POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — The Missouri 8th Congressional District hosted a day-long crash course in running campaigns and elections for local Republicans at the Three Rivers Community College on Saturday.
Republican lawmakers and strategists touted their success over the last decade in winning the majority in the state legislature and the importance of building momentum for statewide races in the future.
“This isn’t about conservative issues like pro-life or right to work,” Eddy Justice, 8th District Committee chair, said. “This is about the nuts and bolts of campaigning for people who are interested in running for office or being involved in that process in the future.”
Former House Speaker Steve Tilley, Republican campaign strategist James Harris and Senator Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, all spoke during the day before a panel of speakers was gathered in the late afternoon.
Schmitt came with a unique message to his fellow Republicans, calling on conservatives to “ratchet down the rhetoric” on many issues and focus on face-to-face interactions with undecided voters.
“It’s important to go to unfriendly audiences occasionally,” Schmitt said. “Go there and show them what you believe on the issues. As Republicans sometimes we struggle to tell people how our issues were relevant to the people.”
Schmitt, speaking of the recently-failed attempt to override Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of a tax cut bill, said that Republicans focused too much on “talking about lowering rates or brackets,” and not communicating “the people implications.”
“We should be talking about cutting the rates, but we also need to be talking about the single mother of two whose tax burden can be lower so she can spend her own money how she sees fit,” Schmitt said.
An open panel on campaigns was held at the end of the day. The panel featured former House Speaker Catherine Hanaway, Rep. Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, 8th District Congressman Jason Smith and House Speaker Tim Jones.
Panel members stressed party unity and the importance of winning more statewide seats — an area where the party struggled in largely successful 2012 campaigns — in order to further the conservative agenda. Smith said that in 2012, the party spent too much money in their own primaries instead of focusing on beating the Democrats.
“We spend far too much time and money on trying to decide which Republican is the most pure,” Smith said. “No candidate of your own party will share every single thing you believe. But I’ll tell you the most liberal Republican is still better than the most conservative Democrat.”
Richardson and Jones both spoke of the importance of seizing more executive elected positions in the next election cycles.
“We have a governor willing to put school kids and teachers out there as leverage to win an argument about tax cuts,” Richardson said. “If we have a Republican governor, this is never a conversation.”
Collin Reischman was the Managing Editor for The Missouri Times, and a graduate of Webster University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
