While I wish political parties had not taken over in the states or on a national level, I find it particularly disheartening that the Attorney General candidates run with any platform other than upholding all the laws of the state of Missouri. The candidate who would do the best job at that ought to be elected.

Because political parties dominate the process and either a Democrat or Republican will win the election, the AG ought to be of the opposite party or an independent in an effort to ensure the executive powers of the state are not abused. Will the PD recommend this?

What did Donnelly ever do on the sunshine law. Jeff has two proposals out there. One to create a special unit to enforce the sunshine law. One to toughen enforcement of the sunshine. Show me where she has said a thing about it other than platitudes.

Jeff has eleven, yes eleven consumer protection proposals and Donnelly has two.

Medicaid fraud Jeff has a proposal Donnelly doesn’t.

Emphasize child support enforcement. What concrete thing has Donnelly proposed. Emphasize child support enfrocement. How about support world peace. Or end hunger. Do you guys have a clue.

You check out the websites. Jeff has more proposals than all the other candidates combined. He knows what he will do from day one in that
office.

But you made up your mind to endorse the women from St. Louis.

There is a whole group of us that have been working our tails off to stop Koster. For good reason. He is a Republican with serious ethical lapses. None of us are getting paid to do it. We are all doing it because it is the right thing to do.

You endorse the third place candidate over a clearly more qualified first place. Who the heck do you think she takes most of her votes from. Hint it isn’t Chris Koster. Jeff was the guy that was going to beat him and you guys screw it up.

A lot of us spent a lot of time trying to do what is right and you give us Chris Koster.

Stupid.

Finally, Donnelly being in the race will only help Chris Koster. Everything she fought for over the last few years is toast if Koster wins.

Koster could never beat Jeff straight up.

Are you kidding me? Donnelly is the weakest candidate in this race. This is a travesty; I will never, never subscribe to the PD. It is obvious your decisions are based solely upon knowing someone, rather than the breadth and scope of their vision for the office. Awful choice.

Looks like sour grapes, Jenny. The P-D editorial board has followed each candidate closely and met individually with all three. They are not ignorant.

Try reading Margaret Donnelly’s website, and you’ll see that she has a lot more proposals than you claim, all of them solid.

And if your primary concern was beating Chris Koster, you would have sided with Margaret a long, long time ago.

No, tb, that would be the Columbia Tribune, who basically said in their endorsement that they knew Jeff, and they didn’t know the other candidates well, so they were going with Jeff.

Clark

My boyfriend and I were out on the town drinking last night so I may have got a little carried away.

But you know me from posting over at Show Me Progress. You know me feeling about Chris Koster. If you look at my posts over there I have been clear that while I support Jeff I would support Donnelly if she had a better chance of beating Koster.

You are a great democrat but you are being paid by the Donnelly campaign. I am not paid by any campaign. In fact the candidate that would benefit me most winning would be Koster.

Donnelly has one endorsement outside of St. Louis and Kansas City. One. You can’t win with one endorsement outside of St. Louis and Kansas City.

Jeff is leading in the only public polls and I think you know he is also leading in the internal polls in the race. Donnelly is in third. She is a spoiler. The Post should inform voters. They may have thought Donnelly was slightly better but why tell democratic primary voters to vote for her when the imposter is looming out there.

The Post went with Donnelly because she is from St. Louis and she is good. But Jeff is better. He worked in the office and he was the leader for three years. He valued Donnelly skills or he wouldn’t have appointed to several important positions. But he was the leader.

He does have quite a bit more proposals. This is a partial listing of what he has. I don’t think Donnelly can close to this.

This is Jeff proposal on the sunshine law. Remember the Post cited Donnelly’s proposal. I didn’t think she had one. If she does it doesn’t match up to this:

Harris will strengthen the Sunshine Law in the following ways:

Establish a Sunshine Law Enforcement Unit. Jeff Harris will create a special Sunshine Law Enforcement Unit in the Attorney General’s Office to aggressively pursue complaints of actions by state officials and local governments to close public meetings or withhold public records. The unit would also work to educate citizens of their rights under the Sunshine Law. The unit would be modeled after similar offices in other states.

Five Point Strategy to Protect Public Records. Jeff Harris has a five-point plan to beef up the Sunshine Law and to put a stop to efforts by some government officials to evade the law.

Stop Governmental Employees from Using Private Accounts. Harris will put a stop to efforts by state employees form using private email accounts and Blackberries from circumventing the Sunshine Law. All emails concerning public business would have to be retained by the custodian of records.

Legal Presumption of Openness. Harris will create a legal presumption that documents are open to the public, with the Attorney General’s office determining if records are not subject to the Sunshine Law.

Fines for Negligent Violators. Harris will pursue legislation to allow for fines to be assessed for negligent violations of the Sunshine Law. Ignorance of the law should not excuse misdeeds by government officials.

