VIVA VIAGRA

You can’t accuse Republican gubernatorial candidates Sarah Steelman and Kenny Hulshof of dodging the tough issues in their primary campaign: They’re attacking each other over who is weaker on Viagra.

Ms. Steelman, the state treasurer, is running a television ad accusing Mr. Hulshof, a member of the U.S. House from Columbia, of voting “along with two St. Louis congressmen” in favor of a 2005 Medicare funding bill that covered “that little blue pill used to enhance recreational sex.”

It’s not clear from the ad which sin Ms. Steelman thinks is worse: voting with two Democratic congressmen from St. Louis (Russ Carnahan and Lacy Clay) or taxpayer-funded “recreational sex.” |

Not to be out-Viagra’d, Mr. Hulshof’s campaign immediately disclosed that in 2004, as a state senator, Ms. Steelman voted for appropriations bills that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt later complained had paid for $7,060 worth of Viagra for 26 men identified as sex offenders.

Ms. Steelman explained that the Viagra spending had been hidden deep within a huge Medicaid spending bill. Her spokesman, the redoubtable Spence Jackson, characterized Ms. Steelman’s view of Mr. Hulshof’s vote thusly: “It was an up-or-down vote on whether the government should spend taxpayer dollars on sexual enhancement drugs.”

CABERNET KENNY

Mr. Hulshof, a former prosecutor, a hands-on Bootheel bean farmer and a hard-hitting first baseman on the Congressional Republicans’ baseball team (Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, is the team’s hurler), has another hobby that could make some hard-shell GOP voters nervous: He’s a oenophile.

Relax; he’s a “wine lover.” Mr. Hulshof and his wife, Renee, honeymooned in Napa Valley, Calif., years ago and develop an interest in the grape — so much so that they converted a room in their Columbia home for use as a wine cellar.

In congressional financial disclosure forms filed this week, Mr. Hulshof stated that he and Renee had bought 25 cases of Cabernet Sauvignon and the right to wholesale the wine from a small Napa vineyard that they like. If California and Missouri regulators approve, they may sell their “Bingham Road Cellars” in Missouri.

THE SANDBAG LAW

Meanwhile, that noted man of the people and presumptive Democratic candidate for governor, Attorney General Jay Nixon, spent some time Monday helping to fill a few sandbags along the flooding Mississippi River in northeast Missouri. Not a lot of time and not a lot of sandbags, but it’s the photo-op that counts.

We hereby propose the following law: “It shall be illegal in this state for any politician to volunteer to sandbag unless said politician works at least four hours in the hot sun; nor shall said politician give prior notice of his sandbagging intentions to any news organization in this state.”