolly done this, he might wind up coming up with a different nickname for the Show-Me State. Were he to comment on all the ads from Robin & Roy and Ike & Vicky, a more appropriate moniker would have been the Smear-Me State. Or, had he wanted to speak in detail on at least two of the five proposed ballot measures, he just might have developed a different, perhaps fitting nickname:

The Shear-Me State.

The two ballot measures in particular are Proposition A, which would effectively eliminate taxes on earnings, and Proposition B, which would establish additional laws covering the treatment and breeding of dogs. Both are changes to Missouri's revised statutes, meaning that lawmakers could, at any point in the future, pass a bill through the General Assembly to countermand their passage.

To explain why these two measures could turn Missouri into The Shear-Me State, I now introduce Rex H. Susa:Rex H. Susa is not a happy sheep. You see, he's been told repeatedly by singular interests, wooing him by way of millions of dollars of second-rate adverts, to vote yes on Propositions A and B, believing that they're going to help him out, when their backers are instead treating him like the sheep he is so that their agenda can come to fruition at his expense.

Come to think of it, you could write the argument for the opposition of both measures this way:
"Proposition [A/B] is funded singularly by one [outstate arch-conservative billionaire/out-of-state activist organization] driven to single-handedly wreck Missouri's largest [cities' fiscal viability/industry—agriculture—] in the name of [free enterprise/animal rights]. However, it's clear to us that [Rex Sinquefield/the Humane Society of the United States] has no vested interest in [the public safety and infrastructure of/dogs living with loving owners in] Kansas City and St. Louis, and doesn't even put much of [his/their] money toward [developing property/rescuing and caring for dogs] in either city.

"Instead, [he intends/they intend] on duping us to vote to help [him/them] turn Missouri into [an experiment in free enterprise/a vegan paradise] where [cities receive revenue exclusively from a 23% sales tax/stepping on an anthill results in you being arrested for attempted genocide] but they won't have a way to [replace the lost revenue completely/make Missouri meat-free] because we'll travel to neighboring states to [shop/eat Arthur Bryant's Barbecue]. Therefore, we must vote no on Proposition [A/B]."

It may be a dubious argument, were it not for the reality that several opponents of Proposition B, hedging their bets on that argument, also happen to be supporters of Proposition A and chiding Proposition A's opponents who are using the same argument. One proponent of Prop A told The Kansas City Star that opponents relying on that argument were "blowing smoke".

Why must it take two entities, outside Missouri's two largest cities, at least $13 million to convince Missouri voters to vote something in that can easily be overruled, much like how in 2008 the Missouri General Assembly repealed campaign contribution limits voted in by 74 percent of Missourians in 1994? Further, contributions from those two entities amount to only a large amount of cash, with few ideas to back them up. Already a spokeswoman for Sinquefield admitted Sinquefield has no ideas to replace the revenue St. Louis and Kansas City will lose if voters dump the earnings tax in a subsequent vote. And despite many Missourians lining up behind Proposition B, including former Senator Jack Danforth and Cardinals skipper Tony La Russa, Missourians only accounted for $282,000 of contributions to Missourians for the Protection of Dogs, the group campaigning for Proposition B.

I don't take too kindly to Missouri voters like me being treated as sheep by Sinquefield and HSUS, with 30-second adverts trying to pull the wool over my eyes with selective language, pejorative words that start with the letter P, and imagery that makes a deliberate attempt to evoke an emotional knee-jerk reaction. I may come off as a Demon Sheep when I explain my objections to both measures this weekend, but I'm not about to let them turn our bellwether state into the nation's petri dish for their political gambits.