Increased Maximum Fine for Violators. Harris will also seek to increase the maximum fine from $1,000 to $5,000 for violating the Sunshine Law. In determining the amount of a fine, the court would be required to take into account whether an official negligently, knowingly or purposely violated the law.

Require a Fiscal Note on Sunshine Law Impact. Harris will seek legislation to require a fiscal note summary that accompanies any legislation to state whether or not the proposed legislation will impact the Sunshine Law.

This is what Jeff has on consumer protection:

Expanding the No Call List. As Attorney General, Jeff Harris will expand Missouri’s popular No Call List, allowing businesses and cell phone users to add their telephone numbers to the list. Harris is the only candidate who has called for building on this successful program.

Hanging Up Political Robo-Calls. Jeff Harris will champion legislation banning automated, “robo-calls” by political campaigns. Currently the law gives an exemption to campaigns and candidates. Harris will work to put a stop to exemption.

Taking on Predatory Lenders. Missouri’s economy and hundreds of homeowners have been rocked by the subprime lending crisis. Jeff Harris will go after predatory lenders and work to toughen standards for subprime mortgages to prevent the record foreclosures that are hurting our economy. He will make sure that prospective homebuyers won’t be taken advantage of by lenders looking to make a fast buck at the expense of taxpayers.

Capping Excessive Rates Charged by PayDay Lenders. The payday loan industry is taking advantage of many Missourians who find themselves in a difficult situation by charging interest rates that greatly exceed those charged by traditional lenders. Jeff Harris will work to place a cap on the amount these lenders charge.

Protecting Consumers from Rate Increases. Jeff Harris is the only candidate with a plan to protect consumers from utility rate increases. Harris would prohibit members of the Public Service Commission from communicating with utility companies about upcoming rate cases. The chairman of the PSC received scrutiny from both the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Kansas City Star after he allegedly promised a utility executive that a merger would be approved before the matter was even before the commission.

Aggressively Intervening in Utility Rate Cases. As Attorney General, Jeff Harris will aggressively defend the interests of consumers in utility rate cases, making sure their interests are heard and protected. Harris will move the Office of Public Counsel to the Attorney General’s Office, as other states have done. This transfer will give the OPC the power to pursue legal action when utility companies wrong their customers. Harris has a long record of fighting for lower utility rates. He was the only candidate to vote against the video franchising bill, which will raise cable rates in rural areas, which will allow cable companies to ignore consumer complaints and which will hurt public access channels. He was also one of two candidates who opposed a bill in the 2008 session that will raise phone rates in rural areas. Harris voted against the bill, which he said would allow phone companies to pick and choose which service areas they served. Harris said that companies might “cherry pick” services areas with the highest profits.

Canning Spam. Spam emails represent more than 45 percent of all emails sent, accounting for 14.5 billion email messages sent every day, costing businesses more than $20 billion dollars annually. Recently the state of Virginia successfully took action shutting down one of the country’s most abusive Spammers. Jeff Harris will work with law enforcement in Missouri and across the country to find new solutions to protect Missourians’ ability to use the Internet.

Putting Hot Fuel on Ice. Jeff Harris previously announced his plan to combat the problem of hot fuel, where consumers are actually sold less gasoline during summer months because gasoline expands during hot months. Click here to read more about that plan.

This is a partial listing of what Jeff has on protecting vulnerable Missourians:

Establishing Elder and Disabled Fatality Review Teams: Harris will follow the successful model used in Missouri’s child fatality review teams, which have won national acclaim. He will apply this model to cases involving the deaths of the elderly and people with disabilities.
Cracking Down on Shaken Infant Abuse: Harris will continue his push for legislation to increase the penalty for shaking a baby to death from a minimum of seven years to a minimum of 15 years.
Increasing Protections for Persons with Disabilities in State Custody: Harris will aggressively go after facilities that do not adequately protect their residents, and will push to terminate contracts with vendors who display a pattern of abuse or neglect.
Including Age and Vulnerability as Aggravating Factors in Rape Cases: Harris will push to have these factors included in cases of statutory rape and statutory sodomy.
Protecting Children from Internet Predators: Harris appoint a special counsel in for child exploitation and interdiction to work with Missouri educators to develop a model curriculum to teach Missouri children how to keep themselves safe online.

This is some of Jeff proposals on the enviroment:

Giving Local Communities a Voice. Jeff Harris has pushed for legislation to give communities a voice in where CAFOs can be sited. Current law allows the Department of Natural Resources to ignore local concerns, giving away the farm quite literally to corporate farms who don’t care about how their facilities affect their neighbors’ quality of life. Local control will also allow the people who live in an affected community and who know the land best a real opportunity to speak out and stop a CAFO from being built in areas that threaten our drinking water. As Attorney General, Harris will continue to push for this legislation, and he will continue to press the legislature until it becomes law.

Protecting Our State Parks. Jeff Harris has also sponsored a measure to prevent CAFOs from being built near state parks. These parks are part of what makes Missouri a great place to live, and we need to keep this land open and usable by all. The interests of all Missourians must outweigh the interests of corporate farms.

Enforcing Existing Laws and Regulations. As Attorney General, Jeff Harris will diligently enforce Missouri’s existing laws and regulations. He will defend local residents and property owners who need to be protected from corporate special interests. Harris will use his office to fight for them and to hold the corporate farms accountable.

Forcing the Department of Natural Resources to Hear Local Concerns. Hopefully future governors will not allow their administration to close its doors to Missouri citizens when it comes to issues that affect their lives. If the Department of Natural Resources continues to refuse to take input from local citizens and to use that feedback as part of its evaluation process on siting CAFOs, Jeff Harris will take action to make sure local concerns are heard. As the people’s lawyer, Harris will side with the citizens of the state over Big Ag and political appointees.

Prosecuting Corporate Farms that Fail to Take Appropriate Safeguards. As Attorney General, Jeff Harris will not hesitate to go after corporate farms that fail to act as responsible citizens. Harris will make sure our drinking water is safe by going after CAFOs that pollute and force them to clean up their mess.

This is just a partial listing of Jeff proposals, Clark. I don’t think Donnelly can come close to matching them.

You pick yourself off the mat and you do the best you can. You say to yourself there are more important things in the world than who is the next attorney general. But yesterday was a great day for Chris Koster. Unfortunately.

of course MOST of the responses are going to be backlash by people who are upset that their chosen candidate did not get the endorsement.

i am THRILLED that donnelly got the Post’s endorsement. she is by far the best candidate in the race. unlike jenny, i am not going to spend, um, like, fifteen pages on this blog listing all her proposals and qualifications, but will direct people instead to her website: http://www.donnelly08.com. you can read about her there, and why she will be an excellent candidate for attorney general.

the post has been a stellar journalistic institution, ever since it was owned by the pulitzers. thank you for taking the time to investigate this race and choose a strong candidate.

oh, yeah, one other thing, jenny:

donnelly announced and started fundraising well before koster entered the race. she had been considering a run for AG for years. she decided to run because she thought she would be the best democratic candidate for attorney general. and even when koster announced, she still believed that. and, apparently, lots of other people believe that too, since she has outraised harris and can boast 85% of her campaign contributions from individual donors.

i understand that you are a strong jeff supporter, and that seeing the post’s endorsement of margaret must be disappointing. but everything you are spouting off here does really look unfounded, like sour grapes.

sorry, one more.

not everyone who supports donnelly is getting paid by the donnelly campaign, jenny.

A couple of points, Jenny:

I work for Margaret Donnelly because I think she’s the best candidate. I approached her campaign and asked if I could help out, and I recused myself from front-page posts on a race I feel very strongly about just to avoid an appearance of paid influence on Show Me Progress. I have been impressed with her throughout the campaign, and when I saw her in person in action at the West County Democrats debate, I knew that was who I would support. Nothing against Jeff, who I like.

Again and again, I sense from you this anger that someone would dare rob Jeff Harris of the nomination, and somehow you’re convinced that there’s a big united progressive voting bloc that will be evenly split between Margaret and Harris, so any gain by Margaret hurts Harris. I don’t think it really works that way. I can also assure that without Margaret Donnelly in the race, Koster would be running lots of negative ads with his big money advantage that would bury Harris.

Our own internal polls show Jeff doing quite poorly, with Margaret and Koster battling it out for first place. In our polling, there are more undecideds than in the P-D poll, but Jeff doesn’t have the money for enough ads and/or mailings to catch back up. We’ll see who’s really ahead on Election Day, but ask yourself what makes more sense. Do you really think Jeff Harris is ahead in St. Louis without any TV advertising and only a handful of endorsements?

I’m not sure why you cite “only one endorsement” outside of St. Louis and KC as a reason that someone can’t win. Besides the fact that it’s not even true (Margaret has more than one endorsement outside of St. Louis and Kansas City), are you talking about the primary or the general? Because if you’re talking about the primary, that’s not true at all, and if you’re talking about the general election, are you implying that people like Jeff Harris will not endorse her?

I’m not going to spam the thread with a long list of Margaret’s proposals, but readers can go here: http://donnelly08.com/issues. Margaret certainly compares favorably.

BTW, I don’t see a proposal about Medicaid fraud on Jeff Harris’ website. I do on Margaret’s.

I do hope you can tamp down your frustration and anger and get back to positively advocating for your candidate.